Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2002-11-19 - 6:49 p.m.

If Anyone Knows Where I Put The Echinacea, Please Phone

It's a television night. If we had any in this house, I would watch it.

I'm not bad off to watch the no-cable snow, though. Yet.

I keep thinking I am coming down with something. Then I think, "Don't think THAT, or you will. You're fine. Go figure out where you put the echinacea."

Youngest Daughter doesn't feel well. She has a sore throat and a kind of a stuffy nose and maybe a tummy ache or maybe it's a headache. She leaks tears. When she doesn't feel well, when she's off balance, the world feels it. She sits on my bed, weeping quietly, with great sadness.

I try to have patience with this.

"I know you don't feel well." I tell her. "I'm sorry you don't."

Snuffle snuffle.

"Please go and feel unwell in the other room now."

Then she cries. I'm such a bitch.

I thought of calling in to work today. This is my penance. There wasn't anything wrong with me. I didn't feel like going.

But hey! I didn't do it, doesn't that count? If you're going to whack me for impulses, I better give up right now.

The echinacea is in a box. Which box, you ask? The constant cardboard conundrum. Not the one that I filled with glassware without taping the bottom, so it now can't be moved. Not the one that has nothing in it except some ceramic elephants that I don't need and can't bear to toss. Possibly the one that had all kitchen stuff that was ready for goodwill only I saw some things in there that I maybe want. I don't know.

Television would be good.

I am already thinking about calling in tomorrow. This is bad. Looking forward to calling in. It self-justifies. I like my job, so if I want to call in, I must be sick. I mean, I must be going to be sick. If I right now want to call in tomorrow, I must be going to be coming down with something. It isn't holding up, is it?

A little ER would be good. Maybe I have some on tape.

Thing is, it takes an hour to watch an hour of television. An hour! Well, I can watch a taped ER in less if I fast-forward the commercials. Although at some point I will forget that it is a tape and stare moronically at the commercials, too. I don't have an hour tonight.

I would have an hour if I didn't go to work tomorrow, though.

All right, all right. I'll go find the echinacea. We have a holiday break coming up. I can hold out.

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