At the intersection before the mall, waiting in the
left-turn lane, we saw a person in a white gorilla outfit holding a sign
that said "Jew Bankers Bankrupt Nations"
Perplexed, the wife said that she didn't get the outfit, or, for that matter, the sign.
Oh that's just your standard old-timey
antisemitism I replied. Jews controlling all the money in the world sort
of thing. We should tell that guy that the 19th Century called and it
wants its antisemitism back.
Her: But why is he standing outside the Jared The Galleria of Jewelry?
Me: Because you can't spell Jewelry without Jew?
We got the left turn green arrow and she started driving
Her: But what's the deal with the white gorilla outfit? Could he not find white sheets or a Ku Klux Klan outfit?
We get to a traffic light before one of my employers' branches.
Her:
And shouldn't he be protesting in front of a bank? I mean, I know this
is your bank, but shouldn't this be where he is standing?
Me: Yeah, no clue. And if this is some sort of Gaza protest, it hardly seems to be the most coherent way to do it.
---
The
follow up appointment was because the kid had come down
with bronchiolitis sometime while during the Thanksgiving break. We took
him to the pediatrician last Monday, and when the wheezing in his lungs
(but not him) appeared to respond well to a treatment from the
nebulizer, the doctor wrote us a prescription for an in-home treatment.
I'm sure someone out there has a game where you have
to guess whether a word like nebulizer is an actual medical device or
the name of a weapon in a Star Trek episode. And one of the signs that
parenthood has changed you forever is the weird level of excitement the
wife and I felt when discovering that someone sells a pediatric penguin
nebulizer with an igloo carrying case.
Since
the kid screamed bloody murder for the
5-minutes-that-seemed-like-an-eternity while the nebulizer was attached
to his face, Doctor K wanted to give us options when it came to the
in-home treatment. One was a chamber and inhaler contraption that we
would put on his mouth and lungs and spray, the other option was to give
him a concentrated syrup that, as a side effect, would make him hyper.
She wanted us to know that there would be no judgement passed if we felt
uncomfortable holding the kid down and misting him with medicine.
Being old and lazy parents who feel that our two to
his one is still a mismatch in his favor, a hyper version of him was
going to shift the odds further in the wrong direction. And since I have
no problems doing anything doctor-endorsed that can stop the crying,
the choice seemed pretty clear to me.
Actually I have no problems doing old country
endorsed approaches that can stop the crying, but the attorney wife
isn't quite down with anything not cross-checked against a baby book.
Like all good Muslim parents from the Levant, I keep suggesting we rub
his gums with Arak liquor whenever he is fussing because of teething.
Dr. K told us that she phoned in the prescription to
our neighborhood pharmacy. I paused. This was his first prescription,
and its not like he has ID? how was this going to work?
"You should be fine. Just walk up to the pharmacy and they'll give you
the stuff. No one's figured out how to make meth out of the active
ingredients <pause> yet"
We went to pick up the prescription from the
pharmacy. The tech behind the counter asked us if we needed any help
with the instructions as she unpacked the components. She caught sight
of the kid sleeping as she pulled out the inhaler.
Tech: Does he have asthma?
Wife: We don't think so, he just has bronchiolitis
Tech: How old is he?
Wife: 9-months
Tech: Oh wow, <looking down at chamber> that's scary.
After
the fact, once the wife had calmed down, we discussed that if the Gap
can train you how to optimally fold a shirt, and my nearby bagel chain
will not pour you hot tea past a certain height in your cup, there
needs to be "bedside manner" training for pharma techs that tells them
NOT to describe the items they are about to hand to a new mother as
"scary"
I was holding the sleeping kid in the car seat and
watching the conversation on the pharmacy closed circuit TV screen.
While I know there would have been many unpleasant complications had the
wife not checked her emotions, the opportunity to have watched recorded
footage of her reaching across the counter, pulling the Tech closer and
punching her in the face would have been kind of awesome.
We got home and washed the apparatus and prepared it
for use. It was an 6 inch tube separating a holder for the inhaler from
a Silence of the Lambs mask for him. On the tube, there were cute
illustrations of how to use the apparatus on a teddy bear, showing
how the Albuterol goodness got into teddy's lungs.
No one among the three of us was impressed.
–Nadia
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