Chinese Take Out Gift Box

I had a feeling it was going to be one of those days when I arrived at work to find a decorative Chinese takeout gift box hanging from my office door handle. My immediate thought was door bomb. Someone had been invited to one too many of my ARD meetings, if you know what I mean. I just knew the moment I jostled the door handle the gift box would explode and I would be nothing more than a fine, pink mist sprayed on the wall next to the nurse’s office. How convenient. At least the nurse wouldn’t have to travel too far to verify that there was nothing tangible left of my body. Maybe that is why the principal stationed me across the hall from the nurse in the first place. She has probably seen this kind of thing happen time and time again. Maybe that is why the shelf-life of a diagnostician is only 3.4 years. I am living on borrowed time I know. What a shame. I have less than 20 days left on this year’s contract. Couldn’t the would-be assassin be more considerate and attempt my demise at the beginning of the next school year instead when I could possibly recuperate on duty, using my long-term disability benefits if the hit was somehow botched rather than forcing me to try to recover on my own time during the summer? Didn’t the would-be assassin know that I needed time this summer to work on my savage tan rather than convalesce inside? One look at my white legs is proof enough.

I found myself staring at the decorative Chinese takeout gift box and the door handle. There was a message on the box identifying the would-be assassin; however, it was written in code. How awkward it would be for me to still be standing there looking at the box trying to decipher the code at four o’clock in the afternoon so I decided to “man up”! They say it’s over in an instant; the bomb victim never feels a thing. I decided to test the theory. First, I wiped the sweat from my brow, and then I lifted the gift box from underneath. The change in weight on the door handle didn’t trigger a reaction. Whew! Next, I slid the gift box off of the door handle without it touching anything much like one does to extract body parts from that red bulbous-nosed fellow on the operating table in the game Operation, so far, so good.  There were no irritating buzzing sounds to indicate failure. I then gingerly set the gift box on the floor just outside of my office so I wouldn’t accidently detonate the bomb prematurely. It didn’t occur to me at the time to ask the SRO officer for assistance; I’m new at this bomb detection thing. Besides, she doesn’t have a bomb-sniffing dog or an armored suit so why risk co-mingling her fine, pink mist with mine. That would be too messy, I think.

I knelt on the floor next to the gift box on all fours bobbing my head up and down, moving my head this way and that, visually examining the box from all angles, much like a chicken pecks feed from the ground. When I finally convinced myself that I couldn’t see through the decorative coating, I closed my eyes, held my breath, and unlatched the top of the box. Miraculously, I was still in one piece. Inside the box, wrapped in wax paper, I found cookies. It wasn’t until I had popped what tasted like a delicious coconut macaroon in my mouth did I realize that the cookies could be the would-be assassin’s “Plan B”. If somehow I made it  into my office in one piece avoiding the door bomb, the cyanide-laced cookies would do the trick. If the cookies were tainted, I’d be a goner. If the cookies weren’t poisoned, I’d have to spend the rest of the day at work. Either way, the end result was pretty much the same in my mind.

At this point, I felt I had nothing to lose so I closed my eyes and pressed down on the door handle. It opened painlessly. I was in. Remembering the coded message that was scribbled on the outside of the gift box, I decided to try to figure out the identity of the would-be assassin. Racing against time, I frantically scrambled to my desk. From everything I’ve seen on TV, it doesn’t take long for one to lose consciousness once poison enters the blood stream. I positioned myself and the gift box at my desk just so. In case I lost consciousness, I wanted my best side to be the first thing people saw when they came into my office to view my body. So, I then laid my head down, best side up, facing the door, trying to mentally decode the message on the gift box.

The next thing I knew I was startled by a loud knock on my office door, awakened from the nap I didn’t know I was taking. When the door opened, my “favorite general education 6^th grade math teacher” came into my office to ask if I liked the cookies she had left for me on my door earlier that morning.

What time was it? How long had I been asleep? Dazed and confused, I muttered something about door bombs and cyanide poisoning. Fortunately, this teacher is so used to me mumbling to myself in ARDs that my behavior didn’t seem odd to her at all. I regrouped long enough to thank her for the cookies and to tell her how kind it was for her to do such a thing. Of course, I suggested that if she ever felt the slightest inclination to bring me cookies again, she need not hesitate to do so.

So there you have it. Mystery solved. I knew that there was a logical explanation for the decorative Chinese takeout gift box. No one was trying to assassinate me. How silly of you to think such a thing! Everyone gets so paranoid in May…Did you hear that? What was that sound?

Ten Fingers and Ten Toes

I was urged today by a random blog post to remember the joy of seeing our son for the first time and recall the feelings I had when we initially counted his ten fingers and his ten toes. The blog reminded me in a roundabout way of the promise I made to God after having those two unexplained miscarriages that if He would just give us a healthy baby, one with all ten fingers and all ten toes, I would never ask Him for anything ever again. The blog asked when – possibly after holding our healthy son in our arms for the first time -- was there any discussion about him learning how to play the didgeridoo.

“The what?” We don’t want my son to play the didgeridoo, we just want him to graduate from high school and get ready to enroll for junior college in the fall.

Reading on, the blog asked ‘what if it turns out that you can’t have it all?’ It asked ‘what if you could have a clean house or a happy house, but not both? What if the only way to have a clean house is for mom and dad to clean for hours after working and taking care of children all day? What if by cleaning until all hours, we are so grouchy that we fuss at one another and the children? What if the solution is to let the dishes pile up in the sink all day?’ The blog theorized that if the only way to have a clean house is to have a home where the grown-ups are miserable, maybe a slight move in the direction of disorder may be the way to go.

I must confess that I am naturally disordered. Dishes in the sink don’t bother me at all, but they do my husband, okay, not the dishes, more so the disorder. He is an engineer and by nature he is a list maker.  He has made a list for our son, but our son is not necessarily doing what’s on the list. Consequently, this makes my husband grouchy and causes him to fuss at our son which, in turn, is making all who live with them a bit uncomfortable. But how does one suggest a slight move in the direction of disorder when a slight move in the direction of disorder causes discomfort to the one who has to perform the slight move?

The blog concluded by suggesting that maybe our son is not going to get a PhD in philosophy from Princeton…even if we give him psycho-stimulants. It said that if making him clean the house, play the didgeridoo, and take Concerta for his attentional issues guaranteed that our son would be happy and healthy, productive and content; we should do it. But if instead all we can guarantee is that he and his father will be grumpy and the rest of us will be miserable if we force our son to do the these things, then maybe we should go back to being grateful that he has ten fingers and ten toes.

I am grateful that our son has ten fingers and ten toes, but I’m not so sure that the solution to our situation is as easy as letting the dishes pile up in the sink or letting our son find his own way. I totally understand the concept of letting our son experience the consequences of his own actions until those actions have an emotional and/or financial impact on the rest of the family. I didn’t realize while I was holding my son for the first time that being a parent of an 18-year-old would be this tough. Where is the balance between being a pushy parent and being a guiding guardian? If anyone has a definitive answer, feel free to call me, any time day or night; you won’t disturb me; I’ll probably be up anyway doing the dishes.

Excerpts from David Altshuler, M.S. Newsletter blog dated May 15, 2012; david@altshulerfamily.com