Tag Archives: Psychology

FLASHBACK: DAD’S STUPID SOCKS

This is a repost:

Parts where you should giggle shall be in blue.  You may not know that these things are funny to me now; therefore, I feel compelled to point them out to you.

OK, this is a weird blog.  Especially as it’s a “flashback”.  These are particularly difficult to make funny to everyone else.  You all may think they are horrible and miserable and OMGs, but in reality, where I am now, my husband, kids, Goose and her boys all laugh at these type of things.  We have to.  It’s Darwinian.

After writing the blog from yesterday, about Elaine in a dead-end job having to purchase tube socks for her boss that were “just the right height”, it “triggered” a flashback.  Back in the earlier days of my marriage, this would have been a nightmarish trigger; now, it’s ridiculously funny to me.

One day, Dad came home, had his four or so martinis (to start), and picked me for the lucky one to argue with.  The five of us (mom and four kids) would usually duck and cover and hope it wasn’t us, but at the same time, we’d feel sorry for the person who was picked by him.

This particular argument of his with me has to be the most absurd, therefore funny to us all.  I hope you can see the humor in it.  He came home, drank, and confronted me in my bedroom while studying (a lot of good the studying did, I was a B- student all through high school).  He barged (stumbled?)  in my room, I turned around, frightened by the intrusion, and he said, “What did you do for me today?“

I was stunned.  ”Huh?”  I was 16 or so.  I thought to myself, “Crap, I didn’t do anything for Dad today, was I supposed to? ….I went to school, went to gymnastics practice, went to work for three hours, came home, and now I’m studying; now what do I say?”

So I said, “Nuthin, I was busy at school and work”.

BZZZZZZZTTT…   WRONG ANSWER.  I knew it was, my sarcasm started early.

Dad:  Did you at least pray for me?
Me: …ummm, no.  (Pray for you?  I don’t even like you.  You’re mean.)
Me:….but I didn’t pray for anyone.
Dad:  Did you do anything for anyone but yourself today?
Me:…No, I don’t think so.
Dad:  Well, then I have a chore for YOU.  Get your butt up and go measure my socks.  You should be doing something for me each and everyday.  You should be thankful there’s a roof over your head.
Me:   Measure your socks?  (Remember, I’m 16, sober, he’s a lot older, and drunk)
Dad:  YES.
Me:  How?
Dad:  Go get the GD yardstick and measure my GD socks.  (This is not said in the pleasurable conversation decibel, this is said at rock-star decibel.)
Me:  Measure them for what?  (eyes are now leaking, scared, quivering, as I’ve never learned quite how to measure socks)
Dad:  I don’t want any socks that are too GD short (s-h-r-i-l-l).

Off I went to the kitchen closet where the yardstick was kept.  I measured each and every pair of his stupid socks.  Hating him as I did so.  Can you believe it?  Who would make their kid measure their socks?  I don’t remember what his exact requirement was, but they had to be “not too short”.  That’s AMBIGUOUS for me, you know.  You all remember I don’t “do” ambiguous, right?

But, the funny part is, I KNOW how stupid it was.   And I knew it then.   And still, until this day, when I see a man cross his legs, and I see his bare leg, I know this poor man did not have a daughter who measured his socks for him.  And I have to laugh.  I laugh at my father’s absurd drunken request that I measure his stupid socks.

So the next time you see a bare leg on a man who crosses his legs, will you at least giggle for me?  And I wonder what would have happened if I wasn’t truthful – if I had lied and said, “why, of course, I prayed for you mightily today?”  Probably short socks on men wouldn’t be a trigger for me, nor would yardsticks.

Cheers,
Sarah

P.S.  Please, oh, please, laugh at the absurdity

THANK GOD MIRALAX STILL DISOLVES IN VODKA

The last few days have left me feeling a little like Napoleon on the Island of Elba.

After my much awaited for  (eight weeks or so of waiting) doctor appointment with the doctor who was supposed to give me a prescription for my anxiety, (and, ok, a little depression), and migraines, I wanted to off myself.  His name was Dr. Eeeevvviiillll.  Have you heard of him?  He has an office in Amherst, NY.  He’s got a reputation that I thought I could handle.  I could not.

His reputation is that of being an arrogant prig.  I was warned.  I was actually nervous about going, which isn’t like me.   And before I went in, a woman came storming out of the office door and slammed it.  Badum dum dum……..

The first thing he said was that he hadn’t bothered to read the two other reports he had in front of him from my migraine doctor in Boston who published a book and the neuropharmocologist I saw previously, who is well known in the area and the department head at one of our universities here.    He claimed he didn’t read my previously sent records because he wanted to make his assessment on his own.   Great.  What a friggin’ waste of a year for me.

So the appointment was basically a ping-pong match.  I wasn’t going to take his shit for anything   He told me I was sarcastic.  I told him he was very perceptive (this was about five minutes  into our  appointment).  Damn, I left my boxing gloves at home, I’d have to spar bare knuckled.

Him:  Do you think you have anxiety?

Me: People say I do, I have panic attacks, I worry, sometimes it’s a cumbersome-type of worry – whatever.

Him:  How long do you think you’ve experienced this anxiety?

Me:  Ummm…..I don’t know, forever!

Him:  Since you were born????!!!!!

Me: Ahhhh, clearly not.  I have no recollection of my birth.  My earliest recollection of anything is walking to kindergarten.  So let’s say five years old.  Most people don’t remember things since their birth.  I also remember repeatedly being yelled at for biting my nails to the quick and for repeatedly banging my head against the chair whilst singing out loud quietly to myself. (Marty claims I still do this when in the midst of panic – I might – minus the singing, it’s more of a moan.)  Getting the visual? Nice.

Him:  I see.  You don’t seem anxious now.

Me:  No, I’m pretty angry.

He didn’t know shit about migraine protocol.  He didn’t know what my acid-reflux medicine was.  psychiatrists are supposed to be schooled on drugs.  Drugs, baby, drugs.

I can’t believe I stayed for the duration of that appointment with my  dumbass father doctor.   I just needed that script, just needed that script.  In the end, he said he disagreed with the neuropharm (his boss, btw), (so he had read the report) and wrote me a script for something else.  Which I won’t fill.  Then he told me, on my way out, that if I had any thoughts of suicide to call him or a hotline number.  Okey dokey.

So I came home, talked to a few girlfriends, got my ya-yas out, and sat down to write him a letter, with a copy being sent to his boss (my neuropharmacologist.  The letter was d-r-i-p-p-i-n-g with sarcasm.  At the end I told him I was clearly canceling our next appointment, and that if I, indeed, had any thoughts of talking a long walk on a short pier, I would not be calling him.

You don’t F with Aunt Sarah

Love, Little Miss Sunshine

P.S. Libbylicious called in the middle of my upset, “don’t off yourself before our trip in February because I already bought the tickets for our Broadway shows, K?”  Another friend called, and suggested we go walking.  Only if I carry a dozen eggs, baby.

And as you see from my strikeout, therein lies the problem.  He is haunting me still, to paraphrase Edith Piaf.

P.P.S.: Miralax is a disolvable white power for ummm….constipation from my stupid medications.