My phantom rash is back. My dermatologist told me it’s just stress and I guess I have to believe her cause there are no hives, just an intense itchiness that seems to wax and wane according to what’s going on in my life. I felt good about myself when I stopped clenching and grinding my teeth in my sleep and was able to retire my mouth guard. Then we sold the house and Charles got into college and I was suddenly stricken with a rash. It was like having invisible poison ivy, and I suffered for months before getting it under control, and by “under control” I mean isolated to my neck, which I clawed at like a cat on an expensive rug. Then a bunch of stuff happened last week, the least of not being the election of the One Who Shall Remain Nameless, and I promised not to talk politics so I won’t (scratch, scratch…).
But I woke up Monday morning terrified ’cause I had a dream that my mother was a pot head. This is a woman who has to be talked into a glass of wine, or an Advil, so you see that’s a stretch. We were on a family vacation and I realized that she kept disappearing to meet up with her dealer. FRIGHTENING. Maverick had an equally scary nightmare in which I was bullying him into eating chicken. This is scary for him because a: he is a vegetarian and b: in the dream the chicken was parboiled. For me it’s just funny.
But between the rash and the nightmares something has to give. When I screamed at Maverick the other night for asking me why I hadn’t made him a cocktail too, I realized that I need to make a change. And not because I started drinking too early in the day, but because I was letting too many things get under my skin. And they were making me itchy.
When I saw Obama and Trump shaking hands in the Oval Office, I decided that if Barry could be that gracious, then the least I could do in my simple, unimportant life was to make an effort. So I decided then and there that I would try to be more like the Obamas.
The first hour or so went very well, although admittedly, I didn’t have human interaction of any kind. Probably a good way to ease into my new mantra, “they go low, you go high.” (Don’t accuse me of plagiarism, I am giving Michele Obama full credit right here, but I note, cause I’m a stickler about words, that she said “we go high.”) After the first few hours it got harder, not gonna lie. When that guy in the van cut me off making a left from the right lane, I almost reverted back to my barely-old self and gave him the finger, but I was able to contain myself. I merely leaned on my horn and gave him some friendly advice, in a calm way, about how he just almost killed me. He didn’t seem to care, and that bothered me, but I went high and let it go.
Then I went food shopping, making eye contact and smiling at all the people I passed in the aisles. I guess that was a little over the top because I was met with a few odd glances, but I was looking for the adrenaline rush that was going to fuel me through this “going high” thing. Of course I picked the wrong line at checkout, as I’m apt to do, and I felt my mantra slipping away as the cashier had to call for a price check on a bag of cheesecloth. And slipping further as the manager came back to ask the customer what aisle she got it from, which segued into what was akin to a global conference covering topics from what cheesecloth is, to what it is used for, to how it is used and back to what aisle it came from, at which point the mystery price was finally revealed and the customer decided she didn’t want it after all. “Get a grip on yourself, D.Parker!” I quietly admonished myself and went right into my thing, whispering “they go low, you go high,” when I started to wonder if Michele meant to say, “they go low, we GET high” which, when considered, I realized could work better for me, but then I remembered that even though I didn’t ever say that before, it was how I had been living and the point was to make a change, but I digress.
Things started to really go south after that, I’m sorry to report. I returned home to find a package I had been waiting for (yay!): a replacement cushion for a bench that had been delivered, damaged….SIX MONTHS AGO. Finally I could put an end to the emails, unreturned phone calls and what had seemed like vain attempts to rectify a frustrating situation. But alas, it was not to be, as I tore open the box to discover the new cushion was the WRONG SIZE and you can probably tell from my use of upper case letters that I was really pissed. Nonetheless I went immediately into my mantra, though it didn’t get me through the 20 minutes I waited on hold to tell “Amber” or whatever her real name is that I was DONE with this situation, they had better arrange to come and take this stupid bench out of my apartment and give me my money back! Tout! De! Suite!
Honestly it’s very hard to be a good and gracious person all the time. I bet that it’s easier to “go clear” like the Scientologists, than to “go high.” But my mother always told me, “D.Parker, it’s the difficult things that are worth it,” so I’m not giving up, mostly because this rash is really out of control. Maybe I’m on the right path, as I just had a lousy manicure given by a very bossy manicurist who didn’t seem to understand that half of the manicure experience is about being relaxed. And despite my desire to tell her she was not filing short enough, that her hand massage sucked, and that she missed a spot with the polish, I went high and gave her an extra two bucks in the tip hoping that she noticed the blood on the dollars was coming from the cut in my cuticle, and be more careful with the next client. The truth is, even if she had filed my nails too short for me to scratch, I have an old cheese grater that can do the job just fine.
Either way if I see her in the dairy aisle I’m definitely going to smile at her. It’s not world peace, Barry, but it can’t hurt.
