Monday
Ring ring
Cathie: How's my baby boy!?
Eli: Still in his 30s, Cathie. I'm kind of freaking out. I think I got pinkeye and I wonder if I need to go to the emergency room.
Cathie: And what were you doing to get pinkeye, young man!?
Eli: Can we please not turn this into evidence that I was misbehaving and focus on a solution here?
Cathie: Well, the first thing you need to do is not come over to my house.
Eli: I think that plan of attack is only aimed at helping you.
Cathie: I need to hang up. I feel like I'm at risk right now.
Tuesday
Ring ring
Eli: Does this mean you're speaking to me again?
Cathie: I've just read all about pinkeye on the internet. Did you put your face in the sewer this weekend?
Eli: What kind of a question is that?
Cathie: I don't know your life!
Wednesday
Ring ring
Eli: Hello?
Micalyne: Can you please stop talking to mom about your pinkeye? She keeps texting the rest of us pictures she's finding on the internet of infected eyes and this can't go on.
Eli: Why is she doing that?
Micalyne: She said she's trying to scare us into staying away from you.
Eli: So she's trying to protect you guys from me?
Micalyne: I don't think so. She's trying to protect herself from you. She's worried we're going to hang out with you and then go to her house.
Eli: So I'm basically going blind and Cathie's only concern is that I might get pinkeye on her house?
Micalyne: That's another thing. Will you PLEASE stop over-dramatizing this? You and mom feed off of each other. She's been google mapping ambulance routes from your house, your office, and various other locations you might happen to be at and then calling to tell us about the road construction that may prevent you from getting emergency care all because you mentioned the words "emergency room."
Eli: SO SHE THINKS THIS MIGHT BE AN EMERGENCY, TOO?!
Micalyne: Ugh. I'm stepping out of this.
Thursday
Ring ring
Cathie: Sunglasses.
Eli: Excuse me?
Cathie: You need to wear sunglasses because your eyes are really sensitive right now. I just read about this.
Eli: I'm so scared.
Cathie: I know, honey. Your father thinks we're overreacting, but I think you're dying and we'll have the last laugh when they're all proven wrong.
Eli: Do you have any other advice for me?
Cathie: Yes. Make sure your house is clean. We aren't the kind of people who let emergency responders into a dirty home.
Friday
Ring ring
Cathie: Hello? Are you still alive? Are you wearing sunglasses?
Eli: Yes, I'm alive. No, I'm not wearing sunglasses. And I'm hosting a dinner for a bunch of people and I'm making BBQ beef sandwiches and I wondered what brand of BBQ sauce you would recommend.
Cathie: . . . you aren't making your own?
Eli: Can we please not do the shaming thing right now? I'm dying from pinkeye. I have to use my remaining moments wisely.
Cathie: And so you're using them to shatter your pioneer Mormon mother's heart by buying food from the store you could have made yourself?
Eli: NOT EVERYONE CAN GRIND THEIR OWN WHEAT, CATHIE.
Saturday
Ring ring
Eli: Hello?
Bob: How is your pinkeye?
Eli: I'm just taking it day by day right now. Trying to stay brave.
Bob: You know that this is a very common thing that people experience, right?
Eli: Cathie said this isn't common and I'm very special.
Cathie: [yelling in the background] Ask him if he's wearing sunglasses!
Bob: Are you wearing sunglasses?
Eli: Yes. I'm wearing them right now.
Bob: Yes, he's wearing them right now.
Cathie: Oh great. Well I've read that wearing sunglasses is the best way to spread the infection from one eye to the other so I guess he doesn't even care about his health anymore!
Cathie should have been a physician.
*****
In other exciting news, check out our first Strangerville Short!
~It Just Gets Stranger
(Re: the review of Les Mis) So did Mr. St Clair leave NYC to move to SLC? I'm in the market for a brat pack bobblehead and Remains of the Day lunchbox - but if he closed the shop in NYC to move to Utah I'm not sure where to go to find these items!
ReplyDeleteYou should know that my amazing friend Andrea made a Remains of the Day lunchbox for me for Christmas. It's my most valuable item.
ReplyDeleteAs it should be. And I haven't even seen Remains of the Day nor do I have any clue what it is about.
DeleteSame. We should have a viewing party one day. Although that may ruin some of the magic.
DeleteIsn't Remains of the Day about Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins? (Does it need more plot than that??)
DeleteHaha. No excuses for being a Utah Mormon and not grinding your own wheat!!
ReplyDeleteStrangerville Shorts is my new happy place.
ReplyDeleteHaving just survived a "pink-eye" scare with grandkids that was actually just allergies, I can sympathize with family members overreacting.
ReplyDeleteI needed this laugh desperately today. Thank you for sharing.
So...a thousand years ago my son got pinkeye, and he graciously shared it with me..only I didn't get pinkeye. I got cellulitis. I got a brain-eating viral infection IN MY FRICKIN' EYE. My face looked like I'd taken a beating all purple and red and blue on one side, but it wasn't painful...except right in the eye.
ReplyDeleteThe eye specialist was giddy with the excitement of seeing something "we saw in text books, but you NEVER think you'll see in practice!!", as he explained that I needed to be in the hospital on IV antibiotics - only he wouldn't tell me why.
This was "back in the day" as you kids call it, and things like YOU MIGHT DIE FROM A BRAIN-EATING VIRAL ZOMBIE weren't discussed in polite company.
So, I refused to make my children fend for themselves, though I don't know why - they were nearly all in double-digits age-wise at this time, including my hubby, so really I don't think any of them would have intentionally burned the house down while I was gone - but I just didn't grasp the gravity of the situation, BECAUSE THE DOCTOR DIDN'T TELL ME.
Every day I had to go "for treatment" to the doc's office. Said treatment consisted of drops and a salve placed in the eye, and then a light the brightness of the Sun's surface was shined all up in my eye to make sure the virus wasn't conducting a death march through my eye to my brain.
After a week or so, it seemed to abate and the doctor finally came clean about the danger I was in.
Sweet Baby Rays, best BBQ sauce in my opinion!
ReplyDeleteThat is the only kind we use.
Deletexoxo
When my oldest child was seven, she got pink eye and wanted to know all about it. Her doctor explained that often pink eye is from dirty hands touching/rubbing your eye. She persisted in questioning him and at some point the doctor mentioned feces on hands (like after using the restroom and not washing well.) From that moment on, pink eye in our home has been called: Poop on the Eyeball!
ReplyDeleteI had pinkeye and my co-worker refused to sit near me during a meeting. She said it was because she didn't want to look at it, but maybe she knows Cathie.
ReplyDeleteMy optometrist friend said that if it starts in both eyes at once then it's bacterial but if it's one then the other it's viral (or maybe it's the other way around). If it lasts for more than a couple of days, you should probably GO STRAIGHT TO THE ER BECAUSE YOU ARE GOING TO DIE. Or not.
Once upon a time my brothers ex wife owned a daycare. One sunshiney day she called asked if I could stop by to assist with a project. I went to the daycare and the next day I woke up with pink eye, as did my 2 year old. It was awful! Every time I blinked it felt like a badger was burrowing through my retina. I almost died. Until I didn't.
ReplyDeleteI love that part where if you die you'll get the last laugh. :-)
ReplyDeleteI would quit my job if they started a reality show based on you and your mom and it was only on during normal working hours.
ReplyDelete