Swine Flu Doesn’t Help My Family’s Neuroses, Thank You

It started with my folks hitting me up on Thursday for a ride to the airport on Saturday morning at 7:30 a.m.

Me: No problem.

Now, I have to interject here that my mom, if you don't recall, is quite paranoid. DSM-IV type paranoid. Not funny-ha-ha-oh-those-Jewish-stereotypes paranoid. And upcoming trips really increase her anxiety 10-fold. To the point that she is insufferable to be near within 48 hours of a flight, despite her propensity for packing one week before the flight (if she is actually going on the trip). To the point that she yells and waves at her empty windows from the street lest some ever-present-in-her-mind lurker (or cab driver, or neighbor, or shuttle driver, or passerby hidden behind a tree, or stalker) get the idea that her home will be vacant of her insanity for more than one minute. [See 2.21.07 post for a better idea.]

And so, as predicted, my mom, in her infinite ability to be paranoid, blew up my phone more than three times by Friday noontime to remind me of our agreement, proving that all the stars were still in their right places. By her 8:00 pm call I mentioned, in my increasingly fevered, sneezing, shivering, sleepy, delirious, my-classroom-floor-sure-feels-good-on-my cheek state:

I am not feeling super well, so just in case I sleep through my alarm tomorrow morning, will you call me at 6:50 a.m. to make fer shure that I am up? That would be so great.

(I returned my head to its happy spot on the floor, knowing that she would cease to call me the rest of Friday, and would instead call me 50 more times starting at 5 a.m. on Saturday. Perfect.) But instead, she replied:

Vhat?! You are sick? Oh my god, you have The Svine Flu. I am calling for a shuttle. Do NOT take us to the airport. Do NOT come near us. Goodbye! (Click)

Me: Aaaaaaaaaah, the mouse-pooped, shoes-stomped-on linoleum tile of my classroom feels so good!

And I didn't heard from them again, so I was left to presume that either Swine Flu travels through phone lines, as my mother suspects, or they got their wee selves to the airport without my mad driving skills.

When I relayed this story to my friend, she asked: You mean she was worried because you'd been to Mexico?

Me: Oh no, that won’t occur to them for at least another 48 hours, if ever. They just believe strongly in the Jewish community's genetic propensities to get Bubonic Fever-y type things. Ya know, Europe and all.

And I didn’t hear from her until Wednesday morning, when she called angling for a pick-up from the airport that night.

Me: Um, last we spoke you thought I had Swine Flu, remember? Aren’t you still worried about me contaminating you?

Mom: Well, if you had The Svine Flu, you’d be dead. And you sound better.

Me: So let me make sure I understand this. You thought I had a deadly disease, hung up on me, never called me back, and had no idea whether I was alive until now. And now you want a ride.

Mom: Oh, that? Oh, S----, it is JUST like you to bring that old thing up – such a little comment I made!

Me: Well, ya did hang up on me and all like I was Plague-y.

Mom: Well, it would just be like you to get The Svine Flu, you know.

(This coming from a woman who, when I came out to her for the seventh time, told me not to believe I was bisexual just because I had sympathy for all underdogs, including The Gays.)

Me: Hmmm.

I cannot imagine what her comment means inside her own head, so I moved on to picking their wee selves up and depositing them back in their home, So we could all rest easier.

Smart-ish .... and Dumber

Somehow, the juxtaposition between two pieces of news struck me, and not because I was hit by a flying newspaper, and only perhaps because this is why I don't read the paper:

(1) The Associated Press reported today: "The Obama administration joined a federal judge Wednesday in urging Congress to end a racial disparity by equalizing prison sentences for dealing and using crack versus powdered cocaine." About f-bombing time (see below).

VERSUS

(2) The Supreme Court hearing and UPHOLDING the FCC v. Fox Network case about networks getting fined for the utterance of one prime-time "expletive," which some of these f$#%ing celebrities -- aka Scalia's

"foul-mouthed glitterati,"

-- accidentally let slip during whatever live this-or-that they are doing.

Really, federal courts have NOTHING better to do than split-vote along wing lines about one slipping f-bomb? But really, it isn't even that so much as what Scalia saying that the FCC is right to worry about this so that networks could be expected to continue to "give conscientious parents a relatively safe haven for their children." To learn no expletives, just racist, heterocentric, ableist, sizeist, sexist stereotyping. Cool.

And yet even more but really, it isn't even that so much as this all goes back to the FCC's decision in 2006 that found "News Corp’s Fox TV network violated decency rules when singer Cher blurted out an expletive during the 2002 Billboard Music Awards broadcast and actress Nicole Richie used two expletives during the 2003 awards." Like THAT is what makes Fox News completely and utterly indecent and violating. Puh-leeze.