No good deed ever goes unpunished on planet Earth. Like taking care of your elderly mother for the past 16 years. Imagine my surprise when I finally found out that, not only is the world punishing me for caring enough about my mother to want to take care of her at home in her old age, the celestial powers-that-be are also making me pay for my care giving. That's right, the "real" gods. The spoiled Trulane "gods" of this universe (watch the Star Trek episode The Squire of Gothos if you don't get it) who wander the cosmos in search of toys to play with and life forms to abuse. Here's a "fun" human toy story for you.In November 2009 my mother went into convulsions on our living room couch (and then she went into a coma at the hospital for two days) from a severe gall bladder attack and I had to call 9-1-1. With a cordless phone in one hand and holding my mother with my other arm we waited 45 Freakin Minutes! until the ambulance finally arrived. But it wasn't the Snow Shoe EMS, only a mile away, it was the Bellefonte EMS. After they knocked over most of the furniture in our living room, they finally got Mom out the door and into the ambulance. And, all during this time, a paramedic from Mt. Nittany Medical Center, who came in a separate vehicle and who would, no doubt, bill her separately, watched and chewed on a toothpick. The dumb son-of-bitch did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
Where was Snow Shoe EMS when we needed them? If they'd gotten here in ten or fifteen minutes instead of Bellefonte EMS from 16 Freakin Miles Away! maybe my Mom wouldn't be in a wheelchair today. The only reason they arrived here at all is because I caught them going the wrong way (heading out of town toward Clarence) and I told the 9-1-1 operator that I was now flashing my driveway flood lights for them to see. Then I ran back into the living room to hold Mom and keep talking into the cordless phone. Finally, after 45 Freakin Minutes! (from when I called 9-1-1 to the arrival of EMS at the house), the ambulance arrived.
Wait. It gets worse. The Celestial bastards were just beginning to have their medical fun with us.
Last July my appendix perforated and then burst and I almost died because I didn't know it for two days. Finally, a family friend (and a wonderful woman who cares about people) took me to the hospital where they saved my life with an emergency appendectomy, preceded by an emergency laparotomy that cut me open from way above my belly button to just above you-know-where. They filleted me like a fish and I still feel like a fish that'd been filleted. But it save my life.
It get's better. Or, worse, as the case may be. The Trulane in charge of this particular planet (Earth) — meaning Big Jack, himself — was chomping at the bit for more. And what a sick pup this ancient extraterrestrial is. That's all "the gods" are, by the way. Ancient, invisible creatures of the natural universe who became totally addicted to power and having whimsical fun with lower life forms. Like us.
Several months ago I was coming home from Dollar General when I saw an ambulance going down our circular driveway. My heart almost stopped. Mom and I are connected by her cordless phone and my cell phone whenever I leave the house briefly to shop for us and, the last I'd talked to her that afternoon (about five minutes ago when I told her I was leaving the DG parking lot to come back home) she was perfectly fine. Before I could get to the driveway, the freakin' ambulance zoomed around it and sped up Third Street like a lunatic was behind the wheel. I ran into the house as fast as I could on my partially-paralyzed legs and found her watching TV in the kitchen and bewildered by the flashing ambulance that had used our circular driveway for a NASCAR speed trial. To this day, we still don't know what the hell that was all about, but I know for a fact that I'm at the end of my rope with this medical game. Enough already!
But, wait! The game's not over yet.
Last night I almost choked on a piece of chicken during supper. Because of a deviated septum and serious sinus problems, I have to breathe through my mouth when I eat. I can't just eat like everybody else. I have to think about each bite I take. For one moment, though, I went on automatic pilot, as it were, and a piece of chicken lodged in my windpipe. I rushed out of the room because, like a good "boy", I didn't want to upchuck on the wall-to-wall carpet. I made it to the patio where I gasped air though a pin-hole in my throat that the piece of chicken hadn't managed to block. I could only partially dislodge it. Meanwhile, my mother had wheeled herself to the dining room window to see how I was doing. I wanted to do a Heimlich Maneuver on myself but my gigantic laparotomy incision was still sore from the surgery I had eight freakin' months ago. Finally, I could breathe enough to come back inside.
Wait! The best (or worst) is yet to come.
I managed to finish my supper, coughing and still choking sporadically, when I noticed a car going around or circular driveway. I went out to investigate. Two neighbors asked me from their car window if my mother was all right. I told them, yeah, she's fine, why? They said they heard the call. I said what call? They said the ambulance call. My heart went into my throat where there was no room at all for a heart because half of that piece of chicken was still lodged there. I went in the house to ask Mom if she had called 9-1-1 when I was choking and she said she hadn't (a horrified look of being "had" by the "powers-that-be" crossing her poor face).
I convinced the neighborhood couple (two more local people who take the time to care about other people) that she was OK. It was a call about an elderly woman who fell, they told me. Mom didn't fall I told them. She's watching TV. I told them my choking story and they looked annoyed by it. Who cares about me? At this point, it never occurred to me to invite them inside to see for themselves. Why? I don't know. Maybe it was because I almost choked to death a few minutes before and I was a little weak and disoriented from that. Or maybe I just never get used to unexpected, outrageous situations and I simply don't know what to do about them. Who can say? Anyway, they never asked me how I was doing because no one in the universe cares about me. I've finally come to realize that.
Back inside, I saw that our TV and VCR were off. We were watching a taped version of "Lethal Weapon 4" while we ate our supper. Now the TV and the entire entertainment center was dark. I asked Mom what had happened. She said she hit the "mute" button on her remote control and everything went off. We both know that pressing the Mute button on a remote control cannot, in a million years, turn off the TV, VCR and stereo speaker sound system I installed. We'd been royally "had" by our Trulane. Big Jack Ass. One of the oldest and most spoiled, diabolically creative, invisible beings in the entire universe. And he, she or "it" is nothing more than that. Certainly nothing worth falling on your knees about, let alone worshiping. Worshiping invisible beings only makes the goddamn bastards more powerful.
But, wait, this is only Intermission!
While we were both thinking about how our lives were constantly being orchestrated by somebody or some thing (for my money, a bad-boy, out-of-control, bastard Celestial and the hideous humans who worship "it" on bended knees like little devious cowards), an ambulance — that's right, folks, — a Freakin' Ambulance! — came around our driveway. I rushed to the side door, turned on the outside pole light and opened the door. It was the Snow Shoe EMS. That's right, folks, the FREAKIN" SNOW SHOE EMS! who wasn't here in November 2009 when we needed them! But they were here NOW when we DIDN"T need them. And, guess what? Somebody out there, an elderly person somewhere, who fell and probably couldn't get up, DID NEED THEM!
The driver got out and I told him we didn't call an ambulance. He started an argument with me right off the bat, which really pissed me off. This ignorant prick was presupposing that I was a hideous, aging, redneck son who was hiding his poor injured mother inside the house. I quickly educated him about what was what. He told me the house number they had for the call. I told them that wasn't our number. He didn't believe me, even though the stupid sap was looking right at it. That's right, our house number is right on our house in Three Freakin' Places!, and one of them was right under his nose. Finally, he agreed to leave.
I went back inside and sat down. Then someone was knocking on our door. It was Mr. Snow Shoe EMS again, wanting to argue again. He asked me my phone number so he could match it with the call. In other words, the dumb little prick still thought I was lying to him. Still cooperative, however, I gave him my phone number and my mother's phone number. He checked them with the EMS woman in the ambulance who just sat there and stared at me like I was some madman who was harboring an ailing relative inside. Stealing her pension and social security and living it up while she fell and hit her head and needed help. Well, I was really getting pissed off by now. In no uncertain terms, I told them to take it on the heel. They did. As they ever so slowly backed their big-ass thing up, yakking about me between themselves I imagined, I reminded them in a loud, hoarse (from almost choking to death earlier) voice that somewhere in town is an elderly woman who fell and needs and ambulance and to get the hell moving!
Back inside once again, I turned the TV, VCR and stereo back on. I turned to Mom and asked her to call the neighbor couple who first showed up and reassure them that she was all right and not in any need of an ambulance. Reluctantly, she agreed. I'm glad she did. After she hung up from talking to the helpful neighbors who were obviously glad she had called them, Mom told me that the ambulance finally, — yes, finally! — got to the right house. Halleluia! Hip-Hip Hooray!
But.... Oh, yes, here's the straw that finally broke the camel's back last night. The elderly woman who fell and who needed the ambulance was our landlady, two blocks away on another street with an entirely different name that didn't sound anything like our address. Now, the freakin' Celestials were playing their nasty games with way too many people here! Nobody — and I mean nobody — deserves to be part of such whimsical, vindictive game playing. Especially not my mother and I. Or our ailing, octogenarian landlady.
Well, I'd like to sue everybody who screwed with us last night. But what good would that do? They're only the players who are listed on the next-to-the-bottom line of this hideous, whimsical, diabolical, demented, iniquitous script. So, what's the bottom line in this Snow Shoe version of The Squire of Gothos?
The bottom line is this: Nobody, and I mean nobody, Michael Casher, gives a rat's ass about you. But, man, do they like screw with you, or what?
