The man's tough at work, but trouble at home

Lori Clinch

Are We There Yet?

When I'm sick, I take the time to inform those around me. I place a neon sign on the fridge to the children that clearly states that any and all plans involving their mother for the next 48 hours are hereby canceled. I'll not be available for Parcheesi, bowling or no matter how much they beg anything that involves a face mask.

Then I like to cancel out of my husband's day by telling him that I'll neither be doing paperwork nor making the quick trip to the lumberyards for his 5-gallon bucket of tar. Sometimes he's reluctant to let me out of my responsibilities, so I go for drama by telling him that he was a good husband, that I've cherished our years together, and that once I've passed, he has my permission to remarry.

With those items out of the way, I then place a phone call to my mother. While some would expect a mother to be sympathetic and to race to a daughter's sick bed with a thermometer and a bowl of chicken noodle soup, my mother quickly taps on the receiver, claims we have a bad connection and promptly hangs up.

Call me dramatic if you must, but I firmly believe that only by notifying the world can a sick woman get the rest she needs. Without the proper notifications and disclosures, a flu-ridden woman is bound to be involved in car pools, ball games and serving lemonade to a motorcycle rally making its way through town.

I simply want the world to know I'm sick, and then be left alone.

My husband, on the other hand, handles his illnesses quite differently. When it comes to working on the construction site, he is as tough as nails. In fact, rumor on the job has it that if Pat severed an arm, he would just say, "Dad-gummit, and that was my good one too!" Then he'd wrap the stub in a dirty sweatshirt, apply a pressure bandage made out of duct tape, and carry on with his day as if nothing happened.

He also likes to start out each and every affliction with a good day of hard work. As far as he's concerned, there's nothing like swinging a good old hammer to "cure what ails ya." And any man who can erect a building with a stomach that is rolling like a ship on a stormy sea is a man's man indeed.

The man's been known to work with back pain, congestion, and the ever-loving bout with influenza. He visits with subcontractors, applies for permits and lines up materials for the next day feeling gray in the gills, and no one is the wiser. He doesn't skip a beat and it's not until he comes home that he gets down to the business of being sick.

Take yesterday, for instance. I'll be dogged if that man didn't walk in after work sporting a fever, general malaise and a head that felt as if a Mack truck had just made a tunnel through it.

But he didn't complain. He just walked over to my cute little kitchen TV and turned my regular "makin' supper" program off. Then he fell into the kitchen chair and actually had the audacity to ask me what I was doing and if I could do it any quieter. He said that the tin foil that I was wrapping around the potatoes was making vibrating sounds in his head.

When I'm sick, I scramble for the corner of the abode to hide from the clutches of my people. I want peace, I want quiet, and if I have to hide in the linen closet with a pillow and a bottle of Vicks, so be it. I sure wouldn't hunker down in the middle of someone's workspace and ask for tranquillity.

Now if we lived in a one-room bungalow that required me to share my supper-making space with the ill and afflicted, I'd be considerate enough to pipe my tin foil down. But we have rooms with couches in them where no body's whipping up supper. So my response to "Can you be any quieter?" was stinking, "No!"

Nothing worse than a sick man around, I always say. First they want some water, then some Tylenol, then next thing you know they want you to come over and feel them for fever. Like we have nothing better to do than to feel them for fever. "Fetch me a blanket," "Can't you make the kids be quiet?" "This sandwich doesn't taste good, do we (cough, cough) have any soup?" Followed by the ever-loving "My mother always made me soup."

I've got it all figured out now though. I've got him in bed with a washcloth for his head, medicine and a cell phone, and I told him to call me if he needs anything.

If he calls, I'm going to follow in the footsteps of my mother, declare a bad connection and hang up on him.

Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and author of the book "Are We There Yet?" Her e-mail address is lclinch@charter.net.