Dad?
Yeah?
Are they going to stab me in the leg?
What? No! What?
Sometimes when we go to the doctor, they stab me in the leg.
Wait. What? Really?
Yeah.
No.
Because it's six o'clock on a Sunday morning and we're on the way to the emergency room. Calvin's fever has been over 103 for three days straight. It's obvious something's really wrong and the advice nurse has told us that there is an appointment available at 11:00am, but maybe we shouldn't wait that long.
Son-of-a-bitch.
I'm tired of sick.
I'm sick of tired.
Flashback to July and I'm laying in bed, and I can't get up. I can't get up because my whole inner frame is in agony. Pain that radiates from my neck to the heels of my feet.
I take a tylenol.
I sip my some lukewarm coffee.
I get up.
I go to work.
I take a tylenol.
I go home.
I cook dinner.
I take a tylenol.
I work on music.
I drink a bottle of wine, or a couple shots of birthday scotch.
I take a tylenol.
I go to bed.
Six months later, I think I have a problem.
I go to see my dad who specializes in this. We're not twenty minutes into a session and he tells me I've got a good year of therapy ahead of me.
Awesome.
Cause dad works cheap.
If you're related.
Which I am.
But all the other days I'm a cranky shadow of myself. There is no audacity of hope. Only the "Fuck You" of pain influenced disinterest.
It's affecting everything around me. My staff tip toes around me. My wife hides in the room. Calvin is ever present and wants the kind of attention that only six year olds could want:
Constant.
I can hear the exhaustion in my voice with every track on the album. I can even hear the day we recorded and I was forcing back what was left of my first winter cold.
I suck.
The album sucks.
Everything and Everyone sucks.
I even hate you.
I am right now . . . hating you.
And in all fairness, it turns out that Calvin had both a double ear infection, was carrying a virus called "Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease" on top of an asthmatic cough. So, yeah, life sucked for the little guy too. But when he insisted on worrying about getting stabbed in the leg, I kind of blew up.
Because I'm sick of everyone making mountains out of mole hills. Sick of tempests in teapots. Sick of the "What have you done for me lately" bullshit that infects the corporate environment that I have so gingerly placed myself into.
"Dude . . . dude! No one is going to stab you in the leg. That was only one time! And you weren't stabbed in the leg. You were poked. You were poked by a tiny little needle. A tiny little needle that contained an immunization against various diseases. Those shots were GOOD, I tell you, GOOD!"
In the rearview mirror I could see Calvin contemplating as only a precocious six year old can contemplate.
His eyes were closed and his mouth was open. His arms crossed against his chest. He coughed.
There was silence.
But only for a moment.
Dad?
Yes?
There is nothing GOOD about getting Stabbed in the Leg!
Fair enough.
