This morning was pleasant and productive. My son Adam gave me three pieces of paid rewrite work -- an article on Valentine’s Day, a piece on Opioid Addiction, and a story on maintaining long distance relationships. I knocked all three of ‘em off in a few hours, cleaning up a tidy sum to help pay the bills and keep me wallowing in riotous luxury. Since my name will not appear on any of ‘em, I don’t care what kind of cliched dreck I ladle out to the internet masses -- as long as I get paid.
Enter Marilyn, at noon. Demanding sweets. I gave her a bowl of vanilla wafers and m&ms, with a glass of milk. Which she appreciated. Then I dived into the maelstrom.
She met my daughter Sarah, a professional massage worker, the other day here at my place when we all had split pea soup together. I trust my daughter’s opinion and instincts when it comes to ‘reading’ other people. So I talked to Sarah yesterday about Marilyn. She said that Marilyn is obviously abusing her prescriptions, with symptoms including foggy memory, slurred words, and the shakes. I hadn’t really noticed it before, but after talking to Sarah it dawned on me that Marilyn is far from well, and certainly has all those symptoms. Marilyn asked Sarah for a massage, and Sarah put her off with a vague promise to think about it and gave her a business card. When I talked to Sarah she said no, she would not consider giving Marilyn a professional massage because she was probably on opioids, prescription or not, and a full massage could be dangerous to her. Make her pass out, or worse.
So while Marilyn was munching on sweets and cooing softly about how nice I was to her I took the bull by the tail, as W.C. Fields famously said, and faced the situation. I told her that Sarah would not be giving her a massage because she was worried about Marilyn’s pain prescriptions. I did not beat around the bush or try to candy coat the message. The result was pretty much what I had expected. She blew up.
“That’s what all you damn Mormons all do, is judge people” she said. “I won’t put up with that kind of (expletive deleted). Who does she think she is; is she a nurse or a doctor? She’s just a punk. A (expletive deleted) punk.”
I had to demur at that point, and warn her that verbally abusing my daughter in front of me was not going to be tolerated.
But Marilyn had found her point of argument, and was going to stick with it come heck or high water.
“So why isn’t she a doctor, to tell me something like that? Why didn’t she become a doctor or a nurse? Just tell me that” she said with a triumphant gleam in her eye, as if her logic would sweep me into abject confusion.
“She has professional training and knows what she’s talking about” I said quietly, sipping on some herbal tea. Bengal Spice, if you know the brand.
“I don’t give a (expletive deleted) about that. Just explain to me, if you can, why she isn’t a doctor right now. I wanna know why she isn’t a doctor!”
She never studied to be one, I said patiently.
“Aha!” she cried triumphantly. “That’s what I mean.”
“But she did give me the address and phone number of a yoga center in Orem that will be glad to give you a professional massage, and charges less than she does” I managed to interject before she was off again.
“I don’t want anything from your stinking stupid daughter. Nothing! She can’t just tell me what to do. She’s a phony, just like you.”
At this point in the discussion (or diatribe) I sat back and silently sucked on my herbal tea. Words were no longer of any meaning. We were down to the level of raw addled emotion.
“If all you’re going to talk about is negative things, I’m leaving. I came in here all happy and positive and now you start talking crap to me.” She arose and headed for the door.
“I made smothered pork chops for us in the slow cooker today. Are you coming back for some?” I asked her receding back, clad, I must say, in a very becoming white cashmere sweater.
She did not deign to answer, but at least she didn’t slam the door. She couldn’t; it has a hydraulic spring on it and only hisses slightly when too much pressure is applied to shutting the door.
But a few minutes later the texts started to arrive.
I quote them verbatim:
“I’m very mad at you right now . . . awwww, did your poor little girl tell you to not let me have a massage? I’m not Mormon nor do I ever want to be it totally sucks.”
“The majority of people take meds and 80 percent get massages.”
“Tell you very unintelligent daughter that a massage has never ever hurt anyone on medications if anything it helps.”
“Never ever bring a third party into a relationship . . . plus I could give a rats ass about your daughter’s opinion.”
“Fifty million people are on benzos not to mention the rest of the meds . . . educate yourself better before running your mouth off you and your daughter.”
“You Mormons sure know how to judge people . . . my business is my business only plus between me and my doctors so get your own doctor and but out of my life.”
“You and your daughter should be ashamed of yourselves.”
And so it looks like the end of Round Two with Marilyn. Will she reconsider when she cools down (or runs out of pills) and want to kiss and makeup? Maybe. And I’ll calmly let her come over for meals and to chat. Why? Because I’m finally beginning to get a handle on this, well, I won’t call it a relationship anymore. A sad farce is what it is. She’s a woman who needs lots of help. I am willing to put up with her guff and give her some help, within very strict boundaries.
And most important, I now have discovered the perfect way to get her out of my hair when I’ve had enough of her shenanigans for one day. Simply tell her the truth.. Give her suggestions as to what she can do to help herself -- such as get her own daughter up in Orem to give her rides when she needs them. She can curse me to Hades and back when I tell her a home truth like that, but it won’t upset me a smidgen anymore. She’s sick; she needs understanding and encouragement to make smart choices; and she’s striking out at those who want to be her friends. I understand that now. And I can accept it, up to a certain point.
And now, since she’s nowhere in sight and not likely to share lunch or dinner with me today -- I’ll just tuck into those smothered pork chops, with some pickled beets on the side. Oh, and I MUST remember to take my Vitamin D gummies . . .
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