I’d like to make an entry to the Men are from Mars and Women and from Venus log book. I don’t actually know if one exists, but if it doesn’t, it should.
Last week, my parents, fed up with life’s little curveballs–like a FIRE in the apartment upstairs from them causing their living room to be flooded, followed by harmonious explosion of the pipes out of their newly fixed walls and onto their newly fixed floors–decided to go on vacation to the Caribbean. Wouldn’t you believe it, fate is such as asshole that for the first two days, she gave them clouds and rain, for the second two days, she gave my dad the gastro, and for the third two days (correct), she gave my mom the gastro. Except my mom’s wasn’t just any gastro, it appeared to be a gastro with a superimposed case of traveler’s diarrhea because it lasted way longer than it should have and came with shaking chills and fever.
Did you know I was a gastroenterologist?
Oh! I’m a gastroenterologist! I felt like totally wicked equipped to help my mother with her troubles, so I directed her to the pharmacy for some Cipro, and explained about the BRAT diet. I sent the following link https://www.webmd.com/children/brat-diet.
By this point, my dad is feeling all better because his gastro was of the garden variety without the E.Coli flavor, and only lasted 24 hours, and he’s feeling eager to help my mom get better.
She tells him she needs apple sauce. If it’s organic apple sauce even better.
He returns with….
Organic apple JUICE.
Sauce… juice… I can see how someone can get confused.
She sends him back to the store, and while he’s there, she receives the above link, and forwards it to him, saying “Sasha said BRAT diet.”
He calls back about 20 minutes later overwhelmed as all hell. He says, “I have looked everywhere, all over Shaw’s, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s and I cannot find that bread.”
My mom is like, “😦,” I imagine.
“I can’t find this special BRAT bread,” he says.
This bread:
That picture shows up as the preview when you send the link. He didn’t think to click on the link, he thought this was a picture of the extra special BRAT diet bread for people afflicted with the gastro.
He’s like, “Don’t worry, I’m on it, I’m going to show this picture to one of the guys who works here, they’ll help me find it!!”
My mom is like, “OMIGOD please don’t.”
Can you imagine? “Xcuseme, i’m trynna find this verra shpecial verra particular bread for my ailing wife, take a quick looksee at this pitcher…”
WAIT, it doesn’t end there.
She also tells him she needs some water crackers. Something plain. As plain as can be. Definitely no fiber, seeds or anything that is not what we would call in our circles “low residue.”
He brings back what you see here.
My mom texts me, “I’m concerned about your father.”
It’s like 11pm, and now I’m wide awake because I’m peeing myself laughing that my dad doesn’t know what white toast looks like, and that multigrain and flaxseed is something someone bought after they were told to get something with no fiber. But no one knows low residue like I know low residue, so is it really fair? I put myself in my dad’s shoes: he was only trying to get something as healthy as possible, and NPR always says flaxseed and multigrain is where it’s at…
BUT WAIT!
THERE’S MORE:
The next day, after two doses of Cipro and a day of BRAT diet (minus the very special bread that was not available in the Metro Boston Area), my mom felt better to the point where she decided she’s willing to risk making some chicken broth. She STILL had faith in my dad, so she sent him to the store to buy chicken quarters.
But she didn’t have THAT much faith in my dad because she sent him to the store to buy chicken quarters with the following diagram, jjuuuussstt in case.
<<
s, really.
She thought she was being cute and making a joke, but nary a fifteen minutes later, my dad calls her back from the store and says, “They don’t have chicken quarters. They have chicken legs, but they say it’s almost the same thing. Should I trust them?”
A long discussion followed about whether chicken quarters are really chicken legs with a little breast attached or whether they’re totally different entities. And does one like to trust suspicious characters that work at the meat counter at Whole Foods?👀
Finally, my dad got all mad, and was all, “You know what, this isn’t fair! I have never asked YOU to BUILD A PORCH!!!”
And then my husband heard this story and he said with a totally straight face, “She shouldn’t ask him for impossible things.”
Sigh.
Touche.
And Why Not! 