Some Kind Of Sick Bitch

The Devil is a freak about ailments and illness. She loves them. She loves when someone is sick. She loves when she's sick herself. She loves having surgery. And she especially loves taking and administering medication, almost to the point of obsession (think Munchausen's Syndrome).

She hoards medications. She keeps both prescription and over-the-counter medications in this giant cardboard box in a cabinet. And she keeps them indefinitely. My husband had poison ivy last summer and she sent him home with some kind of ointment. That expired in 1997. I made the mistake once of mentioning that I had a headache at her house. She offered me some left-over antibiotic from her box o' drugs for the "sinus infection" that I "must be getting." If someone complains of a sore back, she gets out her box and offers vicodin or percocet. Toothache? Have some codeine. Can't sleep? The Devil's got a xanax for you.

Loose pills can often be found in The Devil's purse or scattered on her nightstand. She keeps her current prescription jars lined up on her kitchen counter. Like trophies. I once heard The Devil berate one of her grown children for cleaning her kitchen and putting the prescription bottles inside a kitchen cupboard, right above where they were normally kept on the counter. She shouted: "I need to be able to see them!"

Years ago, my husband and I were desperate to conceive and sought help from a fertility specialist, who prescribed a series of pills to be taken orally by me, detailed ultrasounds of follicles and such, and carefully-timed injections. One of these carefully-timed injections needed to occur at The Devil's house after we'd been invited for dinner one evening. This was no secret, and The Devil practically begged me to let her administer the injection. She did, and I carefully wrapped the needle and empty jar in paper towels and placed them inside a plastic grocery bag, which I tied tightly in a knot and threw away in the kitchen garbage can. Several days later, when I happened to stop at The Devil's house for one reason or another, I noticed the discarded, empty serum jar lined up on her counter with the rest of her trophies. What the freaky fuck?

I am generally a live-and-let-live, non-judgemental kind of person. It doesn't bother me a bit if The Devil wants to drug herself into incoherent oblivion or stare lovingly at used syringes. I'm not as casual, however, about medication myself, and in fact, I happen to be quite conservative when it comes to medicating my children. That is, I don't. I rarely give any medicines to my children that aren't specifically prescribed by their pediatrician, and even those, over the years have been few and far between.

When my oldest child was about 6 months old, and just starting to eat solid foods, she, consequently, was having a tough time moving her little bowels, as is common. We "treated" her with fruit juice and prunes, as was recommended by the pediatrician. I was pregnant again, but nearly 3 months into the pregnancy, began to miscarry at home. My husband and I rushed to the hospital, and dropped our oldest off at The Devil's house. A few miserable hours later, we picked her up and returned home. While preparing her for bedtime, I noticed something that looked, to my new-mother's eyes, like a choking-hazard-size piece of plastic in my baby's extremely messy diaper. Obviously, my husband and I were incredibly alarmed and he called The Devil to ask what the baby could have possibly swallowed while in her care. The Devil "reassured" us by telling us that she'd given a rectal suppository to the baby.

WHAT. THE. FUCK? Who, in their right mind, would think to administer a rectal suppository to an infant without thinking to ask the parents' permission, and at the very least, thinking to tell the (already traumatized by a proximate miscarriage!) parents after the fact so they wouldn't freak the fuck out when finding what was left of it in the infant's disgusting diaper?!?

Amazingly, my husband remained calm when he explained to his mother that this is not the way we dealt with the baby's constipation. And that it had been completely inappropriate for her to administer the suppository without asking us or telling us about it. And that, in the future, she must never give the baby any kind of medicine without our explicit permission.

Do you think The Devil apologized? No. The Devil sobbed. My husband got a stern lecture from his father for 'upsetting' her and expected him to apologize. We got the silent treatment for a week or more. I found out years later, that The Devil had called many family members and cried to them, saying how awful we were to her.

Just a few years ago, my two oldest - about ages 6 and 3 at the time - came home from a visit with The Devil and mentioned, out of the blue, the "orange medicine" that she'd given to my young son, the 3 year-old, when he fell and scraped his knee. I remained calm, but interrogated the older child for details. She got the medicine from her box. It was orange. She gave it to him on a spoon. She offered to let the older child have a taste. As young as they were, both kids told the same story and I knew they were telling the truth. My cure for a scraped knee is a band-aid and a kiss. I was livid. I explained the situation to my husband and demanded he call The Devil for an explanation. He was hesitant, but finally spoke to his father, who refused to even bring the subject up with The Devil, but offered a weak denial of any "orange medicine" incident. We got the silent treatment again. Which was fine with me.

Fucking crazy bitch.

(Try Not To) Picture It.

The Devil has this habit of telling the same stories over and over. I used to humor her, smile and nod and listen politely, then try and subtly change the subject. Lately, though, I've given up all tactfulness and just say: "Yeah. You already told me that." I just can't take it anymore.

For example. Whenever the subject of illness comes up in conversation, like if you happen to mention you're coming down with a cold, she tells the story of the worst case of stomach flu she ever had. Every time. With details. Such as: she was desperately clutching the toilet bowl, retching violently and simultaneously experiencing uncontrollable diarrhea. That is, retching into the toilet while trying to sit atop a garbage pail.

I wonder: Why the fuck would you not sit on the toilet and vomit into the trash can, like a human being, you stupid cow? And even if this actually happened to you, why the fuck would you tell somebody about it? Dozens of times?