The Hairdresser Of Doom

The kids are fine, but I'm sick sick sick sick sick. Cough. Cough. Curse. Cough.

Roger's had it for 3 weeks now. I've had it for 2. We've both finished rounds of antibiotics. It has not helped. Or maybe it has. Maybe I'd be dead now without the Z-Pack.

I went to the beauty parlor Saturday though, because I was getting even sicker looking at my gray roots. It was becoming difficult, if not impossible, to pretend that I was really 26--even when I removed my coke-bottle glasses and gazed hazily into the mirror.

So, I have this Steel Magnolia type of place that is 28 miles away in a small town, but I get a cut, color, and wax for (I know, I know) $69.00.

And a free medical checkup in the process!

I first got one last spring. I took the kids and Madeleine suddenly became sleepy and feverish. Do you remember the scene in Airplane! where the doctor describes the coming ghastly symptoms for the people who just ate the fish?

"First you'll become very dizzy...
Then you'll experience uncontrollable flatulence...
Then you'll slip into an irreversible coma... "

something like that. Well, Patsy took one look at Madeleine and stated: "She has the same thing that my grandson had!

First she'll be sleepy all the time...
Then she'll develop uncontrollable high fevers...
Then she'll have violent diarrhea for TEN DAYS!! It's going around our school!! In fact, they closed the schools one day. Oh boy was he SICK!"

She practically smacked her lips with anticipation. As for me, I think you can probably guess my reaction. I truly believed it would happen, because she did have a wonky fever and was lethargic.

Of course nothing of the sort occurred.

Well, I took the kids again, and Madeleine coughed. Once. A dry, "I-have-allergies" cough.

Patsy looked alarmed. "I think y'all have......

are you ready for this?

No, are you really, really, really ready?

WHOOPING COUGH!"

"It's going around our schools!" she proudly proclaimed. (Everything is always going around schools in the Town O'Terror).

I nodded somberly. I heard somebody holler "Janie Sue just called! She's on her third round of antibiotics for That Cough and she can't get out of the bathroom, so she won't be coming in!"

A few minutes later I heard someone else holler, "Tiffany just called and the doctah refused to do a Whooping Cough test on her mothah! Can you believe it!"

I love this place.

Anyway, Patsy was on a roll. "Yep, Whooping Cough! It's everywhere!"

"I hadn't heard," ....I mumbled. "I thought that the vaccine took care of that.."

"Honey, the vaccine isn't working!" she exclaimed. "And there's NO CURE! Except....and her voice dropped to a whisper....TO QUARANTINE 'EM! So, you need to take the kids and yourself to the doctor and have the test! And if y'all have it, y'all need to call us, because we'll have to all be QUARANTINED."

"Yes, ma'am.." I nodded sadly.

It was time for the lip and eyebrow waxing. The girls came running to hold my hand. Madeleine grabbed it with the fervor that bad soap opera actresses display when their loved one is in an irreversible coma. "I'm here, Mama!" she whispered.

Well, I do most sincerely hope she will be there for me when I go gently into that good night. With whooping cough.

But I hope even harder that Patsy is...um....wrong.

monday morning update! ....Just called the local county health department. Her quote, "I think they HAVE had one reported case."

One.