Hesitation, by Arthur Tebbel – Pop Art #173 | @MDWorld

March 28, 2012 Arthur Tebbel 5 Comments

I don’t think I feel like being funny this week.  Last week I wrote my column from my parents’ house in Manhattan.  It was the first one I wrote on my fancy new iPad.  A good time really, the word processor they sell for that is really usable if a little simple.  The worst thing is it uses the iOS autocorrect so you really have to be on your toes or a simple typo will turn into a sentence that’s complete gibberish.  The reason I’ve hesitated so much this week (and I assure you I’ve been hesitating this is very late, sorry Tatiana) is that immediately after hitting send on last week’s column my father collapsed and had to go to be taken out on a stretcher.

I’d never seen someone get put on a stretcher up close before.  I certainly wasn’t ready to have to help EMTs lift my own father onto one.  It was surreal in a way that makes me regret every time I’ve ever used surreal hyperbolically.  My mom and I were in the ER until about 2am.  It was so bad that we were getting sympathy from the other people in the ER waiting room.  We were winning a late night New York City ER!  It was completely unreal.

It didn’t really get better as the week wore on.  Twice that week we were told there was a decent chance he wouldn’t make it to the next morning.  My mother was seemingly constantly being asked if she wanted to issue a DNR on dad’s behalf.  I can’t get over how completely exhausting it was to keep getting up to that precipice and not being pushed over the edge.  I’m not saying I wanted him to die but I would have killed for some measure of fucking consistency.  I guess we have that now, he’s back in his regular hospital with his regular doctors and how fucked up are things in general when you have a regular hospital?

I’m usually not a superstitious man but I am a little timid to submit this this week.  If the phone rings immediately after I hit send I am going to freak the fuck out.  There’s probably like a 20-minute window where I’d refer not to talk to anyone after.  I should probably draw the blinds too.  I should really get over it.  Finishing my column didn’t make my dad’s lungs fill with mucous; breaking my grandfather’s watch didn’t give him lung cancer.  The brain is so good at recognizing patterns that it sees them when they aren’t there.  I should really just relax.

Next week: more jokes, fewer nonsense paragraphs!