Why I'm Not a Dermatologist

      Not too long ago, we were at Mom and Dad’s house visiting with my brother, Moose, and his wife Red, my “baby” brother, Wolverine, and his wife Midge.  The Yankee, being the compulsive type, can’t stand to sit and chat.  He has to be doing something so he is usually the dishwasher.  (Mom has this weirdness about what can and cannot go in the non-human dishwasher.  “Bertha, you know those dishwashers destroy dishes”.  “But Mom, dishpan hands destroys hands and I can buy another set of dollar store juice glasses.”  “That’s so wasteful, Bert.”  “So where do you buy new hands, Mom?”)  Anyway, on top of being compulsive, The Yankee is also a bit of a dope in the kitchen.  He can’t make scrambled eggs worth a darn, he thinks sage is the magic herb that delicately enhances everything from seared ahi tuna to fruit cocktail in heavy syrup, and he cuts himself … on absolutely everything.  Broken glass, knife blades, cabinet corners, oven knobs; you name it, it has taken his blood.  This time, it was the blade of Mom’s food processor.  I hear the patented sucking sound of air through clenched teeth and see dishwater fly across the kitchen floor as he leaps for a paper towel.  Since I’m “Mrs. The Yankee”, I know what’s going on without looking but sweet, sensitive Red can’t help but check on him.  “Are you OK?” she asks.  The Yankee pulls back the paper towel and I see the color drain from Red’s face.  “Oh.  Blood.  Wow.” she barely whispers as she slowly makes her way to the floor so she can sit and force herself not to pass out.  “I … I … I just can’t do blood.”  Inhale.  Exhale.  Inhale.  Exhale.  The Yankee would be getting more pleasure out of this display were it not for the gushing geyser in his crumpled paper towel bandage.  I helped him get his finger bandaged up and Moose helped poor little Red make it to the couch before she completely lost consciousness. 

      If you had been a Peeping Tom peering through the window that day, you would have seen a sight too hilarious for words.  Red is an attorney (often paid in pies and lovingly crocheted afghans) who has no problems helping a poor old lady create a will and not leave her life savings to the “Save the Wealthy” charity group.  But you put a drop of blood in front of her, and she faints.  I don’t understand that.  For the record, I do not love blood.  Or blood and guts.  Or blood and gore.  Or anything else gross and bloody.  I just don’t freak out over it.  You chop your foot off with the chainsaw in the back yard, I will throw the detached appendage into a bowl of ice and drive you to the hospital at speeds that would make Mario Andretti admit defeat.  I will sign your cast.  I will bandage your wounds.  I will help you pull out your last baby tooth.  I will clip your stitches for you.  But if you come near me with skin flakes of any kind, I will vacate the premises post-haste.  Dandruff has to be undoubtedly the most horrendous thing on earth.  Red says, “Bertha!  You’re such a goober.  Dandruff is unfortunate but a bloody stub is … is …”  She sits before she gets any dizzier.  I totally disagree.  “No, Red, you’re the goober.  The bloody stub would be considered most unfortunate.  But flakes are just … just …” Now I’m sitting. 

       The Yankee thinks we’ve both lost it. 

      I think my issue started when I was in the first grade.  My dad mowed the grass shirtless in the middle of the summer and, big shock, ended up with wicked sunburn on his back. (Rednecks?  Us?  Surely not!)  He moaned for days while my mom slathered aloe on his back and I stayed as far away from him as I could.  About a week later, his moaning had stopped and he was able to wear shirts again.  I let my guard down and resumed my life as a busy 6-year old.  After a particularly spirited game of hopscotch, I came in the house to get a drink of water.  Walking through the back door, I rounded the corner just in time to see my mom peeling skin off my dad’s back.  There, utterly frozen, sat a shell shocked mini-Bertha on the verge of losing her lunch.  “What’s wrong Bert?” said my mom.  “Come look at your dad’s back!”  I took off running, my head feeling itchy, my stomach feeling queasy, and my brain permanently, eternally, irrevocably etched with the nauseating display I had just witnessed. 

      I relay my reasoning to Red and as she laughs, my mom rounds the corner.  “All this fuss over a little sunburn?!”  Well, Mother, if Valentine’s Day is “all this fuss over a little heart-shaped chalk”, then yes.  Hit the nail on the head there, Ma!

 

      So you see?  I have a good reason for my phobia/weirdness/nausea.  Red, on the other hand, is just a wimp.

© Bertha Grizzly 2011.  All Rights Reserved.  No duplication or distribution.

Bertha’s Bakers Dozen ™: Questions for the Ages

     No matter your level of intelligence, you have burning questions you would like to ask God when you die.  We all do, whether we admit it or not, and I am certainly not excluded.  Well, Letterman has his ten; Bertha has her Bakers Dozen … and this time, it’s the Questions for the Ages list.  Whether your questions involve the mysteries of peanut butter or the deeper issues of dryer lint and call waiting, each question is valid.  So, here is my list of things I will never understand no matter how long I live:  

13) Why do we accept a level of work performance from our computers that we would NEVER accept from our vehicles?  How many times have I heard, “My computer crashed!” or “This computer is so slow today.” or “That stupid computer ate my entire file!”  Would this be even remotely acceptable from a car?  “My SUV crashed and left me on the side of the road for an hour.” or “My car is so slow today.  It took me 9 hours to get to work this morning.”  or “My car ate everything in the glove compartment!  Lip balm, sour balls, registration … GONE!”  I don’t think so. 
 
12) Why do the outspoken vegan patrons at my local pizza shop refuse to use a hairbrush?  They’ll wait an extra 20 minutes in their recycled tire shoes, fanny packs, and metal water bottles for a soy cheese pizza.  They’ll ignore the other patrons overtaken by the “scent” of useless lavender deodorant mixed with garlic and B.O.  Yet they’ll stomp their sun-freckled feet and demand that a new, clean pizza cutter be used on their pizza as they will not be purchasing any products contaminated with “the blood of our cloven-hoofed brethren sacrificed at the altar of dirty capitalistic consumerism”.  Yet, for some reason, the idea that hair can actually be smoothed from it’s frizzed-out, cotton candy state totally escapes them.  (I’ve come so close to telling some of them that lard makes a great conditioner.)
 
11) Why do we sniff the expired milk?  The date stamp on the carton fell somewhere between last Christmas and the Clinton administration.  It’s more like cottage cheese than it is actual milk.  It’s talking back and using profanity.  And yet we still feel the need to take a sniff before we heave and watch it slither its chunky self down the garbage disposal.  
 
10) Why does sitting on a toilet seat cause the phone to ring?  It happens every time.   
 
9) Why does someone always serve whatever is going to show up on my shirt?  If I am invited to someone’s home for a meal, the menu is psychically determined by what outfit I have chosen to wear.  If I choose a pastel blouse, the menu will involve red wine and something with dripping tomatoes.  If I wear a stunning ensemble in a slimming black, there will be sticky marshmallow fluff and white napkins with enough lint to keep New Jersey warm for the winter.  
 
8) Why doesn’t life have background music?  It would be so much easier to plan if I could have a little forewarning about what’s around the next corner.       
 
7) Why do I always get the booth behind the cat lovers?  I’m trying to eat a quiet lunch and I’m bombarded with over-enthusiastic giggles, a loud voice proudly proclaiming, “Fluff-Fluff left me a decapitated little mouse on my welcome mat this morning”, followed by a chorus of high-pitched “Awww!!!” around the table.  Blecchhhh.
 
6) Why do men lose weight faster than women?  When women want to lose weight, we can drink our body weight in water every day, walk at lunch, eat nothing fried, park far away from stores on purpose, and end up gaining 4 ounces while men just give up their bi-monthly breath mint and drop weight faster than Obama’s approval rating. 
 
5) Why do the doors on bathroom stalls open INWARD so that the door is a quarter-inch away from slamming into the front of the toilet?  Buttercup and I have perfected the “stall waltz”.  I help her with her buttons, she flushes, I smash myself against the wall to open the door, she dislodges herself from behind the toilet and leaps over the sanitary disposal on the wall, I partially close the door, she smashes herself against the wall, and then we emerge for a curtsy and a thorough hand washing.  It’s awesome really. 
 
4) Why do radio stations let locals voice their own commercials?  God love the entrepreneurial spirit, but there are good reasons media professionals exist.  When I was growing up, our town had a rather successful attorney who liked to perform in his own commercials despite an obvious speech impediment.  Every New Year, we were all privy to his commercials: “Pwease don’t dwink and dwive.  Call the waw office of Fwed Bwadwey and we’ll buy you a taxi wide home.”  Lovely gesture?  Yes.  Life-saving program?  Absolutely.  Voice for wadio?  Nope.

3) Why can I not eat at a restaurant without being stalked by a guy who honks his nose into a handkerchief like a foghorn?  I really think I’m cursed.  I’ll be mulling over the menu at the nicest restaurant in town, leisurely sipping my wine, and some wrinkled relic of human antiquity will pull out a handkerchief that came over on the Santa Maria and honk like a goose in heat.  There must be an invisible sign on my back that says, “I wish to be seated next to Admiral Sinusitis … no seriously, make my day.”     

 
2) Why do they make the wording on bumper stickers smaller than the print in the white pages?  I nearly rear-ended some guy trying to read his bumper sticker only to discover it said, “Meat-free since 2001.”   Grrrr. 
 
1) Why do people get so worked up over social media posts?  Her post was “We can tell much about a man by his treatment of animals.”  All I said was, “Especially by how long he leaves it on the grill and whether or not he uses defamatory steak sauce,” and she un-friended me.  Go figure.  
 
© Bertha Grizzly 2011.  All Rights Reserved.  No duplication or distribution.