The Bee Sting and the Secret Solution

Some of you will remember that on the Plotniks' latest sea voyage, Ducknik got stung by a bee with dastardly results. Just to even things up, Monday afternoon Plotnik was walking barefoot in his heat-drenched garden when ZOT! Right on the bottom of his toe. Knowing the proper procedure now (hot water applications, to trick the body into mobilizing to fight the heat which it assumes is infection, and Benadryl), today his toe is only, like, twice its normal size and not quite as bright red as yesterday. But it's painful, and not so easy to walk when the bottom of your foot is swollen.

Another day or two and the swelling should diminish. Otherwise it's a trip to the doctor which we of course avoid at all costs short of amputation.

The Mummy P. situation just keeps getting more problematic. Plotnik knows she has to keep being angry, grumpy and bitchy, because when she stops doing that it will be a signal of serious decline. So let's just say she's heartily contributing to her own welfare. It's hard for sons to deal with but it's harder for daughters-in-law, who, after all, have or had their own mothers.

There is a vestigial node somewhere in women of Mummy P.'s generation, filled with a particular DNA that expects younger men to be slaves to their professions but younger women to serve in bondage to the elderly in the family. Mummy P. was just that for her own mom, GrandMummy P., and perhaps somewhere inside her she feels this is payback time. But she does not have daughters, she has two daughters-in-law, both devoted to helping her, but neither one susceptible to the endless barrages of guilt.

Everyone who has an elderly parent understands this situation. It resolves itself over time but turns a lot of hours that should be used for sleeping into rolling over and over and over and over in bed while you search for the secret solution everyone knows does not exist.