Green Card

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, I was stricken by a ghastly stomach bug. By 7am, I was preparing to die quietly, curled around a bottle of Pedialyte, when Mr. Berman burst into the room.

"It's your Green Card appointment! At 8am! Come on, I'll drive you!"

I scowled in his general direction, somewhat petulantly, I have to confess.

"Just can't. Sod off."

"You can -- you have to. Or you won't be able to travel next month."

I remembered that I have a business trip in April, by which time I need to have renewed my Green Card. It takes months to get an appointment. I struggled to find a suitable expletive, but ran out of energy and reverted to my father's family-friendly favorite in times of stress.

"GOD give me strength." (It's really quite effective when pronounced with venom, a perfectly acceptable substitute when a meatier alternative is not readily available or appropriate. I consider it the tofu of the swearing world.)

"It'll only take you 15 minutes. My appointment was really fast. Come on."

With this, Mr. Berman hauled me to a sitting position. I pointed out that he evidently hated me and wanted me to die. He ignored me, wisely, and proceeded to assess my clothing. Having vomited all over myself a number of times in the night, I was wearing an odd assortment of garments. He pronounced the yoga pants Green Card-worthy, wrestled my feet into flip flops, and dragged a sweater over the most offensive article, a Marks & Spencer flannel pyjama top in pink plaid, circa 1985, now encrusted with traces of vomit. Since I was gnashing my teeth in a threatening manner throughout this process, he decided against enforced tooth brushing, and dragged me out to the car.

"What about Ted?" I whimpered.

The same stomach bug had also hit my youngest son 24 hours before, and he was off school, lying prone with his head positioned over a bowl in precautionary fashion. He is not a morning person under the best of circumstances, which these decidedly were not. My husband ran back to fetch him, and emerged from the house five minutes later, bearing a limp and pasty-faced Ted, who was also wearing mismatched pyjamas, with snowboots.

"Come on," Mr. Berman said encouragingly. "Let's get it over with -- we'll have you home and back in bed soon."

I lay in the reclined passenger seat with a plastic bag hooked over my ears as we hurtled through rush-hour streets. (During this time, I reconsidered my hardcore eco stance. Plastic may be the devil's substance, but it does have its uses. You couldn't rely on a reusable hessian bag for this task.) Upon arrival at the Citizenship and Immigration Office, I lurched out of the car, and staggered towards the door.

"Why does mummy look like an old lady?" I heard my son ask, as I disappeared into the bowels of the government. It struck me that I did not look like the kind of person you'd want to be granting permanent resident status to. In panic, I wondered if those were the last words I would hear him say. What if they determined I looked infectious (which I most certainly was), or crazy (which I most certainly looked, with my pink plaid flannel, vomit-encrusted pyjama shirt dangling below my sweater) and put me back on the boat? Do they still have boats, for people like me?

Good god -- was I in danger of deportation?

Deported I was not, but the interminable line was almost the end of me. I silently cursed Mr. Berman and his 15-minute promise, and consigned all 23 people on line in front of me to burn in hell, as I stood feverishly, on trembling legs, for almost an hour, with frequent dashes to the restroom. Eventually, an official fingerprinted me (which took a while, on account of my dripping palms), photographed me (which also took a while, on account of the fact that I looked dead on every try), and approved me (and we wonder why the country is in the state it's in).

As I was leaving, I was asked to fill in a customer satisfaction survey. I refrained from complaint, given that I had just infected everyone within a 5-mile radius with what I was beginning to think must be Ebola.

My conscience is somewhat alleviated when I remember that they'll all have the last laugh.

We will live, and our stomachs will recover. But only I will have to live with an official ID for the next 10 years that is a Feverish-Looking, Dear-God-Why-Didn't-I-At-Least Apply-Blush, Exceedingly-Green Card.

Med rage

It was a strange and not very restful weekend.

Saturday evening, another ugly cold kicked in. I woke up in the night streaming from every facial orifice -- even my eyes. My eyes! God help me.

Naturally, I woke Mr Berman to tell him how miserable I was. Not sure whether he said "poor sod" or "sod off"; suspect the latter. He did manage to mumble that I should add pillows, which I did, for a fitful night's sleep.

Sunday morning, he'd had quite enough of my whining, and strongly urged me to take an Aleve 12-Hour Cold and Flu. In a moment of weakness, I agreed.

I should know better.

The last time I took it was 5 years ago, minutes before a pitch. I spent the next two hours bouncing off the walls, in what the clients mistakenly believed to be a frenzied display of enthusiasm. I have never felt so out of control in my life. I nearly swallowed my own teeth.

So it was with some trepidation that I gulped down my meds yesterday morning. Within 15 minutes, I knew it was a mistake. My legs shook, my hands shook, my heart shook, for close on 12 hours. Ozzy Osbourne at 80 will be in better shape than I was.

What took me by surprise was the rage.

Mr Berman had headed out for groceries with unexpected eagerness, leaving me to my jitters. As is usually the case, he called me several times from the store to make sure he was buying the right kind of rice/bread/endive. But every time the phone rang, I jumped like I'd been shot.

"I can't find Belgian endives."
"What about curly endive?"
"They don't have that either."
"I bet they have fricking iceberg. Philistines."

I have never been quite so angry about endives, Belgian or otherwise, in my life.

The day continued in much the same vein. I stomped about, scowled in a menacing fashion, and silently fumed about iceberg lettuce, erasers, raincoats, whatever. The boys thought it hysterical, and followed Mr Berman's lead in calling me an Old Bag.

As I pointed out repeatedly in an unsuccessful quest for sympathy, it wasn't me, it was my meds. My pharmacological version of the Twinkie defense.