Payback

My male staff's mum is back in hospital again. You may recall that she was there at the beginning of November. That was when my male staff went back to the UK to help with her care and ended up in intensive care himself due to a deep vein thrombosis which subsequently filled the silly bugger's lungs with blood clots. You may also remember that his mum was in hospital due to symptoms related to her terminal brain tumour. Symptoms which were finally alleviated enough for her to be released from hospital by the administration of enough steroids to keep Sylvester Stallone going for a month. It certainly made my male staff's mum feel so much better, but she kept wanting to wrap a bandanna around her head, don a khaki vest and carry a heavy calibre machine gun around with her, which was somewhat alarming for the neighbours. Her grandchildren have started calling her "Ramb-ma."

This time she's in hospital with a circulation problem in her left leg. Apparently it's gone all purple and cold. It may be a clot similar to my male staff's because she has to sit for long periods of time. poor old thing. That's all she needs. She gave birth to one clot more than fifty years ago, now she may have another. This time there's no chance of the first clot going back to look after his mum because he's grounded for three months.
He can't fly until April at the earliest. That will be eleven months after her doctors had given her nine months to live.

My male staff and his mad sister often reminisce about the time they played a practical joke on their mum who used to leave a saucer of milk in the garden at night for the local hedgehogs. Giggling softly behind their hands they placed an upturned broom head by the saucer and dashed inside to tell their mother that she had a visitor. Peering through the curtains into the darkness, their mum saw a vague prickly shape next to the saucer of milk and said to my male staff's dad "See, I told you they like milk." More soft sniggering. An hour later she looked again and was surprised to see that the "hedgehog" was still at the milk saucer. She watched for about fifteen minutes and then declared "I'd better go out and see if he's alright." Still more sniggering. So out into the garden she went, slowly creeping closer to the "hedgehog" and gently talking to it. "Hello little one." She said. "Are you okay? I won't hurt you." Sniggers from the watching brats at the back door. Only when she stooped down next to the "hedgehog" did she realise that she'd been feeding and talking to a broom head for the last two hours.

My male staff justifies this act of cruelty as payback. When he was about ten years old his mum and dad went shopping, leaving him alone in the house. Once they'd gone he started searching for illicit snacks in the kitchen and came across a glass of amber liquid on one of the kitchen benches. He sniffed it. It smelled okay, so he took a really good swig - very tasty, but half the glass was gone. Still he was sure that his mum wouldn't notice. A hour or two later his mum and dad returned while he was in the lounge innocently watching porn. Actually, that's not true. The closest thing to porn on the TV in those days was The Benny Hill Show.

Anyway, my young male staff heard muttering in the kitchen and then his mum's loud, somewhat theatrical voice saying. "Hey, what happened to that rat poison we left on the bench? Half of it's gone."  My male staff suddenly felt very hot. RAT POISON! He thought he'd better own up so that he could get to hospital. He ran to the kitchen, where his mum and dad were looking at the half empty glass of amber liquid.
 "Did you drink some of this?' Asked his mum.
My male staff gulped. "I only had a small sip mum."
 "You stupid boy. It's rat poison."
 "Wha.....what's going to happen to me?" He whimpered.
 "You're going to die of course, it was rat poison. What do you expect?" Not surprisingly that started the waterworks.
 "Shouldn't I go to hospital?" He bawled."
 "No point." Said his mum. "You'll die anyway." My male staff started to wail louder. "And if you're going to make that noise, you'd better go to your room to die so we can get some peace and quiet."

In hindsight my male staff thinks that it wasn't the fact that he thought he was going to die that upset him the most. It was that his mum and dad seemed so indifferent that their only son was about to suffer a horrible, painful, gut tearing death. In any case, he never sampled the cooking sherry again.