Oh. My. God.

There he was. At the ward table, getting his ballot. Damn he looked good. It had been 30 years since I had seen him and he had aged well – Harrison Ford-well.

I was a poll worker, registering new voters. It was mid-morning and there were no other electors, except for. . . him. I didn’t even know that he lived in my district! The last I had heard about him was that he had moved to Thailand or was it Taiwan? (somewhere tropical and third-worldy). He was working with a relief-type agency. He made being cause-y so. . . sexy.

He chit-chatted with the ladies who handed him his ballot. He turned. We made eye contact.

“Andy!” I said, thanking God that I put on make-up.
He gave me a long look. He must have been remembering. . . .

We were 23 and worked at a park with an outdoor pool over the summer. It was a stupid job – selling concessions, maintaining the locker rooms (which weren’t really rooms, since the locker area had no roof), keeping the patrons safe from foot fungus. The pay was lousy, but my tan was great.

Of the guys who worked there, Andy was Numero Uno on the girls’ To-Do list. He was tall, lean, tan, hair touched by the sun, he rode a motorcycle, he had that kind of body that was fit in an I-don’t-try-too-hard-to-be-fit kind of way. And, he always had a girlfriend.

So, I was really surprised when I ran into him in the student union not so long afterward. He had transferred. Was single. And invited me to a party!

I wore my form-fitting, very Bohemian black turtleneck and a pair of show-my-butt-off jeans. Back then, I was very weight conscious – I weighed myself every day. I counted calories. I measured my portions. If the bathroom scale edged past 112 pounds, it was time to panic. I had long blond hair. Not really. My real hair would have been a mousy brown, but. . . you know what they said about blondes. Some still say it.

Andy and I “hooked up” as they say in today’s vernacular. He was a great kisser and when we went back to his place, it was Andy, Andy, Andy!

Now, he stood in front of the rickety folding table. My voter registration cards in a neat pile. He said nothing.

Maybe his memory needed a nudge.
“Jefferson Park?. . . 1975?. . .” I said.
Nope. It wasn’t registering.

I named names of people we had worked with – real characters, who no one could forget. I brought up instances of near firings, reprimands, long lunches, the time the authorities found all that pot growing in the woods near the statue of Thomas Jefferson.

Again, nothing.

“It’s me! Mel!” I said.

He shook his head. Not in the affirmative. “Sorry,” he said as he shrugged and proceeded to cast his ballot.

“I’m an idiot!” I said to the ancient Hmong lady as she filled out her new voter card via translator. She looked at me and smiled.

Had he sustained some kind of head trauma that caused him to have no memory of our sexcapades?

Or. . . maybe the sex wasn’t that great. Maybe his moans and groans weren’t about pleasure, but about frustration and dissatisfaction. Or. . . maybe I let myself go to the point of being unrecognizable?

Oh. Crap.

The polling place filled with eager new voters and I didn’t have time to wallow. I did that after the polls closed in front of the mirror in the privacy of my own bathroom.

Yeah, my face had gotten looser. I pulled it back two inches. There. All I have to do is walk around with my hands on my face like this and I’ll look 30 years younger. Well. . . sort of. When Andy and I were, you know, doing IT, I wore contacts. I can’t wear them anymore (trifocals) and Lasik surgery is totally out of the question – my corneas are the only thing on me that are too thin.

My breasts? Back then, the girls were free and easy. I used to get by without wearing a bra. Now? I’m well into menopause. I need a garment designed by a structural engineer.

It took me a couple of days – thank God, Oprah had several make-over shows! – to get beyond the self-loathing. You know what? The blond hair. The 22 inch waist. . . that wasn’t me. And the methods I had to go through to maintain that version of me were, well, extreme. They took too much energy and time and were borderline abusive and oh, so fake.

I’m average. Height. Weight. Hair color. Nothing wrong with that. So, I guess I haven’t let myself go. I’ve just let myself be.

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Ah, the Holidays. A time for family, friends, memories.I remember Christmas Eve. We went to my grandma’s house. The first thing that hit me when I walked into her kitchen was that smell — moth balls, stale cigar smoke, a lingering fart or two.

Her decorating scheme? Graceland meets the Vatican. She had a lot of plastic flowers, furniture covers, and many shrines to various saints and causes.

Grandma had one bathroom. The toilet seat was covered in fur. Not the lid, the seat. It was green (I hope it was!). Whenever I went in there to … you know … it was like pooping on a muppet.

I have to tell you a little bit about my grandma. She was very Catholic. Uber-Catholic. We used to call her The Pope. Just not to her face. And she was very, very proud of her Polish heritage. Militantly so. My cousins and I? Not so much. We were girls and, well, we would have preferred to be Swedish. Long legs. Blond. Thin. We were built low to the ground. With ample hips for breeding.

Anyway, it’s Christmas Eve. Grandma’s table is impeccably set with her fine china, crystal, candles. That’s for the grown ups. Us kids? We eat in the unheated, spare room on a crippled card table. Totally unsupervised. The things we did with food … it was like Lord of the Flies back there. If we wanted seconds, we had to go and ask. We were like children from a Dickens novel. Please sir, I want some more?! Can we have some more??

After supper, the aunts clean up the dishes and all us kids go with the uncles to kiss Busia. She was my great-grandmother and was about 435 years old. She lived in the old neighborhood in the same house that my great-grandfather built when he came over from Poland in 1881. I’m sure that she was a very sweet woman, but to me, an eight year old kid with a vivid imagination who was weaned on Walt Disney movies, she looked a hell of a lot like the witch from Snow White.

She sat at the end of a dimly lit hallway, on a throne-like chair, with her bachelor son Heinie, who looked like a Cro-Magnon werewolf (no wonder he was single). He stood there and beckoned us with his Renfield-like laugh. The closer I got, the more I smelled that Vicks-garlic-whiskey smell. Busia grabbed me with her claws and pulled me close. She whispered something in my ear. Something in Polish. Something that sounded like, “My! You’d make a tasty stew!” And then she’d press a dime into my palm.

Then it was back to Grandma’s for presents! Back then, I never made a list. We were Catholic. I wasn’t supposed to ask for anything, except forgiveness. I got whatever I got which was whatever my oldest cousin Sue got, but in a different color.Except one year. When I got a Barbie Dream House.

Like all girls under the age of 12, my cousins and I never went anywhere without our Barbies, their outfits and accessories.We set up the Dream House in the back bedroom. The one with the crippled card table.

What would be the scenario? Ken comes back from college and … takes Barbie on a sleigh ride? No. A picnic? Uh-uh.

See, my dad was a cop. My uncle was a cop. So, my cousins and I were cops’ kids and being a cop’s kid affected the way we saw the world. Like, how we played and stuff. So we played: Barbie Crime Scene.

The scenario? Okay. Ken comes home from college. He and Barbie have a fight over her relationship with Alan and then, Ken “falls” from the balcony. His body? My cousin had a Ken that was half-eaten by her dog. He was perfect for Crime-Victim Ken, Hideously-Deformed Ken, Shark Attack Ken. He is discovered by Skipper who runs and tells neighbor Midge and she calls the cops.

We spend the next hour getting everything set up: positioning Dog-Eaten Ken, and putting together police outfits using bits and pieces from Ken’s yachting ensemble.But then, I don’t know what happened. The details are sketchy. Flight Risk Barbie gets behind the wheel of the Dream Car and guns it. Head on into the rickety table leg, which causes it to collapse on top of the car, killing her instantly. I cordon off the scene with left-over ribbon. A crowd of gawkers gathers: several Midges, two Skippers, a Scooter. Alan ? Underneath the chair. An emotional wreck.

We cover Barbie up with a pink bedspread. And wait for Forensic-Evidence-Gathering Barbie to do her job dressed in a fabulous tweed suit, accessorized with white gloves, a note pad, and a camera!

Then it is time to go. Home. Dad has to change and go to work. He is on the midnight to 8 a.m. shift. is was a lot of stuff to carry out to the car: left-overs, gifts. I carry the Dream House. It is my baby.

My father tells me to put it down, that he will pack it in the trunk. He was the master packer and had a system and if I put it in there instead of him, well, the balance of the Universe will be off kilter.

We back out of Grandma’s driveway and … that sound … of crushing cardboard.

I try to be brave. John-John Kennedy brave, but … My father says he will fix it. He tries Elmer’s glue. Scotch tape. It is futile. And, what makes it even worse, is the next day. Christmas Day, when my cousins come over with their new Dream Houses that Santa brought, and set them up, next to my Barbie Tenement slum.

But, guess what? We make it work. My Dream House is perfect for our scenario with Skid-Row Ken and Crack-Ho Barbie.

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Last Friday I was out walking my black Lab, when . . . Ow!

There was that pain again. The one that I had been ignoring for, oh, the past week? It was in my chest. A sort of tightening. I was sure that it was nothing.

But there it was. Again. And nothing really, really hurt.

I called my doctor. I thought that she would tell me to come in, ask the usual questions, then dismiss it and tell me to take a yoga class.

“You need to get to the ER,” she said.

Okay. But, I had to drive myself. Why? Oh, because I didn’t want to get anyone else involved. Over nothing.

There’s something about chest pains that make people act quickly. Labor pains? Not so much. Within twenty minutes, I was transported via wheel chair by an older-than-dirt-man named Sy, to a curtained room with lots of expensive machines, told to take off all my clothing and given a regulation hospital garment that I could not for the life of me figure out how it snapped or where it tied. I had this funny feeling of being filmed for You Tube.

Then came the peel and stick electrodes. The cables. The hook up. The blood draw. The wait. The watching of my heart rate, my oxygen levels, it was like I was living General Hospital. Geeze! Luke got old!

Finally, a doctor. How old was she? 24? My daughter is 24! She asked me how I felt.

“Not bad,” I said.

“What does that mean? Not bad.”

“Oh . . . it means . . . I’m sitting here in the ER tethered to a machine listening to my bill go up with every ping, beep and boop.”

“I don’t understand.” She was expressionless.

I went into the whole rigamarole, my litany – shortness of breath, chest pain, etc.

“Uh huh. Do you have a history of heart problems?” she asked, without making any eye contact.

“Well, my uncle. He ran 5 miles a day, every day for like 50 years – that’s how he died, running. I think he had a major heart snafu. And my great-grandfather died of a massive heart attack, on the toilet. He got up from the Christmas dinner table and never came back. That’s the way my father tells the tale, anyway.

”She sighed a tired sigh. Was my case that boring?

“Immediate family. Father, mother, sister, brother. Anything?”

“Uh . . . no.”

She clicked her pen and left.

Ellen was on TV. Then Millionaire. Then local news. Then network news. Back to local news. Sienfeld. The curtains parted. She returned.

“You’re going downstairs for a stress test. Did you wear comfortable shoes?”

“I wore clogs.”

She shrugged, “Whatever.”

Dremonte wheeled me to cardio. He parked me in front of an unoccupied desk with a counter top as vast as the Great Plains.

“Good luck,” he said.

Good luck getting seen? Good luck getting out of there? Good luck ever seeing your family again? No one in my family even knew that I was in the ER. My husband was out of town on business. My daughter was traveling. My son was in college and incommunicado. I could have called them, but, why make them worry?

A nurse? A surgeon? A psycho impersonating a nurse or surgeon? One of them appeared and yanked off all the upstairs electrodes, along with a top layer of my skin. The only good news is, my chest isn’t hairy like a man’s.

“We don’t use these. We have our own. And we are very, very, particular about oils and dirt, so we have to make sure that your skin is clean.” She got out a scouring sponge and began to sand off whatever skin I had left and then re-applied their electrodes, but only after rubbing my reddened skin with alcohol, “Oh, this may sting.”

She then asked me if I had ever had a stress test. I hadn’t.

“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen. You will be hooked up to this machine. You will get on the treadmill. You will start out walking. Slowly at first. I will increase the speed and incline every two minutes until we get your resting heart rate of 63 up to 172…..”

“My head will explode!” I said.

“…..at that point, I will count backwards from 10, you will put one foot on the side of the treadmill, turn around, get onto the bed,” (conveniently located near the treadmill), “lay on your left side in the EXACT position that Bernice” (the technician with the four inch finger nails), “put you in earlier. She will then take an ultrasound of your heart. Within 3 seconds. Got it?”

“Wait a sec,” I said. “I have to get off this treadmill while it’s still running, do a double Lutz and land on my left side, left arm up, head resting on left arm, gown open, my back at a 48° angle to the bed within 3 seconds?”

“Yes.”

“In clogs?”

I took a few deep (and painful) breaths. I wondered how out of shape was I? At 52 I had let myself slide. It was only recently, well, since we got our Lab, that I started walking everyday. I was up to 2 miles, and I was curious. Had it done any good?

Dr. Cardio – a black suit coat over his scrubs – waltzed in. “Let’s do this!” he said.

I got on the treadmill.

The machine sped up.

The incline got steeper.

Not bad. I could still talk. Make jokes.

Faster. Steeper. Faster. Steeper. Faster. It felt like I was running up Mt. Everest, without oxygen, a Sherpa and in clogs.

“10 . . . 9 . . . 8–”

Uh oh. What was I supposed to do? Left foot where? Right arm how? This was why I never made it in any high school musicals.

“5 . . . 4 . . 3 . . 2–”

I don’t know how I did it, but I got off the treadmill, did a triple (Dick Button would have been so proud) Lutz, got into the position and boom! Thumpathumpathumpathumpa.

I passed! I felt so invigorated! So validated! Whatever I had done up to this point in my life, I should keep on doing it. The ol’ ticker wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.

Dr. Cardio couldn’t say what was the cause of my chest pain, but whatever it was, it wasn’t going to kill me.

Although, his bill might.

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I was carefree. A recent Empty Nester. I had everything all planned out. Yep. It was going to be the year of Me. And then, I opened my email.

Regarding Mother …

She’s been forgetting things. Asks me the same thing over and over.
This is a problem that may need attention.
Dad.

My father’s 40 plus years as a police officer resulted in his just-the-facts-ma’am writing style.

For him to say anything like this . . . was, well, let me just say, he comes from a family who kept their diseases to themselves until the tumor, dysfunctional gland or whatever it was got to the point of no return – then they went to the hospital. Maybe.

For him to admit that there was a possibility of a problem meant there had to be a problem.

You know what my first thought was? Shit. That’s what. Not as in, “Oh, shit, my poor mother,” but more of an, “Oh, shit, why does this have to happen now?” This was supposed to be my “me” time.

I typed back:
“Okay. Let’s not panic. So she’s forgetting things. Like what kinds of things? She knows who you are, right? She knows where she is? Right? Or is she confused about regular stuff?” >send<

10 seconds. 30 seconds. An eternity. And then, “Yes.”

“Yes” meaning what?

I had just talked to her the day before. She called me – so, she obviously remembered my phone number, that was good. We gossiped about the ladies in her church group – there’s an election coming up and things are getting ugly. She talked about a dinner that she and my father went to and how much fun she had had. I asked her what she wore. The green shirt with the black skirt and her new shoes, which, she said, were very comfortable with the new arch supports that I took her for – a shopping trip that was supposed to take an hour, instead it took all afternoon – 40 pairs of shoes with 40 different systems of inserts later – there will be a place for me in Heaven.

At the very least, she’s a bit dotty. So, what was my dad talking about?

Dad, Let’s not jump to conclusions. Maybe she should see a doctor and get evaluated. >send<

Right. Appointment today. 3 p.m. I’ll let you know.

Good. >send<

I Googled: Dementia, Alzheimer’s symptoms, Is it Alzheimer’s, What is dementia, How to tell if it’s Alzheimer’s, Do You Have Dementia.

Dementia.
Can be caused by a number of different things, Alzheimer’s being one of them, but not always the main thing. Thyroid issues. Alcoholism. Drugs. Brain injury. Strokes. Parkinson’s with Lewy bodies.

Lewy bodies?

I went on and read the symptoms of Dementia: Loss of memory and inability to perform routine tasks - such as losing one’s way in the neighborhood, difficulties in job performance, language problems . . . Hmm. Based on that, I could have dementia.

Dementia can be treated.
Okay. That was good. Maybe all she needed was a few meds, a couple of supplements and bingo! I could get back to my project of re-inventing myself.

There are medical tests. There are medications. Things have come a long way.
Good. Good. Good. All good.

Some causes of dementia can be treated and reversed. Some. Not all. Some.
Sort of . . . not good.

Then I went to the Alzheimer’s pages. It’s the most common form of Dementia. It’s symptom’s cannot be reversed. The symptoms get worse over time.
And in big, bold letters: THERE IS NO CURE.

Please. No. Not that. What would be worse – my mother gradually fading away or seeing my father become an emotional blob. I don’t do emotions – I get embarrassed. I tend to dance around things. I make jokes. I don’t confront, or make any eye contact. I don’t hug. I don’t kiss. I do a lot of waving.

Now what? I’d have to go where I’ve never gone before – the possibility of seeing my John Wayne of a father . . . vulnerable – and that was something I couldn’t handle.

He’s always been the one in control. The one that everyone went to in case of an emergency. He was trained to handle crisis. It came from his police training. I have only seen him cry, once, and that was at his brother’s funeral. He sobbed. Openly. His shoulders shook. He wailed. He was like one of those professional mourners, who cling to the casket of the beloved.

What did I do? I looked at the floor. I looked in my purse. What was I supposed to do? Give him a hug? I couldn’t. But, now, I mean, what if? What if my mother was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s? He would need me. Which brought up another issue – lingering.

I have this dog, a golden retriever that is pushing 13 and has a number of maladies that will, over time – how much time the Vet won’t commit to – lead to death. I kind of have the mindset that, well, if things are only going to get worse, why go through all that? Why not just send him on his way? Couldn’t I do that with my mother? Take her for that last car ride?

No. That would be wrong.

Had I been in denial? Was she having symptoms that I didn’t notice?
A couple of years ago, my sister and I took her to Ireland. Oh. My. God. It was billed as The Trip She Would Never Forget – picture this: An Irish countryside, rolling hills and mist and over there . . . a ruin! An old man rode a wooden cart pulled by an old sway-back horse, the cart filled with peat. My mother grabs my arm. Pulls me close. I’m thinking that she is overwhelmed, speechless. Instead, she whispers in my ear, “I miss my oven.”

At 4 p.m. my phone rang. Would this be the phone call that would turn this day into That Day – the beginning of hospital rooms, adult diapers, tubes, smells.

“Hello?” I said.
“It’s me. Your mother.” She sounded so . . . chipper.
“How are you?”
“Fine. Fine.” This meant nothing. She could be standing in a pool of her own blood and she’d say, “Fine, fine.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Oh, I went to the doctor . . . she asked me all kinds of questions!”
“Questions? What kind of questions?” I knew what kind of questions from my research.
What day? What year? What month? And then there’d be some spelling and probably they would have asked her to draw a clock and put hand at the 10 and 2 positions.
“Oh, like what day is it . . . what season is it . . .”
“And you answered them?”
“Oh sure. It’s Monday . . .”
It was Tuesday.
“. . . and summer.”
It was Autumn. But I gave her the benefit of the doubt because it had just turned, and
the temperature had been 20 degrees above normal for this time of year. So, she got the answers wrong. But she wasn’t that far off.
“So . . . what did the Doctor say?” I asked.
“Oh, that I’m just getting old.”

We chatted some more. She told me about a dinner that she and my father went to . . . she had such a lovely time, she wore her green top with the black skirt and those comfortable shoes I bought her.

Shit.

Write Mel Miskimen lives in Milwaukee. Her book is Cop’s Kid: A Milwaukee Memoir.

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Stand up comedy has been my dream ever since I saw Totie Fields on the recently deceased Merv Griffin Show, and every once in a while I get the crazy idea that I should chase my dream and do an open mic.

Open mics are in bars or nightclubs. They usually start at 10 p.m. – quite a challenge for me, a 52 year old menopausal woman who is usually asleep on the sofa by 9:05. If you need further proof, I have yet to make it through an entire episode of any of the CSIs. On the day of the night, I ingested enough caffeine (coffee, tea, Extra Strength Excedrine) to simulate a cardiac episode.

At 9:30, wild eyed and palpitating, I left my husband in his leather chair with the current James Patterson book, his hand holding a glass of red wine – for his “cholesterol” – and drove to the smoky nightclub full of twenty and thirty-somethings who chain-smoked – apparently D.A.R.E. did nothing for them. I signed the open mic roster. I was fifth in line.

First up? A guy with tattoos and piercings and issues with women and getting laid. And then came another guy – no tattoos, but he still had issues with women and getting laid – the theme was, their need to have it and their lack of getting it. Well, did these guys ever stop and think, “Gee, maybe using ‘bitch’ as a term of endearment doesn’t work.”

They talked about their “dicks,” their “crotch rockets,” and shouted out stuff to the audience like, “Are you feeling me!?” Um . . . no. Thank God. They dropped so many f-bombs, the room was a cuss word Nagasaki.

The audience? It went nuts.

Then, it was my turn. Jason, the host, introduced me this way:
“Hey! Let’s give it up for Mel. She’s really f***ing funny!” Kind of sets the bar too high right off the bat, I thought.

So, I did this hi-larious bit – the same one that I performed a week earlier at a fund raiser for my son’s high school – about what it must have been like for the Virgin Mary to raise Jesus. I mean, come on. Think of it. He’s The Son of God. Talk about a kid with an attitude! She couldn’t use the classic line on Him, “Oh, I suppose you think it’s all about you!” At the high school, I killed!

But this time? Well . . . let’s just say it got so quiet, I could hear the exhaust fan droning in the bathroom down the hallway. I finished to a round of tepid applause. I didn’t even bother to hang around to see if anyone cared to sign me to a limited engagement. Yeah, right.

I went outside. Got in my mini van. Turned the key and drove home. No radio. Just me, my thoughts, and the mantic hum of the defroster. “What the hell?” I told myself – and yes, I always talk to myself. I’ve thought about getting one of those phone things that go into your ear so it looks and sounds like I’m carrying on a very important phone conversation.

“What made me think that I could do stand up? I am a big, fat (and old) loser. I can’t be like them. I can’t swear. If that’s what it takes, then . . . what? The chase is over? Maybe my dream has outrun me. That’s it. I’ve been lapped by frigging, bastard, twenty-somethings.

I pulled into the garage and closed the door. But I didn’t shut off the motor. Not right away. I waited. I thought that life wasn’t worth living if my dream was over, but then I thought . . . wait a minute. Who’s to say my dream is over? Come on! This was just one audience. Full of stupid kids who were weaned on MTV and too many bad casts on Saturday Night Live. They can’t help it.”

I turned the key and took it out of the ignition.

“Screw it. Screw them. I’m going to keep on chasing, running after my dream. For however long it takes. Baby steps. One forward. Two back. Left. Right. Left. Right. Tread softly. Carry a big schtick.

———–

By the way, Mel’s new book is Cop’s Kid: A Milwaukee Memoir. Check it out here.

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