OLD WIVES TALES

 I'm sure if you told anyone over the age of 50 about "Old Wive's Tales" they would look at you like you were speaking a different language.  I grew up on old wives tales.  I would catch a cold and my mother would say it was because I didn't wear a hat. Or if her bones ached she would tell me it was because it was going to rain. (That one is actually true as I am sad to have discovered). The little poem about "Red in the morning, sailor take warning. Red at night, sailors delight" still sticks in my head,

  Old wives tales are steeped in superstition. "Don't walk under a ladder or you will have bad luck", "See a penny, pick it up and all the day you'll have good luck", "An apple a day keeps the doctor away". There's a million of these little bits of wisdom that stick in my head but today the one about, "Never put your shoes on the furniture or you will have bad luck" jumped out at me. 

The Man and I have spent the past 2 days at a hospital an hour from here.  The man was feeling terrible for days and was finally told by the local dr. to go to this particular hospital's ER because they have a pulmonologist on staff there.  And so we drove an hour south to Aurora Medical Center/ Bay Area in Marionette, WI. (Yes, we had to go to another state to find a lung doctor.) Of course The Man was admitted.  (We had anticipated this so we brought suitcases with us. We travel no where without the need of a sherpa. Our medications alone need a pack horse and then the bathroom supplies and sleep machines need a mule. Good thing The Man bought a van!) We spent 2 days in the most AMAZING hospital I have ever been.  Super modern, SUPER super efficient and not crowded. We arrived at the ER at 11:00 AM and were in his room by 12:15. The room was super spacious with a little sitting area of 2 seats with a small table between them that folded down into a semi comfortable bed with a curtain that I could pull across for privacy. (It did not keep out the noise of the continuous flow of nurses checking on The Man throughout the night so I didn't get much sleep.  The Man slept through it all!). Two doctors were in to see the patient and spent a good amount of time talking with us. If you called the nurses they were there within a minute. It really was a GREAT hospital.  It was quickly determined that The Man's issues stemmed from his coming off years of steroids. Even though it was done over a span of two months his body did NOT like being deprived of Prednisone and so he is now back on this medication and feeling WONDERFUL !!! Unfortunately I am exhausted.

And so this morning, after my sleeping almost 12 hours last night but still feeling like I've been run over by an eighteen wheeler, I dragged my aching bones, (maybe its going to rain?) out of bed and into the kitchen where I found Mr Happy all chipper and full of energy. It took all my strength to keep from telling The Man to shut up and let me wake up slowly. As I sat listening to all he was planning on doing today all I could think about was going back to bed.  He FINALLY stopped talking long enough for me to make a break for it, (green light) so I could go pee and splash some water on my face.  When I returned to the kitchen he was gone so I headed to the bedroom to find some clothes to wear for the day since it did not look like I was getting back into bed for quite some time. This is when I saw it . . .  The Man was standing at the end of the unmade bed, (the bed that I had just recently vacated. ) I had thrown back the top sheet and opened the windows to air out the bed and The Man had come into the bedroom, thrown his suitcase up on the covers AND put his SHOES ON THE SHEETS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now I am sorry but THAT is a NO NO in my world.  You do NOT put SHOES on bed sheets. You do NOT PUT SHOES ANYWHERE  other than the FLOOR. Dear God in Heaven !!!! Who does not know this ?????????????  Was he raised in a barn ?????? (Well, maybe.). Shoes on a bed, even on the made bed, is DISGUSTING !!!  Do you know what kind of shit is on your shoes ??  LITERALLY !!!!!!!!

Given the old wives tale that if you put your shoes on furniture, (ie A BED),  you will have bad luck I felt I was fully within my rights to kill the man right then and there but I restrained myself.  I DID take his shoes and "throw" them on the floor while saying, in my stern "mommy" voice,  "NEVER EVER put shoes on the bed, no less on the sheets!"  I took EVERYTHING off the bed, quickly pulled up the comforter and returned his suitcase and clothes, but NOT the shoes, onto the bed so he could finish what ever he was doing. 

Thankfully a blood bath avoided because I remembered another age old saying that my mother taught me,

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE, POSSESS IT IF YOU CAN.                                                                           SELDOM IN A WOMAN BUT NEVER IN A MAN !!!!