Michael D. Davis

Alright, so if you’ve had as many health problems as I’ve had in my life, there’s something you have to deal with. The out of town doctor’s appointment. My family has learned to make a day out of it, ya go out to lunch, Goodwill, maybe a few other shops, then back home.

It’s a pros and cons thing, because yes, you may have spent 45 minutes getting your head scanned with weird noises bangin’ and boomin’ in your ears, but hey, ya found a Shirley Jackson book and a Phantasm 2 DVD at the Goodwill. It equals out.

Last Tuesday, we had to schlep over to Cedar Rapids for some weird ear test on my Ma. First con, my sister drove. When we got to town she tried parking at a doctor’s office across the street from the one we were supposed to be at, in a lot marked faculty parking only.

When we did finally get to the right place, I found a fat guy chair in the waiting room and took out a book. My sister gravitated over to a coffee maker in the corner and put on a show. I never knew how much went into making one of those little pod coffees, but she was pushing buttons, getting stuff out of a cabinet, and I think at one point she beaker over a Bunsen burner.

When she was finished she walked over to where me and ma sat, slowly blowing on her concoction while she stirred it. It was an amazing thing to witness.

An hour or so passed as we waited for Ma to get out of her appointment. When she did, and we were ready to go to our next stop, I mentioned I desperately had to use the facilities but was weirded out about going in the doctor’s office.

My sister pointed to the small bathroom and said, “No, ones in there, just go.” With my bladder bursting at the seams, I relented. I went over opened the door, and was greeted by a hunched old man in a ball cap washing his hands.

I don’t know who was more freaked out about the situation, me or the old guy. I held the door for him, he walked out, and I did my thing. When I rejoined the group, I informed my sister that she was wrong there had been someone in the bathroom.

It was at this point that my Ma figured out what happened and said to me something along the lines of, “Hey, Stupid, how would she know if there’s anyone in the bathroom? You just took her word for it?” My sister has held this over my head ever since, calling me gullible.

Next, we were driving’, and we came to one of those right turns at an intersection, where you can just yield then go, skipping the traffic lights. It was right next to Long John Silvers. Now, my sister’s driving, my Ma is up front in the passenger’s seat, and I’m in the back on the driver’s side.

We get to this turn, and my sister doesn’t yield. In the back, I’m on the side of the intersection, and I see a Cedar Rapids cop car getting closer and closer. I grab a hold of the handle on the door and scream. My Ma does the same, for a different reason.

Then it happened. Apparently, as I was watching the cop inch closer to us, my Ma, with a different view up front, saw the curb coming. We both screamed at the same time for different reasons. My sister, strangely, didn’t react. We hit the curb hard, kind of bounced a wheel up into the grass, then bounced down into our lane, narrowly avoiding the cop car.

Me and Ma were gasping, waiting for our heart rates to descend and for our lives to stop flashing before our eyes. My sister simply said, “Calm down. No one died, It’s fine.”

Our next stop after our near-death experience was the Goodwill. We searched, we found, we filled a cart.

My Ma found a nice little shelf cabinet thing that opened up, perfect for storage. She showed it to my sister who also thought it was great. Ma then asked my sister, “Do you think it will fit in the trunk?”

My sister got an odd look upon her face, and said, “Well…” You see, my sister runs her church’s Easter egg hunt every year, and every year when the eggs go on sale she loads up on new eggs for the future.

This was the last day in April and her trunk was still filled with eggs. She hadn’t dropped them off at the church yet, which just happens to be across the street from our house. What really puts the nail in the coffin is this was the second time she had been out of town with my Ma, her trunk filled with plastic picturesque hollow versions of a chicken’s clutch.

I don’t know how to add up the pros and cons of last Tuesday. On one hand, I got a book of ghost stories illustrated by Will Eisner, on the other hand, my sister nearly killed us all. I guess I’ll call it even.