Sweating Must Be Good For Something

It's a huge production getting my mother out of the house and into the car. First, we have to keep yelling at the dog and telling her to "stay" to make sure she doesn't run out the door. Next, my father has to walk behind my mom and guide her through the house, out into the garage and to the car door, as if she doesn't know where it is. If she goes too slow, he'll give her a little push to get her going faster.  When he is pushing her wheelchair, he bumps into the walls and goes too fast as she holds on for dear life. He's got even less patience than I do. I try to close the laundry room door before opening the garage door because then Kita won't be able to run out the garage door and eventually run out the big garage door wandering into the street.

This morning, the lady who comes to clean the house, opened the door wide, letting Kita run out, after I just specifically told her why I keep that door closed. Kita was running around my father's car as we were all shouting for her to come to us. She of course, has a mind of her own and was trying to get in the car with me and I grabbed her and returned her to the cleaning lady, and she went back in the house. I wanted to scold the cleaning lady, not Kita. 

At this point, my father is shoving my mother's legs into the car as my mother is practically laying down in the seat. She has a difficult time sitting up so she kind of leans back and her legs are slanted sideways because they hurt too much to straighten up. This is the ritual every time my mom comes with me in the car.  My dad then says, every single time, to "wait until I get out of the way before backing up," as if I was too dumb not to know that already.  He has to walk around the vehicle to get back in the house and after he yells that, he still makes hand gestures, just in case I didn't understand English.  He's also telling me at this point to close the garage door, which I always do, but he feels necessary to tell me every single time I drive out of the garage. 

Now if I have to take her out of the car where we are going, like the doctor's office, it becomes an even greater ordeal.  I have to schlep the wheelchair from the back of the car, unfold it and lock it in place by the side door. She, very slowly, slides out of her seat, hanging on to the seatbelt because there is nothing else to hang on to in the car and I help her get her legs out first, then she carefully sits down while holding onto the sides of the wheelchair. I am sure to get all of our papers and paraphernalia that we have to take with us and lock the car.  We then proceed to the doctor's office in 95 degree humidity as sweat pours down my face onto my neck. When we finally reach the doctor's office, they check her in and look at me as if I'm a Martian, with sweat pouring from my head, into my face and neck.  I look like I just got out of the shower.   Before I have a chance to catch my breath, we are called by the nurse and walk the long walk to one of the rooms.  Again, the nurse looks at me rather oddly like I have a sword sticking out of my head and I try to ignore it as I wipe more sweat from my brow.  When the doctor finally does come into the room he also looks at me with interest for a moment, then focuses on my mother and not on my sweat.  After all is said and done, we have to go back downstairs and out to the car to do the procedure we just did, in reverse.   By the time I have to lift and throw the wheelchair into the car, I’m near death and I barely make it into the driver’s seat, sweating and wheezing and turning the air conditioning on “extreme high.”  It always takes me several minutes to just sit there to gain my composure, even though the sweating doesn’t stop for a long time afterward.  You’d think I’d be a twig at this rate, but alas, I am more like a really wide trunk.

I was hoping that sweat was good for something, but I really don't know what.  I mean, I could let it drip into a container and sell it for pete's sake, if there was some value in it, but that's nonsense.  What is really nonsense is that my whole head, hair and all, is soaking wet after an afternoon like this but I still have to wash my hair on Saturday nights.  It's not fair, I tell you.  I don't lose weight from it and I still have to wash my hair once a week.  Ah, but I've been told life isn't fair and I see that the older and older I get...