The new sick bell

[My Attorney] is sick. My daughter is sick. I'm sick. The only one who isn't sick is our family Typhoid Mary, the boy.

In days of yore, people who were confined to bed were allowed a little bell to ring. Some perky, healthy family member would walk dutifully upstairs and change their bedsheets or bring them tea or read quietly from the collected works of Walt Whitman.

In days of yours truly, there is no bell.

There's texting.

As [My Attorney] lay dying upstairs in the sick bed, she would find herself in need of a gatorade or a box of tissues or [insert 17,000 other things here].

Every five minutes: *ting!* [pls snd g-ade]; *ting!* [need tssues]; *ting!* [get the roof done].

Why am I so Awake at 2 am?

Because tomorrow is the day. If you're a parent in Chicago, tomorrow is the day of peace.

Tomorrow, I will send them off with hugs and kicks in the butt and then turn to my desolate house and sing hallelujahs.
I've had these ingrateful cafeeine freaks under my feet for three long months and I am RED DEE FOR THEM TO DISAPPEAR.

Does this make me bad? Does it mean I don't love them?

Derp.

I love them to death. But holy mother of God, if I hear one more bleat regarding TV remote ownership or dog politics I'm going to make the news.

Tomorrow: I will drink coffee and stare into the beautiful pastoral quaint that is my block (I live in the background of a Norman Rockwell painting); I will watch TV all by myself; I'll play an entire song on the oldies station (Bon Jovi? really?) without some arrogant, snobbish, knee-jerk redirect from a 13 year old music geek who's still processing the difficult concept of his pop attending the concerts of the bands he plays on Guitar Hero.