Hyper-chondriac (25 page)

The same day I booked our flights to Florida, I had a StressEraser FedExed. It was a $399 silver rectangle about the size of a deck of cards. Nancy instantly called it the Money-Eraser.

Yes, it may appear that I'm wasting my money. I'm certainly not rich. However, (a) the StressEraser came with a sixty-day money-back guarantee and (b) for me there's no such thing as wasting money if it's going toward my health. Adopting a star in the sky for $54—
that's
wasting money! Buying an expensive bar of soap—
that's
wasting money! Purchasing anything at the Sharper Image except for one of those Touchless Trashcans—
that's
wasting money!

Besides, I'm a minimalist. I don't have a lot of things. When I buy a shirt, I give one to Goodwill. When I buy a pair of sneakers, I get rid of a pair. I have enough clutter in my brain, I don't need it in my house.

My brother is the complete opposite. Mark attaches sentimental value to everything, and not just because he makes a living playing oldies. When my parents moved to Florida, he drove eleven and a half hours from Dayton, Ohio, to Long Island to pick up the shutters from our childhood home. He then made a
second trip
back to pick up the front door to our former residence after craftily negotiating a “fair price” with the new owners of $500, which didn't include the replacement door they demanded.

Mark has a one-car garage in a city that can have some pretty tough winters. Subsequently, one would think that a home owner would keep the car that he
drives to work every day
inside the confines of that lone warm garage stall. But my brother has other priorities. When he graduated from college in the late '70s our grandparents bought him a Toyota Celica as a gift. Although he hasn't been able to start its engine in well over two decades, the Celica sits comfortably in the garage while his functioning car lies in the cold and rusts.

It was while looking for parts for the ancient Celica on eBay that Mark came across a blue 1965 Nova, which happened to be the car my grandparents had driven from Brooklyn to Long Island like clockwork every Saturday morning when we were kids. They would arrive at ten o'clock sharp with toys and a large tub of butter cookies (non-Ayurvedic) that my grandmother had baked. They spoiled the hell out of us. So my brother promptly bid $3,700 on that Nova, then paid a friend another $400 to drive down to Kentucky and back to Dayton to transport it back. But wait. There's more. A week after purchasing
that
Nova, he was back surfing eBay when he came across…
another
blue '65 Nova! But this one had lower miles and was in better shape. So another $4,500 later, he had his fourth car, and his third that will never leave his driveway. And more debt on his menagerie of credit cards. When I questioned him as to why he needs two blue Novas that will get eaten alive by Dayton's winters and that he'll never use, he replied: “It's like Santa's sleigh. I look at that car and I'm eight years old again and Mom's healthy and doesn't have multiple sclerosis…” I know it's convenient and on-the-nose, but he really said that.

 

In the few days after I bought our plane tickets, my father's back had improved and he'd returned home. In the meantime, my mother had been in and out of the hospital again, this time with congestive heart failure. But after she was discharged, she was still unable to get to her commode an arm's length away without a transfer from my father, whose balky back couldn't yet accommodate her weight. Even under these dire circumstances, professional help was out of the question. Because that never worked out. Because my mother doesn't like anybody. And people in the medical field don't like her much, either.

While visiting, I planned to finally tell my mother that I was on Zoloft, hoping I could convince her to try some, too. With any luck she would realize there was nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about. Without luck, she would think I was weak for being “healthy” and relying on pills as a crutch.

The StressEraser would be indispensable.

 

Our trip got off to an auspicious start at airport security. My bags were searched and I didn't travel like a typical passenger. Especially now.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the tubby, armed guy. “What's that jar with the yellow stuff?”

“Ghee.”

“Ghee?”

“It's Indian clarified butter.”

“Why are you traveling with butter, sir?”

“My Ayurvedist made me.”

“Ayurvedist?”

“It's a health thing.”

He picked up my jar of herbs.

“Are these drugs?”

“No. They're herbs. Which are supposed to relax me.” I could have used some then. Our flight was boarding in twenty minutes.

“Is this pot?”

“No!” I said a little too defensively. Why would anyone carry pot around in a big glass jar? “I mix it with my tea in the morning…and after lunch. And that clear jar in your other hand is aloe vera juice.”

“I'm gonna have to ask you to go wait over there while I call my supervisor.”

Bread of Shame! Bread of Shame! This will teach me patience, I thought to myself as Nancy was told to continue toward the gate.

It took me fifteen minutes to explain that my collection of Mason jars had nothing to do with building a nuclear warhead. The pieces started to fall into place for airport security when they questioned my little silver machine.

“Is that the new iPod?”

“No. It's a StressEraser.”

“A
what
?”

“It's supposed to manage stress.”

“How?”

“I have no idea. I'm gonna read the manual on the plane,” I said, more nervous than I should have been. After waving his magic beeping stick across my body several more times and subconsciously realizing that no blond Jews have ever blown up a plane, the supervisor allowed me to catch up to Nancy at the gate.

I sat in my assigned window seat and attacked the manual.

 

The StressEraser would allegedly help to erase stress in three stages:

• Learning to calm your mind
  
• Learning to relax your body
  
• Learning to quiet your emotions
  

And, the StressEraser is intended to be used for:

• Relaxation
  
• Relaxation training
  
• Stress reduction
  

They really knew how to eat up space.

 

It was pretty simple to figure out. Basically, it's a pocket-size video game for breathing. You're supposed to stick an index finger into the StressEraser's sensor, which subsequently monitors pulse rate. Whenever a breath is taken, a square or series of squares appears along the bottom of the screen. A single square or two squares side by side results in zero points; two squares stacked vertically on top of each other add a half point; three squares stacked vertically add a full point—all of which registers in the upper left-hand corner of the device. According to the manual, “If you want to feel emotional relief, it's important to accumulate at least thirty points each session.” Fifty or more points before sleep is also a good idea. Or they even recommend getting 100 points a day over a two-month period. Another good idea? Not buying the StressEraser.

As I breathed deeply with my finger attached to the small overpriced piece of metal, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Excuse me, sir.” It was a middle-aged flight attendant with a red bow on her head.

“Yes?”

“You need to put away all electronic devices.”

“But it's only a StressEraser and we're still on the runway.”

“Please put it away until after takeoff. Or I'll have to confiscate it.”

You'll get my StressEraser when you pry it from my cold, dead hands! I wanted to say.

“Sure. Sorry.”

Once we were in the air, it was pretty simple to figure out the StressEraser and I was pretty disappointed. The gist of it:
Slow down my breathing.
I learned that during the first thirty seconds of my first yoga class. I didn't need to lug around a little silver box packed in way too much Styrofoam to realize it. I contemplated betting the elderly man on my left to see who could get the higher score, but I didn't even want to look at the StressEraser anymore. It disgusted me. Even the manual was filled with nonsense. “A common technique to deal with worry is to take a worry break.” No wonder that, according to page 30 in booklet number 2, “…the FDA has not approved the StressEraser for the treatment of any condition.” Because it's useless. I missed Kenyon.

I knew this trip would be different. First of all, Debbie had warned me how bad things were at home and suggested that Nancy and I stay in a hotel. I had never stayed in a hotel before when visiting my parents, although I had threatened to do so on numerous occasions. They had a decent-sized guest room and, despite the bedlam, there was no reason to Red-Roof-Inn it.

Second, my sister told me that my father would not be picking me up at the airport. When my parents lived on Long Island I was never picked up, since my father feared highway driving and it was nearly impossible to get to JFK via side streets. Now that they lived five minutes from an airport that was accessible by local roads, he was always there to get me. But not this time. He couldn't leave my mother alone for more than ten minutes. For the past few years it had been an hour. Now he was practically tethered to the house. I called the motel and booked a room.

 

DAY ONE

We took a taxi to my parents' house so we could pick up their extra car—which my mother had insisted on having in case of emergency. My father greeted us at the door. He had put on even more weight and now had the stomach of a fat white man and the ass of a fat black woman. His lone remaining joy in life was eating Breyers straight out of the half-gallon container. At this point, the only question was how much weight he would add to his frame in between my visits. I would have definitely lost to him in an ice cream eating contest; it appeared as if he had been training hard.

He was usually in a jovial mood when he had visitors, perhaps because they diluted my mother's presence. But this time there was nothing in his eyes but despair.

“Do you want to see your mother?”

“Sure. If she's ready.”

“Let me go and check.”

Five minutes later, after hearing a lot of bickering behind closed doors, Nancy and I were allowed to enter her bedroom.

My mother's legs were swollen like an elephant's. Debbie had warned us about this. Fluids from her congestive heart failure had traveled into her calves. The next (and final) stop would be her lungs. Despite her mangled body, her skin remained in pristine condition. She still had the face and hands of a thirty-five-year-old, the lone perk from sitting in a dark room for three decades.

“Hello. How was your flight?”

“Fine.”

After a brief respite, she went on the warpath.

“Where is the shit?”

“Huh?”

“Your fa-ther.”

She's calling my father a shit ten seconds after seeing us? Nancy already looked uncomfortable. I simply ignored my mother.

“Look at this!” she ranted, pointing to her water glass, which was three-quarters full. “This is all I have to drink for the entire day!”

“I don't understand. You're only allowed one glass of water a day?”

“No! Your fa-ther ne-ver comes by to re-fill it!”

Bullshit! My mother has a series of plastic buzzers all over her bedroom and bathroom which she presses liberally to summon my dad, who races in each time as if he's a firefighter. I'd be shocked if during any twenty-four-hour period, she didn't see him for an hour. Sometimes she buzzes him in from his bedroom in the middle of the night simply to adjust the temperature a few degrees for her fickle inner thermostat. It's hard to evaluate someone's internal pain, but it couldn't have been much worse than the pain she inflicted on my father.