Auto Pilot

True Story:
Last year about this time, I put a pork roast into the washing machine. I had meant to stash it in the freezer. It wasn’t until I had shut the washing machine door, but before I started the cycle, that I realized what I had done…

Yesterday, I was in the shoe shop getting the twins fitted for new shoes when, as I was pulling Tess down from a display case, I touched my hand to my jaw and felt a lump. More like a kernel of corn beneath the skin but on top of the bone. I wasn’t too concerned, but figured that I should get it checked out by my doctor the next day.

So, this morning I called and was able to get in to see her before lunch.

It is Christmastime. People are crazy. I think I may be a touch crazier. I find myself existing solely on auto pilot. As in, I am driving home from the grocery store, not remembering what I bought or most of the shopping experience.

Like many moms at this time of year, I am about twice as busy as normal. And my brain has turned into cotton stuffing. I have the intellectual ware withal of my daughter’s toy rabbit that has been loved so much, that its body is floppy and it’s head is held on by a few strategically placed safety pins and ragged stitching.

Anyway, as I drove to the doctor’s office I noticed that I was only ten minutes late. Excellent. I was turning into the parking lot when a BMW careened in front of me, cut me off and grabbed the last spot in the lot. I was fuming, and would have given him a piece of my mind, had my command of the German language been better. Instead I found a parking spot a block away and walked, cursing the BMW the entire way.

I walked into the doctor’s office. She is a GP, but shares a receptionist with my OB/GYN as well as my four kids’ pediatrician-- I am in that building a lot. The receptionist knows me, handed me my file and told me to go right in to the doctor’s office.

I walked in to her office, took my coat off, sat down and looked at her. She smiled and said, ‘Hello Jenny’. I said, ‘Hello’ and then we just sat there staring at each other. She sort of smiled and said, ‘So…’ and I just continued to stare at her when, very slowly, I began to wonder why I was sitting there staring at her. After a few seconds she said, ‘Why are you here today?’ And I had no idea. None.

I furrowed my brow a bit, as I concentrated as well as I could, and tried to remember why I was sitting in her office.

‘Oh! Yes. I have this lump, well actually it is more like a kernel of corn just beneath my skin…’.

She examined me and told me it was just a lymph nod, nothing to worry about.

I left her office and drove in a daze to the grocery store trying to remember what I had planned to buy to make for dinner that night, when it occurred to me that I should possibly not be driving a car or using heavy machinery during this time of year.