My problem doesn’t even have a name, but it’s driving me crazy.
It’s the way a pain, or an appliance, or a noise in your car can drive you batty until you finally get to the one person who can fix it. Then it disappears without a trace.
It began with the car, which had started making a grinding noise when I braked. I took it to the garage. “Nothing wrong,” the mechanic informed me.
“But that noise – it sounds serious! Did you check the brakes? The transmission?”
“We checked everything, and couldn’t find any “grinding noise.” There were some hoses loose, and we changed the oil … Oh, and you’re going to need a new windshield if that crack gets any worse.”
I was so frustrated, I hardly noticed the noise coming back on the drive home.
Besides, when I got home, there was another problem: the toilet was in one of its moods again.
Anytime it was supposed to flush, the odds were 50-50 that it actually would…but whenever the plumber came to fix it, it worked like a charm.
The last time, he had taken the whole thing up off the floor and snaked his grimy rag through it from one end to the other. “Clean as a whistle,” he pronounced it (making me glad for the first time in my life that I can’t whistle). And yet sure enough, no sooner was he back in his truck than the thing refused to work once again. Short of asking him over every day after breakfast, I was out of ideas.
Amidst all this frustration with machines, it was almost a relief to have a mere medical symptom. I seemed to have developed an allergy – but to what, I couldn’t tell.
All I knew was I had little red spots all up and down my arms and legs. Then they started getting bigger. Then they joined up into big red welts. When they started attacking my face, I called the doctor.
The soonest he could work me into his schedule was the end of the week.
“He’s very busy,” his receptionist informed me. “ It’s allergy season, you know.”
Every day and night of that week, I went wild with itching, while the welts grew so ugly, I was reluctant to be seen out of doors. Only the prospect of my appointment kept me sane.
At last, the day of the appointment dawned … and all the spots were gone. Every single one! You couldn’t even tell where they had been.
You’d think I’d be grateful, but I was worried.
Should I keep the appointment? What would I show the doctor? But I had begged for this appointment, and confirmed it just the day before. So I went.
It felt like I was conducting a tour of the lost continent of Atlantis. “There was a big red patch here, Doctor, you gotta believe me, and here, and here, and you wouldn’t believe the size of the one here….”
I’m still rankled over that miracle cure – the miracle where I healed myself and still had to pay $350 bucks. But the crowning blow was the spots coming back as I pulled out of the lot.
At least the day wasn’t a total loss. The grinding noise had returned, as well. So I kept on going, to the mechanic’s garage.
“So – that noise came back?” he asked.
“Yes, till I got here, but never mind that now. Would you take a look at this arm?” I stuck it out the window at him. “There is something wrong with it, isn’t there? I’m not making this up?”
“Whoa!” he said. “That’s a nasty case of hives you got there. Have you been eating peanut butter?”
“How did you know?”
“That’s how my son gets them. Now we have to give him gourmet meals for lunch.”
I almost kissed the man as I started to write out a check. “But I haven’t fixed anything yet,” he protested.
“Oh, yes you have!” I replied.
Now at last, I’ve figured it out.
You call in the specialist if what you want is temporary relief. But to cure your problem, you’ve got to take it by surprise.
So: I’ll take the car to the plumber, and save the mechanic for the next time I get hives.
If only I can get the doctor to come look at the toilet, I’ve got it made!
