Thoughtful Cruelty

Pam: I’m having a moral dilemma regarding my mother-in-law. I can’t decide if I’m being kind or being cruel.

Ann: Only you would be struggling between two such extremes. Most people know pretty instinctively if they’re doing the right thing or not.

Pam: Not everything’s so cut and dried. I actually ran this one past my book group last night and they had strong opinions on both sides.

Ann: Okay. I’m sure you’d guess which side I’d come down on in any debate. But give it to me anyway.

Pam: No, I really can’t begin to guess what you’d say on this one. Here’s the deal. You know my mother-in-law is elderly, totally blind, and speaks no English at all. Needless to say, it fairly limits what we can do together.

Ann: I remember meeting her at Ross’ graduation party. We couldn’t really talk or communicate but she seemed very sweet.

Pam: She is! I love her to death but sometimes I don’t know what to do with her when she visits. She’s real sensitive about not wanting to be a burden. She hates the thought of adding to anyone’s workload. In fact, she really wants to help.

Ann: So let her help.

Pam: I do. Usually on the first day or so she cooks up a storm. But needless to say it requires constant assistance with finding things in the unfamiliar kitchen, and reading and translating the labels on cans and packages to her. Someone has to be at her side continuously and that’s tough to do.

Ann: Yeah, it’d be hard to justify staying home from work all day just to help your mother-in-law cook dinner. Couldn’t the kids pitch in?

Pam: They do and they’re great when they’re around. But they have busy lives too. I really shouldn’t complain. She just wants to relieve me of work. But in reality she just causes more.

Ann: I hate to put it this way, but it’s kind of like having a two year old following you around the house wanting to “help” you clean.

Pam: That’s it exactly! I appreciate her intentions but I can do everything a lot faster just doing it myself. But I did find something she can help with that doesn’t require much of me. That’s where my dilemma comes in.

Ann: Tell me you didn't send her up a ladder cleaning the second story exterior windows?

Pam: Very funny! No, she’s actually pretty good at folding laundry. She sits on the couch and can carefully feel her way. First she figures out if it’s a shirt or shorts or whatever. Then she feels for seams to turn it right side out. And then feels how big it is to tell whose pile it goes into. She’s remarkable really.

Ann: Great. So you found something she can do to help without requiring a lot of your time. How’s that a dilemma?

Pam: Well, we only have so much laundry. Bret and I dry clean most of our stuff and the kids wash their own work uniforms. So I gave her a load of towels that had just finished up in the dryer and she was so happy to help.

Ann: So far so good…

Pam: So thirty minutes later when she very excitedly asked for the next load, I did what I’m not sure is kind or cruel….I took the clean towels she had just finished folding, tumbled them in the dryer until they were warm, and then gave them back to her to fold again.

Ann: Are you serious? Couldn’t she tell?

Pam: Could you tell one towel from another folding them blindfolded?

Ann: I guess not…but you’re right. I can see where that’s sort of a mean thing to do, but if it made her happy to help, maybe not.

Pam: See what I mean?

Ann: She must have thought you guys use an awful lot of towels.

Pam: She mentioned that and I told her it was the kids and their friends going swimming everyday. So, truth, am I a terrible person?

Ann: Based on this? Probably not… Now based on other stuff, that’s a different question!

Readers - We'd love to know what you think about this. Please send us your comments. -Pam and Ann

Beelieve It Or Not

Ann: You’ll never believe what happened to me today.

Pam: Now what?

Ann: I guess I should stop opening a conversation that way. Nothing I say shocks you any more.

Pam: It doesn’t seem to stop you from trying.

Ann: Hey, these things aren’t my idea. You know that saying? Something about having greatness thrust upon you?

Pam: Yeah.

Ann: Well, I have freakishness thrust upon me. It’s not like I seek out these crazy things.

Pam: Oh, I don’t know. I thought only opposites attract. So what was it this time?

Ann: I was out running some errands when Hannah called to tell me there was a bee in the house. You know she’s not one to overreact but I could tell she wasn’t likin’ the idea of sharing the house with a flying, stinging insect.

Pam: Who could blame her? So wha’d ya do?

Ann: I told her to go to her room and close the door and I would take care of it as soon as I got home. I cut my errands short and went home. Luckily, I keep wasp and hornet spray in the garage so I armed myself and walked in the house.

Pam: How brave of you. Did you find the bee?

Ann: Yeah, I did. But it was already dead, lying in the middle of the floor so I grabbed the vacuum and sucked it up. I called to Hannah that all was safe when all of a sudden, I heard a buzzing sound. I looked up in the skylight and there was the bee.

Pam: The one you sucked into the vacuum? How’d that happen?

Ann: A couple of years ago, Troy vacuumed a screw and put a big hole in the hose. Ever since then, half of what I vacuum shoots out the back.

Pam: The bee was playing opossum? He shot out the back of the vacuum? How creative.

Ann: That’s not the word that came to mind at the time. It was so weird. So I yelled to Hannah not to come out yet, I got the spray and killed the bee. This time I made certain he was meeting his maker before I sucked him up.

Pam: So all’s well that ends well.

Ann: Not so fast, Shakespeare. I had just given Hannah the all-clear when, are you ready for this, I heard buzzing! AGAIN!

Pam: You’re kidding. The bee still wasn’t dead? First a opossum and then a cat with nine lives? That’s one crafty bee.

Ann: I was baffled. I looked up in the skylight and there was that darn bee. And then I saw his twin… and his triplet… and his... Well, you get the idea. There were at least five bees buzzing around the skylight.

Pam: Oh my gosh! Where did they come from?

Ann: I have no idea. But even worse, I have no idea how to get rid of them. Any suggestions?

Pam: Have you considered training them? You’ve heard of a flea circus. You could have the world’s first BEE circus.

Ann: Ah, a bizzzzzness opportunity. I like it.

Lost and Profound

Pam: As the name suggests, what we offer here is basically riffs from the rift. For nearly two decades as best friends…

Ann: We prefer the term “accomplices”…

Pam: …that’s true! For a long time we’ve been solving the dilemmas of the world as we see it. Unfortunately for the rest of you, that world has very little statistical correlation to reality.

Ann: What did you used to have printed on the binder where you collected your thoughts…that journal you kept?

Pam: Oh yeah…T.W.I.S.T.E.D. It stood for “The Way I See Things Every Day”…I’d forgotten about that.

Ann: So which one of us is lost and which is profound?

Pam: I thought it meant we’re both just “deeply” confused…pun intended. But I’d say we take turns. At any given time one of us is in our right mind and the other is teetering on the edge. So we take turns talking each other down off the ledge.

Ann: Suffice it to say we are two bright women who are now or at some point have been: a mother & a daughter, a wife & an ex-wife, an employee & a boss, educated & clueless, hopeful & desperate, skinny & fat, endearing & annoying,…

Pam: You get it…we’re Lost & Profound.