Letters to the Editor
Argiri
Published Letters: 30 Editor's Choice: 5
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That kid riles me...
[Read the article: Mom's a pothead]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As someone with horrendous back pain myself, if I knew of anything that would turn it down by even 50% without making a zombie of me, something I could obtain in a reasonably convenient way and afford, I'd be using that something. Any self-righteous, mouthy adolescent who got in my way about it would very soon find himself regretting his choices, possibly from boarding school on the opposite coast. Or maybe he'd be perfectly content in a distant boarding school, where he wouldn't be exposed to Mom's habit and could pontificate to his heart's content.
As a person with a recalcitrant chronic pain problem, my sympathy for this kid is right down there between slim and none. If I were his "aunt," I'd tell him to use the next time he gets a bad sprain as a learning experience: he should imagine what it would be like to have that pain day in and day out, year in and year out, and to regard a night of decent sleep as a piece of golden good luck. Also, Auntie should remind him of the likely consequences of ratting Mom out to the police: probably being put into a foster home, where no one will give a flip about any of his fine opinions, and he will get to spend his extra energy fighting off the sexual advances of some older, stronger foster boy.
Unfortunately, I don't know of anything that helps back pain without making a zombie of me except exercise, and that only to a modest extent and not always. The one time I smoked pot, all it did to me was make me sleepy. But that's not true for everyone. It makes some people feel a lot better. That lady may have chosen it for that reason over the "legitimate options," narcotics and muscle relaxants, which are intensely sedating for some people. And that kid hasn't seen a zombie until he's seen someone strung out on Vicodin and Flexaril. Let him count his blessings, button his lip, and mind his business.
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Dear LW, don't worry...
[Read the article: Are men spoiled rotten?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Those fifty-year-old new fathers will get theirs in the form of hellish, intransigent toddlers long after they have the energy to chase and discipline the creatures. Lack of sleep will destroy what's left, at that point, of their sexual prowess. Their trophy wives will perceive that their needs are going unfulfilled, strip the silver-haired guys who are failing to fulfill those needs bare in the divorce settlement and subsequent child support arrangements, and then marry men nearer their age, with a cozy financial cushion to facilitate the new arrangements.
I got some intimation of this scenario, seeing a friend in her mid-forties coping with a three-year-old, who was busy honing his tantrum-throwing skills and achieving impressive results. I've never seen a woman look more whipped than she did - and she really wanted and truly loved the kid.
People who are forty and above are not made for the rigors of coping with kids who are already mobile and verbal but not yet rational. These adults need to give being rational a good hard try and tell themselves they don't need to have it all; they may not be able to handle it all if they get it. When it takes the form of becoming a parent on the normal timetable for becoming a grandparent, this is likely. It is an out-of-sync arrangement, and those guys will pay dearly for letting themselves in for it.
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Guilty!
[Read the article: There's a cougher in the office and it's driving me mad!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm afraid I heard myself here! Some people have ticklish throats, and after having a bronchial infection or an exposure to something highly allergenic or a change of allergenic environment (moving from one region where they're used to the pollens to another, where they're not), they cough and cough and cough and cough and cough. I once stayed for a few days in a hotel with a major mold problem (not my choice, the choice of my cheap boss) and coughed just about unceasingly while I was there, and much of the time for two months afterward. The only good part about it was that I gave more-than-fair turnabout to the people having the sex party in the next-door room. Ordinarily I would have been cursing them for keeping me awake. What with all the mold in the godforsaken place's walls, when they had worn themselves out, I kept them awake.
I realize how annoying an unceasing cough is. It annoys the cougher too. However, anything that's strong enough to turn off the cough is also strong enough to send me to sleep and keep me grogged out for hours after I wake up. The only thing I've ever known that turned off a really well-activated cough without causing somnolence was a Japanese pill called Coffgone that was briefly available in the States in 1994. I bought up all that I could and went through my supply.
Surely you see the cougher's quandary: stay out of work, get fired, go bankrupt. One does not go on disability for a cough. I'm afraid the options are headphones and the most charitable attitude you can muster. A cough as perseverant as this person has is not neurotic, it is probably the result of a fierce and more or less constant allergic itch.