The Ice Bucket Challenge

One of my dearest friends said not too long ago:

If I drop dead tomorrow I do not want the coroner to find carrot sticks and yogurt in my stomach—I want him to find chocolate cake.

It seemed last week that every other posting on my Facebook newsfeed had a video of a friend or famous person pouring a bucket of ice and water over their head.

It was a challenge—to raise both awareness and funding to cure the disease ALS.

The campaign was ingenious—a brilliant use of social media. The challenge itself required no special skills and the materials to complete the challenge were ubiquitous.

And I suppose the underlying message was that while the challenge-ee experienced momentary discomfort, victims of ALS faced extreme physical discomfort on a daily basis.

 One should be grateful not to have a debilitating disease.

But I would be lying if in watching all those people pour ice and water over their heads there was not a teeny tiny voice whispering  from the back of my head which said Please God I hope no one nominates me.

I really don’t want to douse myself---even for a good cause.

Which is when I came to the conclusion that if I were in charge I would initiate a different kind of challenge: The Chocolate Cake Challenge. I would like to see people eating a nice piece of frosted devil’s food cake on camera because who wouldn’t like to eat a piece of chocolate cake “for charity”? Who wouldn’t want a noble excuse for a decadent task? Betty Crocker and Duncan Hines might even subsidize it—or donate a portion of the profit from the increased sales. Even Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and Nutrisystem would have no option but to endorse it.

And the underlying message would be that the experienced pleasure in eating chocolate cake is cause for gratefulness—gratefulness that one is healthy enough to taste and swallow—that life is sweet yet fleeting---and there is glory in the things we take for granted.

I think I just might be on to something.

Marie Antoinette might finally be vindicated for proclaiming Let them eat cake.

And it is from my dearest friend who laughingly wishes a coroner to find chocolate cake in her stomach after her demise that I have learned that moments are momentary—and the only certainty is uncertainty. She wears a bracelet that reads it is what it is. For she lives with challenges of her own—and inspires me to tabulate even the most inconsequential blessing and to shoo away any discomfort that rings my bell for a sojourn visitation.

On Healthcare

“So…have you been particularly stressed or depressed lately?”

It’s the one question that has the potential to set me into a mouth-frothing blood spurting homicidal rage.

Because the intended meaning of the physician’s inquiry is absolutely positively doctorspeak for: Are you sure you are not just making these symptoms up just to get attention?  Are you sure you do not suffer from auto-Munchausen disorder or from bored housewife hypochondria?

The healthcare provider is deflecting blame.

What really is going on here is that the physician either can’t be bothered or is not sharp-minded enough to explore inches beyond a self-serving compartmentalized parochial scope of knowledge.

For all their ego bound intellect, many physicians are mere medical automatons—no more special than an assembly line worker at General Motors.

Thinking is not a requirement in their job description.

The added insult is that by asking the aforementioned question physicians trivialize those who actually do suffer from anxiety and depression—as if anxiety and depression is an illness patients wish for---as if those who are anxiety –filled and/or depressed waved their arms in the air and said Pick me!! Pick me!! when the disease Gods  issued out maladies.

The bottom line is: Unengaged dismissive physicians are nothing that either the democrats or republicans can cure with some legislation.

It’s the lack of health care by health care providers that peeves me—not so much the system itself—even with its own  distinctive flaws.

And despite having all these cogent thoughts surge through my neurons whenever the Are you stressed or depressed question is asked—I never reveal them.

To do so would be self-defeating.

The unengaged dismissive physician will simply check the box that says stressed and depressed if I permit my diatribe to escape—which would be an incorrect diagnosis.

And so I have no resource but to smile, put a muzzle on the sarcasm and say “no—not at all ”--and seek out the rare skilled health care provider who welcomes the opportunity to exercise their brain.

Gaps are Good

My friend Donna came to work one morning and said Ugh it was so embarrassing!

I said Why? What happened now?

She said I was with my mother in the produce aisle at Waldbaums when a 16 year old stockboy who was in the middle of arranging peaches into a pyramid smiled at her and said: Hi--how ya doing?

But instead of answering the young man with the expected answer of Fine thank you; Donna’s mother instead replied with: Just terrible. Last month my husband had a bad cough from a cold and the doctor put him in the hospital. They did some tests but he died 3 days later from complications from lung cancer of all things. And now I am left alone in a big house with all this financial responsibility and…..

It was at this point that Donna pulled her mother away from the poor shell shocked boy and said Mom—Stop!--he doesn’t care.

Flash forward.

I am standing at a wake next to one of my dearest friends when a second removed acquaintance taps her  on the shoulder and inquires How’s your Mom doing?

Without skipping a beat my friend said Fine--thank you for asking.

The second-removed acquaintance added I haven’t seen your Mom in a long time—please send her my regards.

My friend smiled and responded I will.

My friend was not lying. Her mother was fine within the context of recent events. Events—that were of no concern or business of the second-removed acquaintance.

Because there is a firm line between polite conversation and genuine interest. One must always consider the length of the connector before plugging in. Too little information is always  better than too much. Erring  on the side of edited response is always the more benign option.

Gaps are good.

Because as songwriter Jackson Browne correctly observes in a 1974 lyric: Maybe people only ask you how you are doing because it is easier than letting on how little they could care.