Plucky Letters to US soldiers in Iraq

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Dear Army Guys,

My thirteen year-old son is suddenly a fan of the ancient heavy metal rock band known as “Iron Maiden.” Just last year he was into that adorably cute child singer, Nick Carter. How, you might well ask, does a charmingly innocent boy like Dylan become the type of person who makes devil signs with his hands while banging his head to the musical stylings of “Number of the Beast?”

Like most of the imponderables in our lives, it’s my husband’s fault. Rudy took Dylan to an all-day music thing called “Ozz Fest” at Chicago’s Tweeter Center last Saturday. The thing lasted all day and all night. Only the early morning hours were not included. Rudy and Dylan left our house at 7 AM and did not return until 11:30 PM. Lucky me, I got to stay home and worry the entire time.

Needless to say, I was a wreck. I should have been institutionalized for the day, like a family pet left in the care of professional handlers at a shelter or kennel. I should have been boarded, tranquilized, maybe put into a spacious run and allowed to mingle with my own kind. Instead, the two of them blithely went off into the morning and left me to my own devices, as if they had not a care in the world. As if I actually have devices.

My husband, Rudy the Notorious Tailgater, was driving my precious baby to CHICAGO of all places, on the HIGHWAY no less, and I, a terrible mother who should be reported to Family Services, had, in a moment of great weakness, given permission for this travesty, this refutation of safety and sanity. My god, the child is little more than a BABY, a virtually helpless yet precious human being for whom I am responsible in every way, including not letting him go to Chicago with people- like Rudy- who do dangerous things like driving on highways without me there to give traffic warnings and my very important “here’s how you’re not driving right” advice.

Five minutes after I kissed them goodbye I began to worry that Dylan would not be properly strapped into his seat belt and/or that the airbags in the car would not function as advertised when the horrific car accident I was certain they would get into on the highway occurred, which could be any minute now. Then I began to worry that Dylan might forget all the “stranger danger” warnings I’ve given him over the years and that Rudy would forget Dylan was there and wander off and leave Dylan to fend for himself, alone, a mere babe in the woods. (Or, in this case, a mere babe in the Tweeter Center.)

Twenty minutes after they left the house I started calling Rudy’s cell phone, only to find that he wasn’t answering his phone because he couldn’t hear it ring for some unexplained reason, which I already knew since I had tried calling him the day before, but had forgotten to bring to his attention before they left. After an hour of calling every five minutes, I finally gave up and began mentally planning their funerals. (Dylan’s would be really nice and include all sorts of sentimental pageantry. Rudy would be cheaply cremated and stored temporarily in our unkempt garage until garbage day.)

At around 11:00 AM they finally called me back. They were both fine and sounded like they were having fun, so I pretended to be a normal person and said something incredibly foolish like, “I’m glad you’re having a good time!” I hung up and realized I must have been out of my mind.

I should have told them to rush home immediately because there might be something wrong with me and if they came home right then they would avoid the dangerous night-time highway traffic that was almost sure to kill them both and leave me a broken-hearted widow with a dead kid. Who knows what dangers lurk on the night-time highways for worried mothers left alone during Ozz Fest concerts? Surely nothing good. There seemed no possible way they could survive the day; it was almost unimaginable. “Nobody gets out alive.” Those rock band people actually say such things and I have heard them loud and clear. I believe them; I know they never lie.

And maybe I have emergency tuberculosis or acute thrombosis or something really good like that. What if I fell down the stairs or got my hand stuck in the garbage disposal? What if I accidentally stuck my tongue into an electrical outlet or caught myself on fire in a bizarre muffin baking accident? What if I showed certain signs of imminent myocardial infarction? What if my head unexpectedly fell off or my arms and legs became suddenly useless due to some sort of rapidly advancing syndrome named after a famous baseball player? What if I came down with a case of Ebola and bled out all over the expensive ceramic tile? Try cleaning THAT gunk out of the grout.

Instead of dying of a dread disease, which would have been both wondrously dramatic and perfectly guilt inducing, I spent the day worrying about all the many things that could go terribly wrong at a thing called, for cripes sake, “Ozz Fest.” By mid-afternoon I felt like an orphan. Obviously I would never see them again and would spend the rest of my life in bitter solitude. I paced the floors. I looked out the windows. I made the McCauley Culkin “Home Alone” face in the foyer mirror and cracked myself up. I made the “Home Alone” face at Mama Cat and she gave me one of those disgusted cat looks that means, “You are so profoundly retarded.”

They called me again in the late afternoon and I was able to remind Rudy that Dylan would need something nutritious to eat. They claimed to have eaten twice already, but I was not fooled. I’ll bet Dylan was starving half to death and was just too stoic to tell me how desperately he missed my hearty potato-sausage casseroles and tasty one-dish tomato-spinach-cheese recipes. They said they had eaten hot dogs and fries; I’m sure Dylan was practically starving, despite the cheery front he put on to reassure me not to worry about the obvious malnutrition he must have been suffering. He was probably a walking skeleton by the time they called.

He was motherless, lost, inconsolable and hungry. He said, “This is SO COOL, Mom!” which obviously meant something really bad and awful was happening to him, something dreadful that was all my fault. I asked him again about food and he shrugged me off, said something about the hot dogs and French fries. He had no idea he was malnourished and in need of bags of rice and flour provided by international non-governmental organizations, that’s how far gone he must have been.

By 10:30 PM I had given up calling them every hour because I knew they had been beaten to death by an angry mob of Death Metal fans. Rudy’s phone would have been stolen by a Hell’s Angel and who wants to talk to the guy who just stomped the life out of an immediate family member? I told myself to calm the hell down and go to bed. I got ready for bed and cracked myself up in the bathroom mirror doing the “Home Alone” face again. I watched the History Channel until 11:30 when they finally got home, safe and sound.

And what is my reward for my suffering? What wages of love and loyalty have I earned for my worry? Does my beamish boy throw himself into my arms with a cry of, “Golly, Mom, I sure did miss you!” and gaze adoringly into my face?

No. Instead the little metal head begs me to buy him an Iron Maiden CD. Instead, after I purchased said CD, the little metal head hangs out in the basement all day listening to “Number of the Beast” and jumping around with a Magic Marker in his hand while watching his own reflection in the screen of our massive TV set. If I go down there to offer helpful reminders about the necessity of food, he rolls his eyes and says, “I’m not hungry, OKAY?”

Little does he know I am plotting my revenge. I’m planning to invite the girls in his class to gather in our side-yard and watch him through the basement window.
A couple of them have camera phones. Heh heh heh.

Much Love,

--An Army Mom