Screaming from the Edge

Lillian has this interesting habit.

I will ask her a question, and then she will ignore me.

It's an impressive habit, since my first response is that she must not have heard me, so I ask again. She then ignores me, again. This, then, irritates me. I'm a stubborn kinna guy, and not in the habit of being ignored by someone who professes love for me on a daily basis, and to whom I respond professing the same back.

I ask a third time, but add a little iritation, and sometimes a touch of frustration, for flavoring.

So, this morning, around 2:10 in the AM, Lillian wakes me up with a scream of, "OH, MY GOD!"

So, now I'm up, looking for the team of ninjas that have broken into our house, or Keyser Soze, and reaching for my samurai sword, or the 9mm Baretta, and then remembering that I own neither of these, and would most likely harm myself in any attempt to use them against the aforementioned assailants.

Not immediately seeing anyone attacking our bed's comforter, I turn to Lil and say, "What?"

Yeppers, that's right, she does what I described five or six paragraphs above and we go through the whole thing. She's fussing in Porter's bassinet, which sends a chill through me that has nothing to do with the Southern California winter air.

Unknown to me, Lillian had a procedure in which monitors for Porter's heart-rate, breathing, glucouse and cholesterol are constantly being reviewed. When any one of them drops below or above normal, she kicks into psycho-gear, and now has the power to give her husband a heart attack, stroke, and auditing from the IRS all at the same time. Add in the ability to hold your husband in suspense while a train-wreck is looming, and you've got the makings of a Chuck Heston Mini Disaster Movie.

Finally, Lil condescends to let me in on the issue, "Porter was breathing shallowly."

Now, I don't want to be an ass her by knocking my wife. So I won't.

Suffice to say, after I got my heart-rate back ti 186 BPM, took several Valium and two shots of very cheap, very toxic Tequilla, it turned out that Porter was ok, but I may not live to see his first birthday!