Coffee commercials always make me cry. I am a sucker for sappy sentimentality; I get teary eyed just thinking about the one where the son surprises everyone early Christmas morning. But sometimes, the most tender moments happen in real life -- sort of a corollary of you just can't make this shit up. And so it was, this morning, when my mother phoned and truly raised the bar for what ad agencies might tout as "the best part of waking up."
"I had an incident the other day," she began, "but I'm fine." Her way of reminding me I have been a wayward child, woefully out of touch. I would have tried to regain some points by telling her how relieved I was that she was fine, but she uses a special caption phone for the deaf and has yet to master the art of awaiting the print out of a response. I settled in with a sigh, knowing there would be a fairly lengthy back story before she ever got to "THE INCIDENT."
So I worked on my sudoku while she went on at some length about some young man who continues to show up drunk in the apartment building, reportedly the son of some people who live there. Blah, blah, blah... "so on Tuesday mawning...." Shit. Tuesday. It's Thursday. My mother had some horrifying INCIDENT more than forty-eight hours ago, and I knew nothing of it. She might be fine, but I was toast.
I put down my Sudoku book. "So on Tuesday mawning I opened the daw to the apawtment to get the newspapah." Oh no! Did she bend down the wrong way? Throw out her back again? I waited silently. It's not like I was part of the conversation. "And I look down and there's a BODY crumpled up on the flaw, right outside my daw." A body on the flaw by the daw? And she's telling me this as matter-of-factly as if she were complaining about a slight twinge on her spine. I gasped, which probably doesn't show up on her caption phone -- not that it matters.
"Crumpled up, in a puddle of urine." I didn't know whether to be horrified or grossed out. "So I tried to close the daw quickly but the newspapah got in the way." Tragic. "But I managed." Phew. At least the unconscious or possibly dead person outside her door didn't take the paper, and he'd have to regain consciousness and get through a heavy, dead bolted door before harming her.
"Well, I was hahrified. Just hahrified." That seemed reasonable. "But I decided that befaw I did anything, I was going to enjoy my cawfee!" I was speechless, which, again, she would have no way of knowing because she doesn't wait for responses to show up. "I had just made it, and I like to drink it when it's fresh." Of course. So she lingered over her coffee, which, I can tell you from years of experience, took at least twenty minutes, and then went back to the door to peer through the peephole and see if the body was still there. I was kind of guessing it was, although the suspense built up a little bit here because, as it turns out, you can't see the floor from the peephole and you have to actually open the door, which she did, just a crack. The body was indeed still there, but had made its way into a seated position. Like any good Samaritan, mom slammed the door.
Anyway, I think she called 911 before she had her second cup, but I'm not sure because I was feeling a bit weepy from the tender coffee commercial moment. At least I know where I get my sense of compassion and good will. But back to the back story, which now included the young Orthodox Jewish neighbor who happened to come into the hallway and see the "body" and rushed into his apartment to get some latex gloves (naturally, a doctor) and take the guy's pulse. And the other neighbor across the hall, who recognized the "body" as the perpetually drunk and stoned son of the people in 2-J. So off they went to 2-J -- my mom, the nosy lady, the Jewish doctor, and the body -- to 2-J. As it turns out, my mom knows the couple in 2-J ("a lovely couple; not Jewish, but very nice people").
As far as I know, somebody cleaned up the urine, and my mother was able to finish her coffee and read her newspaper. And she feels kind of bad for the lovely though not Jewish couple in 2-J because they are stuck with a drunk for a son. But at least he comes to visit.
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