GIVE US THIS DAY...
our daily bread & forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors...
There are no atheists in foxholes.
There are no atheists climbing out of foxholes to try to find out who in their regiment, many of whom are best friends, still own four limbs and a head.
There are no atheists when a very good friend is crying hysterically, like my roommate Megan was this morning, frantically informing me she hadn’t heard from her father since Sunday, as in “spoken to him,” but that a text she sent him Monday morning at 9:30am had been “read.”
The whole Google has stolen our privacy. A bloodless coup.
That particular article, or book, is a valid thesis but it’s not mine to write.
So it was actually quite helpful to know that Meg’s Dad was awake at 9:30 Monday morning. Sometimes it’s crucial to know if someone has seen a text/you have sent. You can get sad about the lack or reply later.
So Megan father “read” his daughters text @ 9:30am Sunday. No contact since. Usually Megan and her day trade over 1000 words a day via text message.
The 9:30am Sunday link was to a video that I found so personally funny, I nearly died, especially around the 1:17 mark where you start thinking: where was this made? Because whoever made this washing machine should be designing rockets to the moon.
Megan and I both call any and everyone we personally know in Hamilton, to see if they can drive by her Dad’s building (four stories, not a Freedom Tower with airport style remove-your-shoes security), get inside and knock on his door.
But everyone we know was at work and couldn’t help. Not in a timely fashion, I mean. If Megan’s father had had a stroke, or is in a diabetic coma, then time is of the essence. We need someone to get the fuck into his apartment.
As Megan snivels and whines and bawls behind me, I call every hospital in Hamilton. Hamilton General, McMaster, and one I can’t pronounce spelled Juravinski. Megan’s Dad is not at any of these. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Then I Google the building looking for a superintendent’s number. There is no # to be found, so after some digging I find the name of the property management company and call them.
The woman on the other end of the line informs me she hasn’t even heard of the building at _____ Main St East, Hamilton, ON.
“You haven’t even heard of it? How long have you been managing this property?”
“No idea.”
“It is possible you used to manage it and no longer do?”
“No idea.”
I sigh. “Well thanks for your halfassed honesty,” and hang up.
No dice there. It’s gonna hafta be the cops, loathe as I am to call them.
With Megan still shouting and crying hysterically in the background, I call the non-emergency Hamilton Police line to request a wellness check. I give a fake name because never give your real name to the cops if you don’t have to. Said I was Captain Crunch. I’m kidding, I said I was Andrew.
Twice the woman at dispatch asks me to ask Megan to quiet down. She is bawling so loud the woman cannot hear me.
“MEG!”
SNIFFLE. “UH HUH?”
“SHHHH! You need to be less loud. The switchboard officer can’t hear me!”
“I’M SORRY!” she wails.
“It’s okay, it’s just…” Not okay, really, if we want this done fast.
Sobbing, she leaves my room. See, this is no ordinary ghosting or “I’m not getting any texts back, I’m a loser” case. Megan and her Dad are closer than close. And her father is most decidedly not in what you’d call “excellent” or even “passable” health. He is in poor
Her father has survived 5 heart attacks, 1 triple bypass (performed Dec 2019), a heart stent operation (2006), broken ribs, vertigo, tinnitus, hyperacusis, and diabetes. He is overweight, although I no longer think merely not being skinny is the medical disaster people say it is. For years health experts (many of whom do no cardiovascular or heart related work feel confident in telling patient they are overweight. It’s the one thing all doctors tell their patients. The new “you need to quit smoking.”
But the data between health and weight is simply not there. Having read a very long article on this last year, a piece that included a quote from a women who says he does not even take transit anymore because she can feel people exaggeratedly try to get out of her way and people all judging her. She is afraid to order salad (because people seeing this may laugh, like “hah! that won’t help you now, girl. Too late.) She is afraid to order anything at a restaurant.
If I can find the article, I will link it, but it was Scientific American, not some rag, and I cam away from it convinced that overweight people are the last people in North America for whom everyone is an expert. “You just need to lose weight.” For people with certain metabolisms, losing weight is close to impossible. I dated a girl 40lb heavier than me. She ate twice a week. You read that right. Twice a week. She kept this up for months. Still didn’t lose weight. Explain this to me.
Anyway, Megan’s Dad is overweight, though again, that on it own isn’t the danger so many people claim it is. The greater danger is the man not taking his health problems seriously. He once showered after having his third heart attack at home so he’d be clean when the ambulance EMTs got there.
But it’s the diabetic thing that worries/d me most.
I thought maybe, most likely in fact, the man was/in a diabetic com from either forgetting insulin, or taking too much. Happens all the time. We needed to knock down his door ASAP.
The dispatcher told me two officers had been deployed and to wait for a callback.
Waiting and waiting and waiting for that callback from Hamilton Police, with Megan freaking out and covered in sweat, was the worst part.
I’m hugging her but I’m also trying to stay cool and calm but I also suspect the worst. I’m a lapsed Catholic and I can’t stop crossing myself.
“Okay,” I say. “It’s your birthday tomorrow, yeah?”
She nodded miserably. “But he’s so deathly-ill! What if…?”
“Listen” I said. “Deathly-sick people know how to hang on. Don’t ask me how. They just do. No WAY is he dying before his only daughter’s birthday, okay? okay?”
More sobbing,
“Please gimme yer hand.”
She stares at me.
“DO IT.”
She gives me her hand and I recite the Lord’s Prayer, over and over and over, at least 50 times in a row. It was the only thing I could think to do.
Finally the phone rings. It’s the EMTs. They are inside Megan’s father’s apartment.
Megan’s father is alive and well.
It took an hour for the cops to get there and find the man but he was a-okay.
The phone thing: He’d been out shopping Sunday night (PROBABLY to get stuff for YOU KNOW WHO) and he’d forgot his phone in his car. I’m not sure why he was curious at the lack of text communication between himself and his daughter, but the man is semi-retired and sometimes keeps odd hours and may have been up all night and asleep all day (hence the 9:30am Monday “read” text.)
“Omg Daddy thank God thank God you’re okay,” Megan keeps babbling, she’s on one of the EMT’s cell phones. Her father has gone to his car to get his phone but the battery is dead.
Megan’s father asks her if she’s drunk. LOL. I actually laughed out loud at that one.
“I’m not drunk,” she bawls. “I WAS WORRIED ABOU YOU!”
I could hear in his voice that he was quietly chuffed. “You thought I was dead?”
“Yes! I’m just SO GLAD YOU’RE LIKE…NOT!” she sobs happily.
“Listen…sweetheart there are five people in here and I gotta sign some forms, can I call you back please? I will call as soon as I can. My phone will be charged enough for a call in about 10 or 20 minutes.”
“Of course!”
“Love ya, Meg.”
“Love you too Dad.”
“And whose that guy you’re livin with? One who made all the calls and shit?”
“Danny.”
“Danny! Right! Can you put me on speakerphone?”
“You already are.”
“Oh!” he sounded surprised. “Okay! Well…thank you Dan.”
“Anytime sir.”
A guffaw and then a choking sound, like he’d half-swallowed a pear. “I’m no sir,” Megan Dad manages to say, laughing and choking at the same time.
“Dad!” Megan cries, shooting me a look that says if you kill my dad with jokes I will kill you tonight. “Dad!”
“He’s fine,” I say. “Just laughed at the wrong time.”
“Just not used to being called sir,” the father manages between hacking.
“Yes sir!” I say. “I will never call you that again…sir. Starting now.”
“Good. Call me Michael. Okay now sweetheart, take me off speakerphone please.”
Megan is too frazzled to do it so I just pretend I can’t hear anything.
“I’ll be in town tomorrow for your birthday.”
“Jack Astor’s?”
“Hell yeah.”
I love suburban people. I am one. I grew up among them.
We go to Jack Astor’s. We drink Tim Horton’s coffee. All y’all do what you want. I you want a $5 coffee from some downtown Toronto coffee shop where they rudely shake the tip jar like a tambourine after making you a tiny expensive drip coffee, go ahead.
I like my $1.85 LARGE coffees, thanks.
So Megan’s Dad is not dead!
A good day!
ALSO PS they found the owner of the cat below. My es ____’s recommended that the person who found the cat can take the cat to the the Humane Society where they can check if the animal has a chip, free of charge.
If it does have a chip, which it did, they contact the owner. Which they did!
Utter jubilation all around.
Megan’s father is alive and well. So is the cat you see above.
The hurly burly’s done. The battle’s have been won.