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[Eater of Clowns]

I started hearing all kinds of calls last night about icy highways and pileups. My mother works elsewhere in the same department, so I thought I'd call her and give her a heads up to drive carefully on the way home - she's a terrible driver. No response at her extension after a few tries, so I e-mailed her. Her shift ends so I go out to meet her in the parking lot to let her know in person. Her car isn't there. I call her at home. No response. She called back a few minutes later.

She'd had a close-to panic attack (pretty common for her) at about 10 in the morning and drove home. She's having another one of her episodes, they come once or twice a year, the regular ones culminating in a pill adjustment by her doctor and the bad ones a stay in the psychiatric ward for a few days. I guess it should have been a warning side when she called me the other day all fucked up and panicking because she couldn't get her iPad connected to the internet and then snapped at me when I tried to troubleshoot it with her. Well, this call ended when she got another call, hopefully her doctor, and she hastily got rid of me.

I called her back when I was out of work and could talk a bit more, offer some more help. No answer. I called this morning when I didn't see her car in the lot. No answer. I asked my sister if she's heard from her. No answer. I called again a half hour ago and left a message. No answer.

So once again, as has happened since I was 17 or so, I have no fucking idea where she is, if she's alive or dead, nothing. I don't know if she got checked in and her sisters didn't bother telling me, I don't know if she just downed her ample cocktail of psych meds. I guess I have to drive by on the way home tonight and, I don't know, see if she's still alive or something.

The thing is, when I was 12 or so my mother had this cockatiel. I hated that fucking little bird. When I stayed there on the weekends, sleeping on a papazon cushion on the floor, she would put the cage in the bathroom so that it wouldn't wake me up squawking at the crack of dawn. One morning, she went off to church with the bird still in there. She'd left the cage open so it could move around. I woke up and went to the bathroom, and I found it drowned in the toilet with little water splashes all around the floor and the bowl as it struggled, fruitlessly, to escape its bird bath of doom. I got a plastic bag and I reached into the toilet and I removed the cockatiel before my mother could see it. I can't help but feel like I'm going to drive there tonight and find some variation on the same thing, in some kind of fucked up, hackneyed real life symbolism.

OR MAYBE SHE'S FINE - I HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA

[LMNO]

Oh, that's fucked.  I'm sorry you have to go through that.

[Roly Poly Oly-Garch]

Quite a trip, man. Can't be easy. Hope everything's good.

[Eater of Clowns]

Oh, that's fucked.  I'm sorry you have to go through that.

It's bad writing, LMNO, that's what bothers me the most about it.

But thanks. I needed to spew. It keeps happening, and it doesn't make it less fucked up, it actually compounds it. Is this a routine episode with a quick doctor visit and a few off days, or is this the last one? I've developed this complicated serene-angry-humorous worry about it over the years.

[Eater of Clowns]

She's checked herself into the crisis center, probably overnight, for a "medication adjustment."

"Don't worry about me. I'm safe. Don't worry about me."

Alright mom. 

Anyway, thanks guys.

[LMNO]

Well now you know.  Cue canned laugh track.

[Cain]

That's good to know, at least.

[Cain]

Today I learned: should is a bad word, and people who use it should feel bad.

[Eater of Clowns]

SHOULD IS A HORRIBLE WORD BECAUSE I HAVE MASSIVE EMOTIONAL ISSUES THAT I BIZARRELY ASSOCIATE WITH IT

[Ben Shapiro]

I now have a union job with paid holidays, paid sick days, benefits, mandatory overtime IN TEXAS (lol socialism lol)! I'm a grease monkey for airline carriers which is like a 15 min drive from me. Thanks Roger for your help in case you had some say in this! Hell I'm so happy I might even get on top of my wife tonight! Hell I might even do that cute middle eastern guy at the desk too.

[hooplala]

Today I learned: should is a bad word, and people who use it should feel bad.

We live in truly hellish times.

[Eater of Clowns]

I now have a union job with paid holidays, paid sick days, benefits, mandatory overtime IN TEXAS (lol socialism lol)! I'm a grease monkey for airline carriers which is like a 15 min drive from me. Thanks Roger for your help in case you had some say in this! Hell I'm so happy I might even get on top of my wife tonight! Hell I might even do that cute middle eastern guy at the desk too.

Awesome dude!

[The Wizard Joseph]

Today I learned: should is a bad word, and people who use it should feel bad.

Wonder how shall and shouldn't fit into the weird world of feminine product advertisement critics.

what of aught? This could get pretty deep.

[The Johnny]

You see the problem runs even deeper than that.... its not about should, or could or whatever, its READ THIS, its an imperative, the words are raping the reader.

[The Wizard Joseph]

You see the problem runs even deeper than that.... its not about should, or could or whatever, its READ THIS, its an imperative, the words are raping the reader.

Yes! Imperative suggestion finally exposed.