Thursday, May 14, 2009

Better to Lie

FD tells me he's tired and has go to bed by eleven because he has to get up at three to go to the office to finish some charts. A quality review insurance representative is going to review his charts to make sure he's really a good doctor, not a fake in a lab coat.

I groan because (a) it's so insulting and ridiculous that someone from an insurance company will be reviewing the notes of a physician old enough to be his or her father, and (b) because I am pretty sure I have another two hours of wake time in me.

"I'll come up and read while you sleep. Gimme a couple of minutes. I'm not tired."

Meanwhile someone mentions that hot apple pie would be so nice, which sounds like a fabulous idea. I'm in, don't mind making one, we have apples.

"But we have no flour. Chaval,*" I say.

FD is out the door in a flash, returns in a few minutes with three sacks of flour, two white, one whole wheat. He's not taking any chances this will happen again anytime soon. "Goodnight, honey," he says and heads upstairs to retire.

I make the pie and wait around while it bakes, watch a Parks and Recreation with our above average physics major son. This doesn't beat hearing him talk about pendulums and gravity, but it'll do. Around 12:30 I'm beat, head upstairs for bed, leaving the kid to turn off the pie. It's almost done, but so am I.

FD is at the computer playing Scrabble.

"I thought you had to go to bed! You're getting up in a few minutes!" I exclaim.

He doesn't exactly answer, mumbles something like, Yeah, yeah.

I'm asleep in seconds.

In the morning, before he heads off to work (he's already been to work and back to finish the charts and made synagogue rounds) I take him aside.

I tease: I know why you didn't go to bed early.

FD: Huh? Why not?

Me: Because you didn't want to go to bed without me, right?

FD: Uh, no. That wasn't it. . .

Me (displeased with this response) : There are times, you should know, that it's better to lie.

Hit the cymbals.

FD: Huh? Nice pie?
therapydoc

This is the perfect place to say, chaval, soft "ch", rhymes with duh-doll, Yiddish for too bad, because it really is a shame when you want to eat something sweet but will have to do without and go to sleep instead.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

O.K. I'm envious. That you can be so attuned to one another, you and F.D., that going to bed separately is an anomaly worth teasing about! Wow! Congratulatons and may we all have such lives together.

Jack Steiner said...

Hah, I love his answer. Long live men. ;)

therapydoc said...

as the song goes,
Nobody said it was easy,

and FD would agree.

Wait. What? said...

OUCH!!!

But how was the pie?!

therapydoc said...

The pie could've cooked a little longer, is the truth. But that's what a microwave is for. Basic pie? yummy

Retriever said...

The males in my family are relentlessly truthful. I have frequently said something along the lines of your "There are times, you should know, that it's better to lie..." (when I get "Well, you do look somewhat porcine in that outfit...." or "The stew was a bit salt but otherwise edible" or "The piecrust was tough...")

therapydoc said...

Which is why we throw the pie in the face, no? I mean, one good joke deserves another.

nashbabe said...

pie crust...from scratch...he should bow and scrape...how lucky he is!!! :-)

therapydoc said...

Nash, thanks for reminding me. You're right! Even the bad ones are better.

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