The Sweet Husband

Maybe Later

Ok, this is kind of tasteless, so if you are easily offended, please accept my apology now and don't read the rest of it.

My daughter is facing some things that are kind of frightening for her, and she came by today to tell me she was scared. The sweet husband says, let your mama tell you how to get over being scared.

I told her the story that I had told here a couple of years ago about my mother getting her doctor to sign the papers saying I was a danger to myself or others and the sheriff picking me up on a mental health 72 hour hold. My mother or the doctor didn't realize that because I lived in Houston, I would get taken to Jeff Davis Hospital, the same place they took all the mentally ill criminals to see just how ill they were before they put them in jail.

There was a part of that story I didn't tell.

I was 23 years old, weighed about 90 lbs, and scared out of my ever loving mind. About 8 hours into my 72 hour stay, they brought in a lady, a lesbian that had beaten her partner to death with a baked chicken. That was the story circulated in that huge room where we all stayed.

At first that seemed funny to me. I remember laughing when I heard it. Then they brought the woman in, this lady was HUGE, she was 6 feet 5 inches tall, I could tell because beside the door there was one of those measuring things like there is at convenience stores. And she was big, I have no idea how much she weighed, all I could think of was a truck.

They undo her handcuffs, tell her not to do anything stupid, and walk away and leave her in there.

I am sitting there, saying nothing to anyone, looking at the floor and hoping maybe, just maybe, I will disappear, it could happen, just a puff of smoke, and I am gone.

About an hour later, this booming voice comes across the room, HEY BONES! I didn't look up, Bones isn't my name, and there was nobody in that room that would be talking to me anyway.

Then HEY SKINNY ASS, I glance up, because I have been called that before. Oh God, she's looking at me. She then says, you sure are a cute little thing, come over here I won't let anyone bother you.

I sat there a minute, then I said, I will, give me a second, I want to see if they got the medicine in for this damn fungus I have. Got up, scratching the front of me, went up to the nurse and whispered to her I thought I had a slight yeast infection, and walked over to the giant that had called me.

She was no longer interested in the cute little thing. Always, Always, no matter how scared you are, keep your head straight, what you can't talk yourself out of, deal with it straight up.