Friendship and Other Laments

The Matron has rather tried and true rules regarding blogging about friendships: Don’t. She has a great big slew of friends, men and women who sustain and inspire. One lovely friend comes immediately to mind. When Merrick was a toddler, yours truly was the campaign manager for a St. Paul mayoral race! Do you know what being a campaign manager for a mayoral race in a large city (okay, medium city) means? You work from 5:30 a.m until midnight every day for several months. Plus, there might be children you have to care for while your husband works his full-time job. And you don’t get paid!

The Matron has long been a political animal and her children started carrying signs and chanting the minute they were ambulatory. She’s sure that HWCBN will be a Tea Party member, just in the spirit of opposition. This is a rather long and winding way of saying that just days before the election, while she in the midst of constant crisis, panic, media frenzy and negotiation, Scarlett’s birthday happened to get in the way.

Scarlett: “Mom? Did you remember to buy the invitations for my 10 friends, the cake, the banner, the ice cream and make all those gift bags?”

Matron: “Uh, sure sweetie.”

Of course, she had completely forgotten about the Diva’s Big Day.

Matron on cell phone (to which she was physically connected for five months) to Really Good Girlfriend (sobbing): “How am I going to do all this work for the birthday bash? I have 15 meetings a day, forty press releases, 100 volunteers to manage and a skittish candidate!! Do you have any wine? Is this a good time to experiment with abusing prescription drugs?”

Girlfriend: “Don’t worry. The birthday is done. I’m on it.”

And readers? The day before the birthday party, this friend dropped off two boxes of stuff: party bags (stuffed and ready to go), cake, paper plates, napkins, party games, soda, paper cups, crepe paper streamers, plastic table cloth for the picnic table, candles, plastic forks—and wine. She had a local grocer deliver the ice cream the day of the event itself.

These are the kinds of friends the Matron has. And regular readers may notice that a post about a friendship, especially problems involved therein, are rare. So forgive her the wee bit-o-vent. Know the parties involved do not read this blog.

She tries to return the favor and goodwill modeled by her friend who saved the birthday (right down to a disposable camera for documentation, just in case). So when the Matron discovered – nearly two weeks ago—at 10:50 pm on a Wednesday night that Scarlett had lice, she declined to allow her daughter to accompany one of her best friends on a camping trip to Canada—a trip without a washing machine and with communal sleeping and living arrangements. They were scheduled to leave Friday afternoon. She had just one solid day, Thursday, to assess the situation and decide. Scarlett, on her end, gave up several callbacks and acting opportunities to take this trip. Sometimes bad things happen and lice was certainly one of them. She could not, neither as a friend or supporter of good public health, dump this problem on someone else.

Here’s the take-away question: do you treat lice on a Thursday morning and send your child off on a camping trip with another family the next day, expecting that they will do all the combing and retreating that lice require? Or do you empathically help the children involved deal with their great disappointment and let another family off the critter hook?

That is really a rhetorical question because she thinks it’s a no-brainer. Scarlett didn’t go (and cried for hours – one more reason to fully believe her mother is indeed set on ruining her life).

But the other family – who have one child and truly wanted a friend (who wouldn’t!) lobbied hard to take Scarlett. They offered to treat, to comb, to care for her. The Matron melted under pressure. Her no became a ‘well, maybe.’ She hawed and hemmed; she hemmed and hawed. She should have stuck to her immediate no but she’s weak in the people pleasing department. But when she found that last liquid, live egg on Friday morning? Clearly, the answer had to remain no. She made the hard call and cancelled.

Later that day, on the eve of the departure, the Matron called the parents to reiterate her concern for their daughter and her own apologies for the unfortunate situation. Scarlett’s friend answered the phone.

Matron: “Bethany, can I talk to your Mom?”

Bethany (so not her real name): “She has a headache.”

Matron: “Your Dad?”

Bethany: “Dad, can you talk to Mary?”

Father in background: “Tell her I have a headache.”

Upon their return, the father in question sent the Matron an email message in which he informed her that she created “three days of Crisis and Panic” for no reason, handled the situation poorly (okay, she will admit she should have stuck to her no instead of waffling) and otherwise ruined their trip. Surprise! He didn’t inquire as to whether or not the lice were gone or how that whole week of laundry and toil went –just made sure she knew she was a very bad person.

Although the Matron is working either toward sainthood or a really good gig during the next round of reincarnation, she did reply with a conciliatory message that sunk to one clearly sarcastic line thanking him for his ‘supportive and thoughtful’ message. After all, who got to go on a vacation and who combed lice out of hair two hours a day for a week at the start of the fall semester?

Then he emailed her this link, without comment.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/narcissistic-personality-disorder/DS00652

Thank God-Buddha-Oprah-Allah-Universe that Reason grabbed the Matron by her shoulders and firmly moved her away from the computer until she had calmed down enough not to offer her own friendly links for various psychological disorders. Instead, she ignored it. And blocked his email.

Damage, done. Friendships, altered. Someday there may be an apology? Until then –and because this is such good material (sorry, she’s wired that way) – she is considering this relationship blogging fodder and, alas, something from the past.

Of course, HE doesn’t have a blog wherein he gets to be the center of attention – uh oh! Maybe she better click on that link, after all!! She sort of likes living life out loud and in front of others (unlike HWCBN).