Poisonous potions and parents

Dr Fun-Killer told me yesterday that I'd lost some more weight. I can't see it and I don't feel it, but he says it's true. Well, I can see it in my face, but nowhere else. My fear is that I'll just lose weight from my face, the rest will slip to where it's most comfortable on my thighs and I'll start to look like a pin-head character from The Far Side. I don't want to be a pin-head.

But I've been having bad hayfever (well what I thought was hayfever, but I might have reconciled myself with the fact it's more likely a chest cold now). So I asked Dr Fun-Killer if he could help. It turns out he's not a naturopath at all. He's a witch doctor. One of the most evil sort - the kind who looks generally nice looking, smiles and laughs a lot, tells you how well you're doing, then feeds you poison under the guise of being helpful and caring.

Oh yes, he says, I can make you some herbs that will stop the symptoms. But I have to tell you, it doesn't taste very nice, so you'll have to have another drink ready to wash it down with. I need a chaser? Oh dear! Worse than the yellow stuff?, I enquire. Oh yes, much.

I felt like my head was going to implode, so I prepared some flavoured mineral water in one glass and measured out 10ml of his poison into another glass and filled that with mineral water too. It looked like dirty, filthy sewer water, and he was right. I've never tasted something so foul in all my life. It was like mixing cleaning fluids with a bit of petrol and drinking it - but much worse. I doubled over, screwed up my face and wandered around my kitchen shaking my head for a few seconds before I was able to reach for the second glass of mineral water to get rid of the taste. He said it would take ten minutes to work. I thought by then I'd be in an ambulance needing my stomach pumped. I have to say though, whatever potion he came up with, witch doctor style, in his back office, it worked.

But I was meeting Chris' parents last night, so I had to do whatever it took to look normal. My fear was turning up there with tissues stuck down my sleeves, bright red nose, bloodshot eyes and tears like I'd been crying all day. It had occured to me as I was leaving that, "hey I could be meeting my inlaws for the first time". Ok, so it was kinda irrational, but I blame that on the poison too. Regardless, it didn't help to be thinking things like that.

So I stopped and bought the boy flowers on my way. I'm not one who thinks the girl always should be the receiver. Anyway, it wasn't a bunch of roses or anything like that, but rather a nice centrepiece display box he could put on the table at dinner. I scored points with the parents for doing that too. hehe

His parents arrived at about 4.30 in the afternoon and I left at just after 10.30pm. His mum brought the food, so the boy and I just had to serve it and clean up - my kind of dinner. They're great people, very easy to get along with. They used to teach ballroom dancing and apparently were champions way back when, so I scored yet more points when they found out I also did ballroom and latin for a while. The boy joked that maybe I'll want to start hanging with his parents more than him now. Unlikely, but kinda funny.

At one stage, the boy decided they weren't going to have enough milk for breakfast, so he went to the shop. He asked if I wanted to go, but his dad wanted to go with him. I stayed behind and had 'quality time' with his mum. It was less weird and uncomfortable than I thought it was going to be, and that was a relief. We talked about Dr Fun-Killer and rangehoods and how I grill things in the oven, and other 'women stuff', which I impressed myself with. I didn't realise I could hold a conversation about kitchen appliances, cooking and other girly stuff and actually appear to know what I'm talking about.

Dinner with his parents was going really well. Meanwhile, my mother, who lives two states away, took it upon herself to start sending me crazy text messages. She's never been technology savvy before, but she's mastered the art of the text message, including all the abbreviations. I have no idea how she learnt these things!

The first message: News flash! After all these years Lilli (her cat) has caught a mouse. Proud & purring.xx

The second one, which I deleted by mistake went something along the lines of: Oh, I've been watching the news. Horrid weather there & flooding. R U OK??? xx

The third message: Do you remember (guy's name) from (my high school)? If so, see news or Sunday paper. Hero.

I didn't respond to the first message, because I'm sure I'll get the full rundown when I talk to her next. I said, yes I'm ok and it's now sunny, to the second message and thought to myself, I'm sure she didn't send that same nutty message to my brother. Apparently, he can look after himself better than me in a bit of bad weather, in her mind. The third one, I didn't respond to either because I don't remember the guy and I didn't see the news. But now I'm curious to find out what he did, dammit.

So over the space of a couple of hours, these things all crossed my mother's mind and were important enough to her to send me messages about. Meanwhile, I was sitting down at dinner with normal people wondering how my family got so screwed up.

I should take some more of that poison this morning, because I feel like crap. It's only really a few seconds of my life, tainted by foul tasting liquid and mini convulsions, but it's time I'll never get back.