In the past, my editorial news commentary and my humor column, “This World of Hurt,” have appeared separately within the pages of this publication. This is in part because my humorous work began years before my editorial writing, as well as the fact that the experiences of one rarely contribute to the content of the other. Not the case this week, as personal encounters — the outcome of which was funnier for some than others — unquestionably overlapped with the professional.
While my work week following last week’s edition ended with the notification Roby CISD would be looking for a nod from the attorney general to deny my records request, this week’s story actually begins late on Saturday.
Very much like this article, it was a weaving of personal and professional. In the news business, one is almost always on call, and as my wife and I make up the husband/ wife, editor/publisher team for the DMC, we have found there is no such thing as work-life balance. The best you can do is to achieve equitable work-life integration.
As a result, my publisher and I took advantage of a business trip to Lubbock as an opportunity to visit our three grandkids. We arrived later than expected, yet only seconds after walking through the threshold did our precious granddaughter — held in the arms of our eldest daughter — vomit onto the floor.
While our daughter took it in stride — she is the mother of three children spaced fewer than three years apart; not her first rodeo — our granddaughter was not happy about it. Who would be? Whether contaminated by toxins or intoxication, we have all felt the loss of control associated with the involuntary tossing of one’s cookies.
Our youngest daughter, who accompanied us on the trip, went to console our granddaughter that Saturday evening. Sunday night, my wife and I were awakened by our daughter, whose stomach muscles spent the remainder of the night driving in reverse.
My wife looked at me, split with the personality of my publisher, one concerned with the possibility of catching a stomach flu hours before press deadline, the other saying, “I bring you coffee every morning; it’s 2 a.m.; please, honey, don’t make me ask you to clean up this puke for me.”
This created some mild internal conflict where the nearly unmanageable employee side of me was saying, “I don’t want to be typing and puking all the way to deadline either, boss,” while my husband brain was countering with how much I enjoyed the way coffee is delivered before consciousness.
I love my wife, coffee, and being a burr under the saddle of elected officials — typically in that order — so I spent the rest of the night on janitorial duty. By the time the first commissioners court meeting was called to order, I had already deposited what little coffee I had consumed into the government lavatory facilities. The rest of my day was spent curled up with a 10-yearold getting caught up on the missed episodes of “Fuller House,” a fantastic reboot of the mid-90s lighthearted sitcom, with most of the original cast starting as older versions of their characters.
My wife dodged the illness and continued to work, and with just over 24 hours remaining before the DMC’s press deadline, I received a text asking how things were going at home. I relayed to her that our daughter was much better, but I still felt like crap but was managing.
Then before my wife could respond, my publisher — whose impatience is legendary— shoves my wife out of her chair and fires off a response. “You need to toughen up. Probably not drinking enough coffee,” she sends me, along with a crying-withlaughter emoji and a follow-up text: “How’s your article writing coming along?”
Publishers... It made me think of Earnest Hemingway, who said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Although I was working harder to keep fluid inside, I got Hemingway’s sentiment. I was also reminded of Sylvia Plath, who said, “Nothing stinks like a pile of unpublished writing.” The irony is not lost on me that both writers committed suicide only a couple of years apart from one another. Writers... We’re a sensitive bunch.
While I appreciated the morning coffee and my loving wife checking up on my well-being, it was likely my publisher having the bedside manner of a ball-peen hammer that kept the keyboard clattering for completing this week’s edition.
It makes me think of the words of another suicidal writer, Hunter S. Thompson, who said, “I couldn’t imagine, and I don’t say this with any pride, but I really couldn’t imagine writing without a desperate deadline.” So, while there are plenty of issues to shake the editorial stick at, between the consumption of information and the regurgitation of everything else I put in my body this week, there was little time to form a worthwhile opinion about them. Perhaps I’ll have more to write about next week after this newspaper editor has sufficiently recovered from his trip to This World of Hurt.
Publisher's note: Our daughter is 9 yrs old and my husband acts like one when he is sick. I do have terrible bedside manner this is a well known fact.
Ask my children. If I can work while sick, everyone should be able to as well. 'Put a trash can beside your computer and deal with it,' said lovingly of course.