Perspective

"Hey, I think someone left the milk out," someone says to me.

To a normal person, that may sound like an innocent musing by a coworker. But not me, I know what she means.

"Oh, does it taste funny?"

I'm sure the milk tastes fine.

"Oh no no, I mean like it looks like someone forgot to put it away just now."

I give a long slow nod, like I'm thinking. I know what this person wants, but I'm taking my time.

"So it looks like someone forgot to put it away? Or it's just out…"

Most people in my position would NEVER take it this far. I'm an assistant, I should just go assist. Moreover, I'm a production assistant, so that means I am essentially everyone's assistant. But then again most PAs are young and wide eyed or annoying try hards. I am 29 and bitter. I am also large and imposing, so I always take it this far.

"Well I guess someone COULD be in the middle of making some cereal…"

"Ya, that's more likely, I mean I can't imagine someone just leaving the milk out, that's so weird, right? I mean we're adults! But I'll tell you what I'm going to do, I'm going to go investigate."

I then throw on a big fake smile and walk toward the kitchen. What a power struggle that was. Her subtext was clearly 'go put the fucking milk away pledge' but in matching her intensity, I've guaranteed that this person will never tell me to put the fucking milk away ever again. It's not worth it.

My dad used to do this shit to me all the time. He would yell down the stairs when I was in the basement playing a video game.

"Hey did you leave your lights on in your room?"

I don't know, did I?

"Ya, looks like you did, can you come up here and turn them off?"

But you're right there.

A struggle would ensue and then I would run upstairs to turn the lights off.

I don't get it, if one of my roommates leaves a plate out, I just put it away. If Sarah blacks out and cooks chili at 3 in the morning and forgets to turn off the stove, I don't drag her out of bed and make her do it. I turn the nob a quarter turn to the right and continue living my life.

I went into the office kitchen and put the milk in the refrigerator and had a psychotic break that I haven't had in the five years in LA. Why am I putting someone's milk away at 29?

It doesn't help that all of my irresponsibilities are starting to catch up with me. It turns out that you can't live a life of luxury on 700 dollars a week. I'm getting audited by the IRS and last week when I got pulled over for driving with expired tags, I found out my license was suspended.

Ya, turns out you actually have to pay those parking tickets.

I was in the middle of a full blown panic attack, wondering why I had such a shitty job, wondering why I was such a bad adult. I have a wedding card that has been sitting in my bedroom for 2 months that I haven't been able to send because I don't know what to write in it to excuse its lateness.

I'm just crippled by my own inadequacies. I did a deep dive on WebMD to find out if I have secretly been bipolar this whole time, all the while trying to figure out a genius plan to sell my car, get a job walking distance in Venice and solve all of my problems.

And then my phone rang.

"David, it's your father."

(People over 50 still don't understand the concept of caller ID)

I look at my clock and realize it's 9pm. Midnight his time. I see I have a couple missed calls from him earlier in the day. I didn't answer because I was spiraling out of control in self-pity.

None of our favorite sports teams are playing and it's a Tuesday night. This is bad news.

In the .02 seconds before he can tell me, I think about all of the worst case scenarios: A family member died, the cat died, my brother is in jail, my mom's been in a crash, cancer, stroke, financial ruin…

Do you remember when your mom was late picking you up from practice when you were a little kid? My mind would always go straight to the worst case scenario. I would picture the headlines on the local news. "Suburban mom hit by drunk driver on way to pick up her mediocre kid from soccer practice." I would then think of how I will never live this down and that everyone will blame me in a total Zach Braff from Garden State situation. My life would be effectively over.

Then she would show up one minute later and everything would be fine.

"I'm having a heart procedure tomorrow."

A heart procedure, what does that mean? Like heart SURGERY?

"Very minor, they're putting a catheter in my heart to look around, worst case scenario they'll insert a stent to clear up some blockage."

This did not sound very minor to me. I told him I loved him and that I would pray for him and I immediately looked to the internet for comfort.

NO COMFORT FOUND.

Cardiac Cath risks

Bleeding
Stroke
Heart Attack
Air Embolism (DEATH)

Not too reassuring. Obviously I stayed awake all night because I couldn't shake the idea that… well what if he dies? I would be so lost and crumple like a wet paper towel. Some of you out there have lost one or two parents and I have to tell you, you are so much stronger than me that I can't put it into words.

If I were to lose a parent, I would go off the deep end...perhaps move to Western Australia and never be heard from again.

I cannot imagine a world in which I can't fall back on two most important people in my world. This can't be happening, I mean my dad runs 6 miles a day, how in the fuck can he be sick?

I woke up with a text this morning.

"Good news, call me when you wake up."

It was from my mom. She has good text mannerisms. If I would have seen a bunch of missed calls or a text that said 'call me' I would have had a full blown stroke. "Good news, call me when you wake up," was the best that I could hope for given the circumstances.

I call and I find out that this 'minor procedure' actually found that my dad had 100% blockage in the anterior inter ventricular branch of the left coronary artery. It's called the widow maker, because when you suffer a heart attack due to this artery, you do not survive.

They caught it JUST in time. "It was a miracle."

Of course my dad is all jokes, 'Now that my arteries are clear I think it will improve my mile time.'

And why you ask? Why does this happen? He's fit, eats somewhat well and he's only 61. I guess sometimes it just happens.

And to think, 24 hours ago I was pitching a fit because someone asked me to do my job and I'm going to have to hire a traffic attorney to get some tickets squared away.

Sometimes things are put in perspective. The little shit REALLY doesn't matter. Hug your loved ones, appreciate the time you have and encourage people to regularly see their physician. My dad finally went because he felt a little short of breath after a morning run. Think about how different this post could have been if he decided to just go to work.

Cheers.