I sent an email Monday to my playgroup. A Good Friend is the moderator.
The gist of the email? My daughter had been exposed to a cold, that I wasn't sure what exact stage she was at, and I wanted to know where other folks stood on it. My tone was light - bantering even - and I left them the option to reply directly to me. Specifically: You don't have to reply to all - just shoot me an email saying "Stay home you big germ" and I'll understand.
Now let me give you a little inside information. I wasn't looking for an out, or an in. The simple facts are these. I was ambivalent. I wasn't really really in the mood to go, it was Monday, I was tired. Had someone balked in the slightest, I would have allowed that to tip the balance for me. By the same token, I knew that more then half the kids weren't going, and I didn't want to bum out the "guest" hostess. Had she replied "Hey, my kids been exposed too, bring yours over" I would have promptly got my ass in gear.
Suffice to say it became a moot point when Ellie opted to play outside versus nap, and I raked and bagged until well past the time when I should have left.
The phone rang as I came in the house.
"So, you didn't go to the playgroup?" Other Good Friend asked.
"No" I replied.
"Oh. Was it because of Good Friend's email...?"
"What email?"
And our mutual friend proceeded to let me know that Good Friend had "put on block" on my coming. "Stay home is what she said" said Other Good Friend "It was kind of, well, odd though" she trailed off.
"Oh great!" I enthused - I guess not getting the point. Yippee, I thought. I was not only off the hook for going but further, it was documented that I was ASKED not to go! How lucky could I get? I sighed contentedly. I thanked Other Good Friend, hung up, logged on, skimmed the email then deleted it. Wheee!!!! And I DON'T have to feel guilty.
Later Good Friend called. Embarrassed and apologetic.
"I hope your not upset" she started...
"With what" I mused...all the while scanning the cabinets for miraculous dinner foods to appear. Where DID I put those peas? Oh look, a jar of red peppers. And pasta. OOOhhh capers!
Good Friend went on "I felt so bad blocking you - I hope you know it wasn't me."
I could tell she felt awful. Devastated even. Stressed.
But, to be honest, I didn't really understand why. I mean, what was the big deal? She was fine. I was fine. We are friends. I get it. Uh huh. Uh huh. Really really no big deal. She wasn't rude or anything. I know her. No troubles.
She continued "You probably noticed it wasn't really my voice, my style.."
I hadn't noticed noticed per se because I had deleted it but I assured her that obviously I knew she had good reason and that I suspected what happened. That someone had asked her to ask me not to come. Or to find out if I was coming so they could not come. Or some other series of mechanations all leading to not exposing one to the other.
She confirmed.
We had a good chuckle. A long chuckle.
"But why in the world didn't people just reply directly to me?" I asked "I mean, after all, I'm the one that sent out the request to know. Makes no sense."
She wondered the same. She didn't have an answer.
So that was that.
I assured her that she did the right thing.
She hung up feeling better.
But still a bit put out.
Not by me but by being put in the middle. Or so I thought...
Flash forward two days. Said friend is sick. We're talking on the phone, she's a little aloof. I'm wondering if it was something I said, something I did.
"I'm sick" she said "I caught it from Ellie." She proceeds to tell me how she may or may not be too sick to go to a party the next day, how some people think it's ok to go to things, but she wouldn't. "But no judgment" she says.
I freeze. Why would I think you had judgment? I thought. That was a weird thing to say.
Unless...
are you JUDGING? Because to say 'no judgment' is usually, like, a beacon that you think judgment might be sitting down to partake in a cuppa. Hmm. Wait. Now I'm wondering. Hmm. You're acting a little cool. You just made it a point to say to me both a. you caught it from Ellie and b. that YOU would never go anywhere if you knew you had been exposed.
And this my friends is where the mind goes haywire.
So now I'm all atwitter.
What's she SAYING to me really. Huh? Does she have a PROBLEM with me? Fine. OK FINE. Maybe I have a problem with you. Yeh yeh. that's it.
She continues on. Talking about germs. Their lifecycles. That's why she always has antibacterial.
Now I'm desperately trying not to be a narcissist. Maybe she doesn't mean me. But she's indirect sometimes. So maybe she DOES mean me. I'm foggy. I'm thinking in all caps and acronyms at this point.
WTF more so then WWJD.
She mentions that the host of the party we are going to is traveling. That it would be unconscionable to get her or her son sick.
Now I'm stumped. IS this for me? She knows I was invited? I think, she might be....hinting. Wait. She mentioned judgment earlier. IS SHE JUDGING ME??
Then the metaphorical glovables came off.
I huffed in my tiny overtired mind.
So she caught it from Ellie. Wow. They must be the most virulent germs EVER given that she saw her only the day before and before THAT it was four days ago... Or, wait, did she mean she caught it THAT morning because Ellie came with me to the Halloween party and she held her there? Or maybe she meant that saw me alone and I'm such a dirty person that I didn't have the courtesy to use antibacterial... Clearly, I, Ellie's mom, am a typhoid whore.
I was confused but not willing to have her specify nor could I really even hear her anymore. I was too busy wondering if there was another point. A subtext. Is she trying to tell me something? Is this about us going to the same place? Not going? Why is she going on about being sick but not exposing people to it? Is she hinting? Conversing? Why is this conversation so weird? She sounds almost....defensive? Is she angry?
Now I've started thinking about the blame game. How everyone is so wrapped up in who got who sick. How usually I don't care. How I'm fairly careful but we all mistakes. And how my friend just led off a conversation by letting me know, not that she "caught what Ellie has" but that she "got it from Ellie".
So, what, she works for the CDC? I'm thinking.
Careful, careful I tell myself. We like this person. Go slowly.
My friend is going on. I'm still stuck.
Or maybe, just maybe, because we see each other so incestuously, we BOTH had the same exposure. Maybe it's like manna from heaven and comes from nowhere. Maybe it was a lunar eclipse. But most of all, maybe she shouldn't be telling me she got it from Ellie with her left hand while her right hand is saying "And I would NEVER bring myself anywhere where I would get someone sick" because, while not judgmental, it sounds really really really, well, offputting. Especially when some mystery person just a scant two days ago obviously didn't have the cajones to call me themselves and ask that I back my worthless disease ridden ass off and now she appears to be backing the self same point.
She finishes with "...even if you think you aren't carrying, you might be."
Now I'll grant you, she's was just expressing herself and her motives were innocent, and likely I was tired BUT...
But given that she DID just send the germogram Monday and now she's on the phone blithely letting me know that she caught it "from Ellie" I was ...how you say...trepidatious.
I didn't give a shit about the email Monday but I sure as hell started to care when I got a fairly cold reception on Wednesday with what sounds like...
is it...
blame?
From someone who assured me I was blameless.
Who seems to have changed her mind.
I hope you feel better, I said. And hung up.
Again, let me remind you that we are both going to the same party.
Well, we were anyway.
Because now I'm not so sure.
I still don't know if Ellie is contagious or just bronchial. Because with her, you just can't tell. No fever. No clue.
So I call the hostess day of.
"Listen, Ellie was exposed to a cold" I start "and I don't want to be indiscreet because we know some of the same people but..."
She interrupts, laughing, and says (a version of) "I know. I heard all about it from Good Friend. People. Really. I can't believe how everyone contacted Good Friend. She totally felt put in the middle."
Then WE both laugh about the absurdity. "For crying out loud, everyone has been exposed to something. My kid's coughing up a storm. Bring her."
"Thank you" I said.
I call Other Good Friend. "I won't see you today. I'm going to the party after all. The hostess was fine with it." pause "She was actually really cool. I guess she had heard about Monday from Good Friend. That everyone had asked Good Friend to handle it."
"Oh not everyone" Other Good Friend rushed to assure me "It was just the two...".
How funny - mental pause - When Good Friend called me, she let me think it was only one person.
Yet she told two other people the story.
What else is being said I wonder? Was there more to this the she told me? Why wouldn't she have told me the whole story not the half? And now I find out she's REALLY upset. Really. Upset enough to tell me, to tell multiple other people. Upset enough to tell people that she felt "put in the middle". Upset enough to, dare I say, blog about it.
So now I'm ALL confused.
Here my friend is IN THE MIDDLE.
And seemingly aggravated.
But with who?
Is it me?
And feeling in the middle. The middle of what? To have a middle there has to be two sides. Am I a side? Is there some bck story, some conversation, some person somewhere that got so upset that I now, unknowingly, represent a stance? Does my Good Friend RESENTS me for "involving" her.
My sending an email asking if other people had been exposed somehow created a tsunami.
I am the wing of a butterfly.
The only good thing to come out of the whole episode is this.
From my very wry mother of three friend.
Who laughs at all of us.
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