Full of compassion and obstinacy

My day began at 3 in the morning. Why so early? I am unfortunate enough to be the recipient of my daughter’s upper respiratory infection, the same one that has kept her out of school for two days and landed us in the emergency room last Friday evening for a breathing treatment.

As much as I tried to push this kid away from me, she insisted on gluing herself to my side and even slept with me two nights. Parents get suckered into these things because we worry too much.

Also, when I was half asleep, she’d come plant a kiss on my lips and whisper “I love you, mommy,” so adorable yet so highly infectious.

Here I was in the predawn hours coughing my fool head off and drinking a dose of Nyquil to make it stop.

I know, Nyquil makes you sleepy and I had my alarm clock set for 5:30 so I could get ready for my 7:15 MRI at the hospital. Bad timing, right?

I turned off my alarm and moved to the couch. This was a problem because now I’d have no way to wake up on time.

Rewind to a couple weeks ago when my husband, Chris, and I received our new phones from Sprint. They are iPhones with touch screens and all the bells and whistles. I became instantly addicted and wondered how I ever existed before this technology except for one pesky issue: the phone alarm.

I asked Chris, “Honey, how the heck do I set my alarm?” He says, “It’s easy. Watch.” He pressed the big, round button and said, “Siri, set the alarm for 6.”

Siri, the iPhone assistant responded, “Do you want to set an alarm for 6 am?” Chris said, “Yes,” and Siri did it.

Well, I’m too stubborn to let some condescending phone maid take care of my personal business. I said, “How can I just set it myself? Why can’t I just do this from the settings or something?”

This sounds much sillier now that I type it out. I am having a standoff over this non-issue of programming my alarm and I paid the price this morning when I woke up late because I refuse to talk to Siri.

To try and redeem myself, there is also a problem with Siri calling me Chris instead of my name. When I tried to have a rational discussion with her about what she should call me, it ended badly. Siri and I are no longer on speaking terms.

Back to today, my daughter woke me up and I realized she is still too sick to go to school. She refused to eat breakfast and fought about taking her medication and everything else that involved interaction.

I left the house and arrived at the hospital in time to get in a long registration line. This made me a tad late for my MRI appointment, but they were being very patient with me.

Once I got everything filled out and paid for, I got to the radiology desk and they asked for my order.

Oh yeah! That thing that was sitting on my counter at home that I forgot to bring because I’m still fuzzy-headed from getting tipsy on Nyquil this morning! Great.

The MRI is now rescheduled and I’m contemplating making up with my phone maid. Maybe we can start over. Chris isn’t such a bad name to be called. I have been called worse.