“You make me soo *%%$@ mad!” The man shouted angrily at his son as he drew his leather belt from his waist…

“You make me feel so happy, I’m so glad I found you…”  The newly married man whispered to his bride just before he dimmed the light…

I am curious. Do other people make you feel things? How is another person responsible for the way you feel? How do they make you feel this way?

Do they say, “Hey, here’s a tin of sadness, be sure to use it up!”Or maybe they say, “Ahh, you need a bucket of happiness. Hold on, I’ve got one here you can have!” Can you find happiness, sadness or even anger on the supermarket shelves, pre-packaged and ready to go?

The way you make me feel

We often rely on other people to “make” us feel a certain way. We rely on them to do something, say something, be something in order for us to feel happy. If they don’t do what we are expecting them to, we get upset, sad and hurt.

In short, we often attempt to control other people in order to control how we feel; that is, our emotions. And when you do this, you are setting yourselves up for pain because you can’t control anyone else.

Well listen up people! There is only one person you can control: yourself.

You cannot force anyone to do anything or even assume that they will. People don’t make you feel certain emotions. You choose to feel them. You decide to react in a certain way. You make assumptions about what people mean. You leap to conclusions.

No one can give you a tin of unhappiness, or a bucket of joy. Neither can they give you a pot of sadness or a bottle of anger. These things are not physical items that can be passed from person to person. They are intangible emotions that exist within a person.

Believe it or not, each one of us is in control of how we feel. Yes! Right now, you could choose to feel happy; or I am sure you could choose to feel sad. Just by thinking about it, you could change how you feel.

So why not choose happiness? Why not choose a positive mental attitude? Why not get in the habit of choosing how you feel? It’s so powerful and so empowering. Only last week I asked a colleague for more information about something to help me to decide if I wanted to be angry or not. That made him angry. That was his choice even though he placed my name on it.

I want you today, to begin making conscious choices about your emotions. Understand and embrace the fact that no one has more power over you than that which you choose to give them. My mother always said that insults are given never taken. Someone may have intended for their comment to be insulting but you can decide if they are successful or not.

Decide to take back control of yourself and your life and to stop being on auto-pilot. Choose how you are going to feel instead of allowing other people to choose for you.

When you do, let me know all the ways it made you feel!

I later learnt that it was a pet which had escaped the confines of its upper class accommodation and perhaps decided to explore its surroundings. No problem, he was definitely friendlier than his owners but that aside, I’m no fan of turtles and so I began to observe him closely to make sure he did not end up in my backyard.

Life Lessons from a Turtle

In observing the curious journey of this animal, I was struck by how much we humans, with all our superior intellect, opportunities and resources, can sometimes behave much like this turtle.

Observation #1: As the turtle progressed down the road, he kept close to the by now familiar sidewalk, hardly daring to leave its protective cover even though not many cars would be passing at that time.

This is similar to the way in which we hug the protective blanket of our comfort zones, hardly daring to try anything that takes us away from “home”. We travel down the highway of life, slowly and carefully, analyzing and then re-analysing every opportunity, learning always and never attempting to do and then criticizing every other person who tries anything.

Life lesson #1: Try harder to step out of your comfort zone and try something new or find a new way of doing something. Commit right now to doing, learning and correcting as you go along. And learn from those people who did step out and made a difference for themselves.

Observation #2: Next the turtle met an obstacle and guess what he did? He turned right around, came almost back to the point where I first saw him and then he stopped and surveyed his surroundings. Oh man! How many times have I seen friends, colleagues and even business persons turn around and run in the same direction that they came from when they meet the first obstacle?

Obstacles in life are inevitable and if handled correctly, they provide some of our biggest life lessons as well. Moreover, it’s best to view them close up and not retreat to a safe distance and wonder what to do next. When you’re up close and personal with an obstacle you can see it for the bully that it really is, then you can find a way to reduce it down to a manageable size and decide how best you’re going to deal with it.

Life Lesson #2: There is tremendous growth in confronting obstacles. Every time you deal with a problem head on, you build your problem-solving muscle until such time as solving problems is as routine as brushing your teeth and your confidence will not get in the way of your competence.

Observation #3: As was to be expected, the turtle got tired and hungry and so he grew bold, he pushed his neck out to scan his surrounding and wonder of wonders! Food was exactly six inches away if he could just make it over the sidewalk onto the grass. His primary needs would win; he climbed laboriously onto the grass.

Do you always seek to satisfy your primary needs first every time? Don’t get me wrong, primary needs are important and it’s difficult to see the big picture and dream large dreams when you’re hungry. But focusing on primary needs and allowing them to be the driving force in our lives ensures that we delay our dreams, refuse to set goals and demand gratification in the here and now. Just like the turtle, we satisfy our “now” needs and then blame the government, the church, the monied-people for having it all and even the dog for barking too loudly and frightening away our birthright.

Life Lesson #3: Always have a goal and find out what is the first step to take to realize your goals and be prepared to do it. Most of the time, taking the first step towards something you want is the most liberating that you can do. Furthermore, when you have expanded going back to where you were before is definitely not on. Mow you know what it is to be truly captain of your own fate.

Observation #4: Now that the turtle was fed and the grass was so much more comfortable than the surface of the road, he was going nowhere any time soon.

This brought back to me all the dreams we had and the plans we made, me and my girlfriends in high school. We were going to conquer the world, in our fantasies, we selected the top jobs in the top institutions and where they did not exist we created them. Then, one by almost every one, they traded these for the real life “grass” of marriage as unequal partners to men with top jobs in top institutions.

Life Lesson #4: To achieve anything in life, having a goal is only the first step. Being focused on that goal is equally important if you’re going to have the absolute satisfaction of achieving something that you want. Of course there are many routes to your goal and it’s important to expand your horizons but when you keep your dreams in front of you, you’ll never fall asleep at the wheel.

As the sun began to set and no one had collected the turtle, I applied one of the life lessons I had learnt long ago: it’s better to make a bad decision and implement it than to remain indecisive. I picked up the phone and call the nearby vet, safe in the knowledge that that turtle would not spend the night exposed to the dangers that darkness can sometimes bring.

 Those were my thoughts recently when I heard a priest make that declaration. I was attending the memorial service for a good friend and reflecting on his life when the priest interrupted my thoughts with his bold assertion: You, yes you should be living in the red!

Well, Dog bite me! who sent this man?

I had to admit though, he caught the attention of every person in that room and as we listened to him we began to realize that living in the red might actually be a good thing.  As a matter of fact, a desired thing.

 As he went on to describe the red lifestyle, I reached over my shoulder and patted myself on the back because all my life, I have lived some version of this lifestyle. So I want to inspire you with my RED lifestyle.

R – Rest

 This is a critical element of living in the red. Rest is deliberately written into everything I do and I have my high school English teacher to thank for this. You see, she made me learn by heart a poem that began “what is this life if full of care/we have no time to stand and stare/no time to stand beneath the clouds/and stare as long as sheep or cows. 

I never forgot this and I can sometimes drive my colleagues crazy by deliberately going for a drive in the middle of big project, to cool my head. After this, I am renewed and not only can I go for longer than they can but my focus is also sharper and my thoughts clearer.

 Then there is the need for adequate rest at night. I think this varies from person to person and is not the hard and fast amount that is usually bandied about. If I sleep more than five or six hours then I am in trouble the next day – every bone in my body hurts.

 So yes, I have the “R” in the Red lifestyle.

E – Exercise

 If you know anything about me, you know that physical exercise is an important part of what I do and who I am. I can’t remember when I didn’t exercise, from my entrance into the world kicking and screaming until yesterday when I attacked a leg machine like a maniac from the dark side.

 I represented my school in netball, field hockey and sports and went on to represent my country in field hockey. I go to the gym at least three times a week and hike on Sundays. Did I tell you that I led a hike a few Sundays ago? Yes, and it was as good as everything else I do.

 There is also mental exercise. To keep my thinking sharp and creative, I often engage in debates about politics, cricket and calypso, the passions of the Caribbean people. This is supported by the completion of numerous sudoku puzzles.

I score the highest mark in the “E” Section of living in the red.

D – Diet

Well…ahmm…you see what really happen here is that…you know what I’m trying to say. OK! I’m not doing as well in the diet department as I’m doing in the others. I offer no excuse but provide the following explanation.

 All my life because I exercised so much, I closed my eyes and pretty much ate what I felt like and then I reached 40 years and pushed down 50. Now I have to watch what I eat so I eat with my eyes open but even then, everything I eat rushes to my waist and refused to be dislodged even by the most aggressive aerobic activity.

  I swear to you that I have no idea how my once-in-awhile indulgence, a tiny piece of coconut cream pie, could end up on my inner thighs but I saw it there, three days after I had my last piece!

 The one thing I seem to be able to digest and not put on weight is the daily diet of bovine feces served up by Politicians, Church Leaders, Captains of Industry, Bankers and many others who should know better. It’s served up on a transparent platter of deceit and garnished with a serious helping of “let’s take the fools for a ride.”

I must admit to engaging in a little bulimia because having digested their diet, I immediately purge it from my system with a healthy dose of disgust and a touch of sadness for us who put them in those positions.

Okay. The diet department needs to be improved.

 So there you have it – What it means to be “Living in the RED.”

 Are you living in the red? Drop me a note in the comments section and let me know how you’re living in the RED.

 Me (animatedly): Hi Friend X, I haven’t seen you in a while, whatever become of you?

 Friend X (dejectedly): Girl, things are not good at all. As a matter of fact, I think I’m having a nervous breakdown!

 Alrighty then!  I looked hard at the woman and she was very serious.

 The last I heard, a nervous breakdown is something serious that required some sort of professional intervention to assist with the diagnosis and not something that you just decide to “have”. Naturally, this woman got me thinking and I ask myself:  

Supposing, just supposing, I decided to have a nervous breakdown, when is the best time for me to have a nervous breakdown? 

 On Sundays I hike and I would rather have the hike take my life (some of them feel that way!) than have a nervous breakdown. Furthermore, I have to cook and eat before the start of the hike in good time to allow my food to digest.

 This Monday I have an early morning strategy meeting with a client that hopefully will finalise the process which will see them working with me well into March 2012. Admittedly, I could slip in a nervous breakdown by lunch time but I am so looking forward to my YMCA for lunch.

 On Tuesdays, in the morning I attend my favourite stretch class designed to ensure that I don’t have a nervous breakdown. How can I go and have one and make the instructor look bad?

 This Wednesday is a planning meeting with my business associate,  whom I secretly call Sergeant Major Richard N.A Blades,  for us to put the final touches on our at-the-moment-secret event for 2012. Yes! I will share it with you and invite you to attend but for the time being, the man is tap-dancing on my last nerve with his project management expertise and drill sergeant manner. With my nerves gone, there will be nothing left to breakdown.

 Thursdays is the day I begin looking forward to the weekend and I don’t let anything but anything block that view!

 Friday! Aaah! I can’t wait to go to the gym, come back and go for a drive into the country or catch up on my reading and learning. Then it’s the Friday night fish lime, a staple in my country and I’m the ultimate patriotte (female patriot). So Friday is out.

 Sat-ur-day! This is the day I dress in my stretch jeans and body-fitting top and visit all the places where the men and the women who are not as slim as me hang out. The purpose is to encourage one group to eat their hearts out and to remind the other to stop eating their hearts out! Am I about to spoil this with a nervous breakdown? No way!

 Then it’s back to Sunday and it starts all over again.

 You see, I believe if more of us women would just work on bringing meaning to our lives and do the things that we know we have to do, then there will be little room to even think about nervous breakdowns far less convince ourselves that we are having one.

 But I’m out of here before I mash some corns and have people come after me.

 Update

 Allowing my post to “breathe” before I shared it with the world, I decided to call a friend whom I hadn’t communicated with in a while. The conversation went something like this:

 Me (passing time): How are you?

 My friend (animatedly): Girlfriend, this business is driving me crazy! I think I’m about to have a…”

 I quickly hung up the phone.

 This statement always made me go very quiet and it still does even now because I always thought that if it were true, common sense would dictate that you change the name of this apparently uncommon thing to an equally uncommon name like gemeinschaft or muscaevolitantes.

You see what I mean! My spell check immediately underlined those two words in red which is not the common sense thing to do because they do exist and are spelt correctly.

 But that aside, the question is “how common is Common Sense?” Apparently, not very. And even so, what is common sense anyhow?

 I read somewhere that a good technical definition of common sense is “sound judgment not based on specialized knowledge.” I like this because it means just once, here was something you don’t need to have a Ph.D. to convince somebody that you have it. It is a trait that you develop by a little thought and lots of practice.

 My beautiful country Barbados is a place where sunshine is guaranteed even when the rain is falling. Yes! That’s true (maybe it has something to do with our commitment to tropical weather for our tourists). Last Friday was no different, as a matter of fact it was hot enough to convince me that the devil might have been vacationing here.

 Why then, in the name of common sense, would every other man I passed on my way to a business event be dressed in a lined, business suit of non-porous material, complete with a long-sleeved shirt buttoned all the way up to the eye-ball and garnished with a tie? When I stupidly remarked to one of the men in said suit that it was a rather complicated way to get a sauna effect, he smugly pointed out that he had short-circuited that by putting on a t-shirt under all the other clothes!

 But my mother and grandmother also always say “foolishness ain’t sense!”

 So come in out of the sun and join me in an air-conditioned office. This is where productivity, efficiency, transparency and similar concepts are expected to be present to some degree or the other. One of the important concepts in this arena is confidentiality. So important is this that we boldly label some of the documents located there “Confidential”.

And this is the idea of which idiot?

  Look! There is nothing design to attract the attention of the average human being like a document marked “confidential”. Yet we continue to label them in this way and when the poor, helpless mere human beings read and share the content, we cuss and lay blame on everybody for the leaking of sensitive information, but ourselves.

 The common sense thing to do, to me, is to place company rules and regulations in these confidential files. Implementing a change of policy to stop paying for employees to attend the opening of Sardines Cans? Then put it in a confidential file and forget it on your desk.

Half your employees will read it and each one will tell one other person and swear them to silence. This is how the other half will be informed. How de-stressing! No acrimonious staff meetings, no unpleasant confrontations because they now all have the information already but their integrity forces them to have to keep it confidential!

 Then I visited the doctor last week. No! I was not ill, he was doing the common sense thing and purchasing my services for his business. But while I waited for him to see me, I couldn’t help but overhear the conversations around me. One woman in particular was explaining why both her ears were bandaged.

 Apparently while she was ironing the phone rang and she inadvertently picked up the iron instead of the phone and placed it on her right ear. “That explains the right ear” said her friend, puzzled, “What happened to the left?” And with all the indignation that she could muster, she declared, “You could believe that de foolish man called back!”

 I rest my common sense case!

P.S

But, if you have any examples that you would like to share, drop them in the comments area an I’d be happy to have them!

The “behaviour” which I am supposed to scale back is my “cut to the chase” drama-free approach to dealing with the issues that present themselves in my space. According to her, this makes me appear “plastic” and without emotion. She hastened to add that she was quite comfortable dealing with me but she felt sorry for those others who were not.

As I reflected on her ridiculous request, the quotation by Marianne Williamson from: A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles, so often incorrectly accredited to Nelson Mandela, came to my mind. I share this quotation below.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

So, I want to use this quotation to address “the scaling back of my behaviour” with the single goal of encouraging you, if you have not already done so, to reach inside yourself and find the person which you truly are and share him or her with the world.

I teach public speaking and I listen to so many people tell me that they want to learn how to speak in public because they have something to say. So I help them to acquire the skill and watch them remain the same. Why? Now that they have the outer voice that they can use to rock the world, there is the inner voice that says: “Remind me who you are again, to be going out there speaking out about things? Who will want to listen to you?”

You are really powerful beyond measure but that inner voice silences your outer voice and keeps you in a mental prison and you constantly ask yourself: Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

And I ask you: Actually, who are you not to be?

I offer no apologies or comfort to anyone who would want me to be anything less than who I am. You may ask “who are you?” I am not your average girl next door. I never was and I never will be. I’ve been labeled may things in my life: arrogant, bitch, idiot, thief, madwoman, whore, sweet, easy-going, complex, deep, funny, difficult, academic, friend, enemy, toastmaster, bright and oh yes, woman.

Truth be told, at some point in my wonderful life, I might have been or I could have been all or some of those labels. But I remain always amused that someone would declare me to be something and expect me to be that something at all and on their terms.

As far as I am concerned, the labels we give to people have more to do with where we are in our personal journeys which shapes our perceptions, than they are any profound declaration of whom that person really is. Consequently, I am often amazed and saddened at the number of people that are actually are affected by what others think of them, good or bad.

Very often, I think that labels used to describe me, is usually a perspective from which a person wants to begin or not to begin a relationship with me. For the most part I just accept the label from a strong sense of who I am, leaving that person to discover in time, the validity or lack thereof, of that label.

I am as large as I can be and getting larger by the minute. Every time I grow, every time I learn something new, I touch more lives and I am touched by more lives. Can you imagine me scaling back so that an insignificant few can feel comfortable around me?

Yes! I am “brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous” Actually, who am I not to be?

You see, I treat people decently and with respect but at the same time, I call it from the heart, as I see it. This has led to high degree of trust in my relationships and tons of respect for my views. I am humbled by the many people who can recite how knowing me and working with me have made a different in their lives.

Is it fair to live an average life and robbed these and so many like them, especially in my country, of the example of how to live a life, completely unfettered by the limitations even well-meaning people will place on you?
But guess what? I don’t have the monopoly on “brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous” you can be too and then you will realise that my being who I am and sharing it with the world gives you permission to do the same. Remember: As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Of course getting here was not easy. It was a journey of fear undermined by courage, of limitations destroyed by freedom and loneliness reduced by the many willing and loving hands that reached out and loved, nurtured and mentored me along the way. It was a journey in which the call of Brother Bob Marley to “emancipate yourself from mental slavery” was the light at the end of my tunnel.

So I ask you: How does my playing small serve the world? How does your playing small serves the world? Being less than who I am so others can feel secure around me will be lying to you and to me. And how secure will you feel around me when you discover that I am as phony as a three-dollar bill?

Everybody will not like you and your life will not resonate with everyone. And that’s okay. But at the end of the day, when the popularity contest is over and the sun sets in the west and the night falls and you’re all alone…that’s the most important person you have to live with.

So as my good friend RichieB often says to me, “go on wid yuh baaad self” and live a good life. A large life. A life on your terms and on your turf. A life that has meaning for you and that the rest of the world can find meaning in.

And you have my permission to do it!

Dear Dr Phyl-lis,

I just lost my best friend. She invited me to her party and I could not make it and when I called her to explain she just cussed me out and hang up the phone! Why is she behaving like this?

At a Lost

Dear At a Lost,

Your friend did not invite you to her party, she summonsed you. An invitation is something you can refuse, a summons you cannot. Understand the difference and you will never want for friends.

Dear Dr Phyl-lis

Last week I went to the doctor and after explaining my symptoms, he diagnosed that I was suffering from stress and gave me a week home. I subsequently went to collect some medication and was seen by my supervisor. She subsequently claimed that I was not sick and that I deserve to lose my job since they are many people out there who want to work. What should I do?

Worried Sick

Dear Worried Sick

Much as they would like to they cannot fire you. But understand the problem. In your country (which is the same as mine) when you are on sick leave, it somehow translates into house arrest and you dare not go outside even to see if your grass is still green. Furthermore, your doctor gave you a week HOME. Next time, be sure to get a week AWAY FROM WORK.

Dear Dr Phyl-lis

I have a problem. My sister, whom I love dearly, bought me a lovely pair of black and white two-toned shoes. The problem is that when I try to clean them, I keep getting the white cleaner on the black part and the black cleaner on the white part. Because of this I don’t wear them very often and now my sister is offended. What should I do?

Colour Blind

Dear Colour Blind,

I have a dress that is similar to your shoes and I couldn’t help but notice that the white dirt falls on the black side and the black dirt on the white side. But to your specific problem. Clean the shoes allover with grey cleaner. You will find it fast, easy and certainly neutral.

Dear Dr Phyl-lis

How and what are they teaching children in school? Recently, while driving through a district, my car felt as though I had picked up a flat. Just to be certain I asked a teenager: excuse me, is my tire flat? His reply: Only at the bottom, Ma’am!

Confused

Dear Confused,

I cannot answer your somewhat direct question. What I can tell you is that he must be brother to the young woman that I asked: Is my indicator working? Her reply: yes…no…yes…no…

Well I hope I have helped not only those who wrote but also those who wanted those answers but were afraid to ask.

If you want your questions answered, just leave them in the comment section and I will do my best!

Last week Thursday, I decided I wanted to watch a movie and so, swaying my hips appreciatively, I approached my son’s DVD player courageously. You must understand that I have the ability to make the most robust of electrical equipment disintegrate just by coming within two feet of its location.

Half day later, I was still trying to turn on the darn thing. My son walked through the door, pressed a little button the size of a pin head marked “power” and the machine came to life. What happened to days when those buttons were the size of a quarter and clearly marked “off/on?

Now who would want to change “on/off/volume” to “power” and why? Uh Huh! It had to be a man. Men are always in search of power. The politicians already have it, so the only way engineers and scientists could get it is by confusing ordinary folk like you and me!

Well, if I’m to be confused, I would have wanted to be confused scientifically by having them place the “power” buttons in a similar place on all music and DVD units. No such luck!

I get the impression that any consumer from anywhere in the world (Barbados included) can walk into a factory in Japan, point to the unit and say to the engineer “hey Buddy, put my power button here!” and his wish is granted.

Power buttons can be on the top of equipment right next to the speaker; in the back just above the air vent; in the front diagonally across from the “record” button or in the top right hand corner of one of three remotes wrapped up in the sheet of an untidy bed.

And power can control even when it is not present. Last Sunday night we had a power blackout. I immediately closed my eyes and visualise the interior layout of my house. With my eyes still closed, I stumbled into my ashtray collection, collided with the bar stool I had used as a step ladder earlier and arrived triumphantly at the “Hurricane Supplies Cupboard.” I groped blindly inside and with all the aplomb I could muster in the dark, I extracted a box of good old-fashioned candles and powered up.

My troubles did not end when the power supply was restored to what it was before it was interrupted, that is, uninterrupted.

I was now confronted with a number of “FND’s”. Just in case you hadn’t noticed before, technology comes with its own powerful abbreviations so I feel no discomfort in adding a few of my own.

An “FND” therefore, is a “Flashing Non sensical Display”. I mean, it does not make sense when the “DTD”, that’s Digital Time Display (the uninitiated may still be calling them clocks) are flashing 12:00 at 7.00 in the morning! So I got out the manual for each appliance, since the procedure for setting each one is different, and I reset them all.

Two days ago, completely without warning, as if controlled by some power from above, the now famous DVD stopped working. So, I called the repair company and the repairman scheduled me for next week Wednesday, sometime between 8 a.m. 4 p.m. (power sigh!)

On this fateful day I showered and dressed by 7.45 a.m, wiped the dust off the DVD player and resigned myself to the fact that I will be powerless to make any plans for an entire day. The powerful@&%!* repairman showed up at 4.30 p.m.!

Ladies and gentlemen, power still eludes me. but I’m no longer seeking it. I have accepted that  Lord Acton knew exactly what he was talking about in 1887 when he said “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

When I was a child, we respected our elders, and I looked forward to similar respect when I grew up but no such luck. Children speak to me nowadays in ways I still wouldn’t dream of speaking to my mother.

Recently I was conducting some sessions for a local secondary (high) school’s enrichment programme. It pleased three children to turn up 10 minutes late for one of these sessions. In my innocence (or ignorance) I began a probe into this lateness. It went something like this:

I asked student # 1 Why are you late? “I ain’t late, the bell was early! And you lucky too, this is the earliest I was ever late!

To student # 2: “Why are you late?” “ I left for break late Ma’am!” Why didn’t you leave early? Then I wouldn’t be late now ma’am!

To student #3: Why are you late? I hear that de school was burning down, then! So why did you bother to come? To see if it was true then!

When I was at school such behaviour would have gotten me expelled immediately!

And what about quality? For me, my mother and grandmother quality is everything, for my children it is convenience that matters. I can still remember the conversation my grandmother had with the undertaker when my grandfather died. It went something like this:

“Jonesie” Boy, Enid here. Cuthbert gone. I’m going to give you de “turn out,” but look! I don’t want no match box coffin like what you give my sister Daphne for her Wingrove. I want something good, something of QUALITY, something to last him a life time!

“Darling Jonesie,” in respect of my grandmother’s grief, explained to her in elaborate detail, minus his usual colourful adjectives, that such a coffin would have to have been ordered and bought 77 years ago.

But the activity that really leaves me ambivalent is grocery shopping. I love the convenience of selecting my groceries myself and paying for them with paper or plastic. But I hate everything else!

 In my youth I knew my shopkeeper Mr Carrington by name. And he knew all 57 of his customer by names. His shop was six sq ft and had five doors. My supermarket is 20 000 sq ft and has two!

And in my supermarket it seems as though you line-up for everything. Mr Carrington would never dream of making us line-up for any thing!  Instead he had a “NEXTING” system. “Next!” he would bawl and the person who was next would step forward and “call” for their groceries. Occasionally and only occasionally, Mr Carrington became confused. And then it went something like this:

You ain’t de next next? No. So when you next? I after the next that before the next that was next. So why I thought you were before the next next that come after the last next? I don’t know, the person would answer in confusion.

Shoplifting was unheard of in Mr Carrington’s shop. Recently in my supermarket a young man was caught shop-lifting. Being the upper class establishment that it is, the manager decided not to call the police, if the young gentleman would be kind enough to pay for the chicken.

Thank you, thank you Sir, for not calling the police. Uh goin’ pay for the chicken. But not at them prices! Wunnah in here too blasted thiefing! I ain’t coming back! From now on I doing all my Business wid a cheaper supermarket!

What really beats me though is how did my mother’s generation existed without the modern conveniences I can’t live without. I have a shiny expensive stainless steel toaster that works on AC or DC but not on toast. It has several settings but only two works. TOO SOON or TOO LATE.

My electric can opener works at lightning speed. It cuts in the perfect straight line, but not on corners. Those I then have to open with a “hand” can opener which takes itself literally. It opens hands as well as cans.

I have my own personal crematorian. It has a self-timer which is suppose to bring out my $20.00 steaks perfectly cooked. It also has a small window through which I can watch those same steaks burn to cinders when the timing unit fails.

But there are times in my life when all the generations seem to converge in my house and conspire against me. Recently my grandmother reminded me about good old-fashioned values. She reminded me that she got married at 17 years, 7 months. I reminded her that that was 17 years old and 7 months pregnant. 

Conversations with my children could be equally difficult as those with my mother and grandmother. I remember once trying to help my son with his homework so I asked him: Alex, Do you know at which speed light travels? At a tremendous speed, Mum, it gets here much too early in the morning!

Deciding not to be provoked, I asked the second question: What is the difference between lightning and electricity? His elder brother intervened quickly on his behalf. Certainly you know the answer to that Mum, lightning is free, you have to pay for electricity!

At that time I decided that a conversation with my mother might be more rewarding. “Mother, how long has my grandfather been dead now?” “ Well, if he had lived until next week, he would have been dead nineteen years.”

I am hanging on the cliff of confusion, stumbling in the gully of misinterpretation. I reflect on the past with nostalgia, and I reach for the future with anticipation. But presently I live in the Generation Gap!

Who is this person? Why do we worship him so blindly? Is he God?

No, no, no! He is just the family doctor! The problem is that people do not seem to realise that doctors, both male and female, are mere mortal and subject to common failings and mistakes, just like you and me. The only difference between them and us is that they can bury their mistakes!

This omnipotence that is bestowed on doctors seems to be a world-wide thing. But I believe that such blind faith in any one but the Almighty is misplaced and in the case of doctors, might even be dangerous to our health.

Just last week, I took my grandmother to the doctor with a complaint about her heart. Her trusted doctor examined her, charged me US$150.00 and told us that my grandmother heart would last as long as she lives. Well, be jinxed! My heart is as good as my grandmother’s by that diagnosis!

And have you ever heard a doctor in a conversation outside his chosen profession?
I once asked my gynaecologist “what do you think of the change of government?” He stretched his neck, pushed up his glasses and declared in a most intellectual manner “Oooh I don’t know, I hope it will be good for the country.” Well really! Couldn’t he be more profound? That was the same answer I got from the fellow who washes my car and I certainly don’t want my car washer doing my pap smear!

Whatever you do, please don’t take sick in a strange country, in a strange hotel, where a medical convention is being held. In Brussels a few years ago, under such circumstances, I woke up with a pain in my neck. I became an instant guinea pig for half the doctors who present. And each one approached the problem based on his or her speciality.

The Ear Nose and Throat specialist asked if I smoke; the Internist wanted to know if I was passing blood; the Ophthalmologist suggested that it was faulty eyesight poorly corrected by the wrong glasses; the Orthopaedist theorised that it was bad posture that had led to the deterioration of the spinal column that had manifested itself in the neck pain; and the Psychiatrist worried about the effect the pain was having on my psyche.

Later in the day, the hotel manager apologised for the hard pillows which had been placed in my room by mistake. By that time, as far as I was concerned, all the doctors had been transformed into one big pain, which had shifted to the other end of my anatomy!

So I ask you, how can you trust your very life so completely to someone because he or she calls themselves doctor? In My country a “Dr Boobie” is a bird, Dr Eudine Barriteau is a feminist, Dr Hilary Beckles is a historian, and our good friend Richard is affectionately known to his close friends as “Dr Dick!”

I rest my case.

Have similar funny “Doctor” stories? do share!