#1098 Toddler Torture

Yesterday I remarked on how so many of us managed to survive glass thermometers with mercury in them shoved under our tongues, while today’s kids have a little electronic wand passed gently over their foreheads.
A good friend of mine wrote that I triggered the memory of his mom coming in to his bedroom when he was sick, shaking the heck out of that thermometer thing, and then sort of rolling it trying to read something. She would put it in his mouth, tell him to keep it closed and then disappear for a while.
His memory totally agreed with mine at that point. It was like we all saw it on the Donna Reed show or something. The fifties uber-family. When my mom disappeared from her not so gentle medical ministrations, I could usually surmise she had gone for a smoke while she waited for my temperature to register, because when she returned to my bedroom she still had a very un-Donna Reed style cigarette pinched thermometer-like between her lips.
My friend remembered not just his temperature, but his fears increasing while his mother was gone, as he was left with a fragile piece of glass in his mouth and the mortal dread he would bite it and the shards would cut his innards.
He also worried about having it straight as it would sometimes slip off to the side. Would he mess it up if he touched it to correct the slippage? What if it then gave a bad reading and his brain cooked?
Such are the fears of youth. I remember the thermometer being so incredibly sharp. It literally jabbed into the sensitive underside of my tongue where my mom would always seem to stab for the webbing in the center.
I suppose this unconscious torture had something to do with the suspicion that I was faking being sick to get out of school. Or worse, I really was sick, and it would totally mess up her work schedule if I had to stay home.
It must be hard for current parents to vent similar frustrations by passing a wand over their kid’s forehead.
America, ya gotta love it.