Dave has started a new job where he will be travelling a lot - 3 or 4 days a week - and it put me into panic mode, in some ways. I always feel somewhat at odds in this relationship -- wanting to be the strong, loving life-partner that is there to be his rock; wanting to be allowed to make mistakes and have the little girl in me taken care of and taken in hand. He's been on vacation with his family, and then on a business trip, and in the time that he was away I had a major medical emergency (well, semi-major) that was very scary to me.
My asthma, which is normally not a big deal at all, got really bad and stayed bad for over a week. By the time I ended up up in the hospital, my inhaler wasn't working at all. I realized when I took it out to clean it off on Friday, after my doctor's office was already closed, that the damn thing was expired and had been for almost a year. I had no refills (again, the asthma isn't a *problem* normally - so I haven't brought it up at a doctor's visit for quite some time) at any of the pharmacies around town and my doctor wasn't calling me back. An ER visit occurred on Saturday where it turned out I had a nasty case of bronchitis, needed steroids, a breathing treatment, a new inhaler, and antibiotics. Dave saw me through all of this over the phone, because he was out of town, and he never scolded or lectured about the expired inhaler. He could tell I was scared to death as it was.
Fast forward to Tuesday. I'm feeling a lot better, and I'm driving home from work, trying to text-message Dave to NOT listen to a voicemail I just left him because it won't make any sense and he'll get the wrong idea. I don't want to call him again because he's in a meeting, I think, and his phone will ring and disturb people! Texting is definitely the right thing to do, in my opinion. It was after-work, rush-hour traffic, but I was sort of watching the road. I drove kind of left of center a couple of times and almost wrecked maybe three times, but I finally finished the text. Later, I told Dave I was texting while driving, but his mind was elsewhere and he didn't seem too concerned so I didn't think much of it. Later, in the days to come, I started thinking about how stupid that was. I get pissed when I see people who talk on their cells and don't know how to watch the road and talk at the same time -- and here I was TYPING?
I asked a friend of mine, we'll call him DH, who Dave has enormous respect for, "Hypothetically speaking, if I told you I was texting while driving and I almost wrecked my car three times, what would YOU do?" He said, "I'd paddle your hypothetical butt until you couldn't sit comfortable for days. Safety issues are #1 on my punishable offenses list." I was feeling more and more guilty and yet, still so torn about that whole being the strong, good partner and not giving Dave any reason to dread coming home to some naughty girl he has to deal with when he comes off the road. I finally just spilled it all to him, though. What DH said about the texting, and the safety. Dave said, "I'm more inclined to punish you for the inhaler issue. They're both bad, though. But, seriously, Angela. That's just stupid. You know you have asthma and you don't keep a non-expired inhaler on hand? You could DIE from an attack. You're going to be punished for both things. Tomorrow."
I was at once incredibly scared, incredibly relieved, and incredibly proud. It sounds so stupid, but he's just grown into such a wonderful disciplinarian. :) He never brought it up while I was actually sick, but the fact that he thought about it, and that he knew he was going to bring it up to me when I was well again and that he was going to address the issue with me and punish me for it -- it makes me feel so loved and cared for.
Saturday, I was getting ready to go to Dave's, to get this whole thing out of the way, and DH called me. I'd left him a message Friday night when I was feeling less than stellar about my upcoming sore bottom and told him I blamed him for this whole thing. Somehow, it was all his fault. Anyway, while we were on the phone I started to cry and I said there was one more thing I hadn't told Dave and I knew I was going to have to but I didn't know how, and I really didn't WANT to. The ER doctor had given me Prednisone (a steroid) for my lungs and I was to take 3 pills for 4 days. These things are NASTY. They're the worst, most bitter taste in the world. I took them two days in a row and then I just stopped because I hated them so much. And in the last two days I was getting sick again, and I know how bronchitis is - I know how it lingers and returns - but I'm bad about taking pills when I'm supposed to and if they taste bad, well, that's a deal-breaker. He told me I had to tell him, and he thought I needed to wait until AFTER my punishment was over because a) Dave had probably already decided what my current punishment was going to be and b) I deserved, quite frankly, a completely seperate punishment for this because it was too ridiculous for words. I knew that as much as I didn't want to, I would do it exactly as he was suggesting, because he's one of my best friends and he knows me very well, and we both respect his experience and his wisdom quite a bit. If he says that's the way I should do it, he's probably right - and if Dave knew DH had given me that advice he would want me to follow it.
I heaved a big sigh, told him I'd call him later to let him know if I lived through this day, and headed over to Dave's - enjoying the feeling of an unspanked bottom for the last time in what will probably be awhile.
This is already waaaaay longer than I planned for the exposition to be -- so I'll write the punishment out in a separate post. I'm going to get something to eat and I'll finish the punishment part this afternoon. I hope I haven't bored everyone to tears already. This was all very powerful for me and I really needed to capture it. Stay tuned. :)
