Bugsy and Lady

Emily had a stomach bug while away at college and called me from her bed one night looking for comfort and joy and a bedtime story from her dear old mom. I’m not a Munchhousen by Proxy mother who gets some sort of thrill from having a sick child, but I must admit I did enjoy this brief visit to the glorious “Mommy” days.

As Emily and I lay cozied up in beds 250 miles apart with phones to our ears, she gave me my requisite story characters – a dog and a ladybug and I was off! The story evolved over the next 30 minutes to one of epic-soap opera proportion. Lady, our ladybug, lost her wings in a painful scotch tape incident – narrowly escaping being wrapped alive into the colorful accoutrements of a birthday present. Bugsy, the dog and Lady’s love interest, sadly developed macular degeneration. Over their 10 years together, these 2 unlikely “love birds” came to depend on one another. 

Lady, perched in Bugsy’s ear, guided him through the perils of the house instructing,“Left. Left. Left! There you go. Now turn just a little bit to the right.”

Together the pair regularly watched the TV program Mystery Diagnosis hoping to discover tips that might stave the progression of Bugsy’s blindness or cure Lady’s scotch-tape-tattered wings. The story ended in dramatic fashion with Bugsy’s eyesight gradually diminishing until the only thing he could see at the center of his pinhole vision was his Lady. But after all - what’s more important to a fella than his lady? And - what's more important than a good laugh and a story when one is nauseous and miles from home.