The Helpless Beauty

My sister is sitting here watching BYU-TV (Mormon) channel. She is watching a program that rivals NCIS in terms of the skill with which the dialogue is delivered. I am sitting here gagging on my own bile and she sits there enjoying it.

As often happens in such cases as these, my memory of certain incidents is suddenly coming back very strong. I think I'll share.

You know how literature set in the Regency and Victorian eras is replete with women who swoon all over creation, are dead sure that their minor medical issues are terminal, and fret over bad vapours. I always thought these were a myth and very clearly exaggerated. You might have noticed the same.

This particular kind of female still exists, though not nearly in the quantities that writers describe in the aforementioned eras. Today I am going to share my observations on a modern specimen of this variety, who, for convenience sake, we will call Bethany.

On one particular instance this young woman--having eaten enough Chinese food to feed Haiti--proceeded to go yowling around the family room asking after the location of her appendix, which was clearly about to rupture. Having ascertained its location, she quickly switched her hands over to the appropriate side and proceeded to moan piteously; this continued until her incredibly clever observing physician started needling her, which acted almost as a heavenly tonic upon her afflicted system. In that very moment she was miraculously healed and was able to set to the good work of attempting to murder the mischievous physician.

While she was in that day saved from her appendix, it continues to rear its ugly head every few weeks and has become a regular companion.

Another common ailment is the foot cramp. These can last several minutes and come sporadically over the course of a half hour, after which she immediately prescribes herself an evening of being waited on hand and foot, never mind that the butler gets them too....

Of late we have had a different problem entirely, one that is also mentioned in many settings. We have all heard of the fine lady who takes laudanum for her headaches. Now, put on your detective hats, because the circumstances of this case have been slightly different. Our subject has been feeling fatigued, anxious, and powerless, but these have shown marked improvement of late.

What do we know of that would diminish these, but cause bloody noses? Hmmm....

There are of course countless instances of swooning; days of languor, interspersed and shot through with moments of vitality; and an untold number of hours spent dancing around clutching her left side, worried that appendicitis has come for her at last...but I'm too lazy to write more right now.