Jaki Jean on Catching Flies with Honey

You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar.

All my life, I have heard this idiom & understood that it means one can persuade another to one’s bidding by being polite rather than being confrontational.

This morning, as I dealt for the fifth time in the last twelve months with the providers of Jean’s hospital bed, I wondered about the validity of this idiom.

And I thought to myself, Who wants to catch flies?  Frogs, spiders, snakes, birds, small mammals.  But not Jaki Jean.  Flies are to be eliminated, swatted into permanent submission. 

Honey is not to be wasted on flies.

When my sons Nick & Sam were growing up & Jean thought I was overreacting to some infraction (which was often), she would say:  Save your big guns for the big battles.

Little did she envision during those years that I would need the big guns for this particular sort of a confrontation.

Taking care of Jean, spending this time with her, is not the battle.  Tending to her wound, planning & preparing her meals – none of that is the battle.  All of that is a joy.

But dealing with home health care providers, equipment providers, Medicare, insurance, doctors, pharmacies, transportation, accepting the role of advocate.  That is a constant battle.

It requires a diligence I never envisioned when Jean told me to save my big guns.

Over this past weekend, nuts & bolts & screws began to appear underneath Jean’s bed.  Every time I used the bed remote to reposition her, the bed creaked.

This morning, it dropped.

So, I called Preferred Homecare to report the problem & was put on hold.  I watched the time pass, because I do not wait beyond fifteen minutes except at a doctor’s office & that pisses me off (patience is not my strength).

I was transferred within the fifteen minute barrier to Dispatch & promptly received voice mail.

Seriously?  I just don’t fucking think so.

Of course, I hung up & called back, once again identified myself, but this time with the caveat that it was an emergency & I needed to speak to someone in Dispatch immediately.

Dispatch is in a meeting.

Seriously?  Dispatch is in a meeting?  And no one is covering the phones?

Breathing deep, using my best big gun voice, I told the operator that I needed to speak to a human being in the Dispatch department immediately & that a  Dispatch meeting did not take precedence over my mother’s care.

That voice, which is apparently my most lethal weapon, captured a human being & an appointment this afternoon to repair Jean’s bed.

No amount of honey would have given me what I wanted. 

Not to capture a fly, but to convince a provider of its responsibility to respond to my mother’s need.

Before this particular journey in my life ends, I doubt seriously that I will use honey as much as I will use my voice.

And I can guarantee that my voice does not want to catch flies.