Photo Credit: Maggie Osterberg on Flickr

How old were you when you found the edge of the envelope? You know which envelope — the one containing the note from your Mother explaining your absence from school? I was eight... I found it when I was in the second grade.

I had already figured out that just bellyaching about not feeling well was nowhere close to the proverbial edge, because Moms have these lie detectors called thermometers. But I suspected that complaining of an aching belly was different. The only device a mother has to measure the validity of that claim is her own BS meter, and I was pretty convinced that could be faked out.

I tested my theory. Success! I was on the couch with a sleeve of Saltines and a fizzy glass of ginger ale when the school bus rolled by. Soft drinks were usually contraband, reserved only for special occasions like Christmas and sick days — I had unlocked the secret to unlimited refills with one convincing grimace. A palette in front of the cartoons and Mom's doting attention? My suffering was unmitigated.

I was afraid I'd be accused of getting better if I wasn't getting worse. So the pain was more acute each time my Mother asked. I even performed an encore the next day. By then I was so tender, I could hardly be touched. I was indeed allowed to stay home from school for a second day... I thought at first it was because my Mother felt sympathy for her sweet ailing baby. I found out quickly that it was because she'd made an appointment with the doctor.

Uh-oh. I hadn't planned on having that kind of audience. A turn of events like that, I reasoned, was going to call for theatrics of a Shakespearean quality. I sat nervously on the papered exam table preparing for my role as Lady Macbeth. I know what you envision...

Act V, Scene I: As her waiting-woman and her doctor listen in, she mutters fragments of an imaginary conversation that recalls the night she and her conscience conspired to play hookey. "Out damn'd bellyache!"

But Shakespeare didn't write this play, and I made no such confession. When the pediatrician finally entered stage right, I stuck to my only line: "It hurts. Oh, it hurts."

I got poked and prodded...

"It hurts. Oh, it hurts," I insisted.

and X-rayed and needled....

"It hurts. Oh, it hurts," I maintained.

Until finally a diagnosis: I was suffering from extreme constipation.

I had never felt so relieved! As the doctor spoke frankly with my Mother about my condition, I celebrated the personal victory of having had a problem for him to find.  I was so excited to be constipated — Lying was the worst crime you could commit in our household, and I was dangerously close to getting caught in a whopper. This diagnosis meant that my previously unconfirmed illness was totally legit.

My Mother and I walked hand in hand out of the doctor's office, and Mom paused at the front steps for a few moments to let the events of the day sink in. She didn't look at me — she just gazed distractedly into the horizon as if she were contemplating something really, really deep.

"Well, Sugar Plumb," she finally said with an exhausted, resigned sigh.

"Yeah?" I answered innocently, probably blinking double-time over doe-eyes.

"You're full of crap," she said. It was as a matter of fact.

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