Posh is recovering nicely: It’s been a total team effort (and I am the water boy)

“Dad, I love you,” one of the kids said the other day.

I thought to myself, “Yeah? What’s the catch?”

As I warned another parent recently, just assume your teenagers are lying to you. When they happen to tell the truth – which occurs occasionally — you can always adjust accordingly.

Just to be safe, I’ve been doing background checks on every member of the family, as well as an audit of their souls. What I find is troubling.

For instance, this new dog our son brought home … well, I think she’s really a wolf. Oh, you can call her “a Siberian husky,” but that’s merely a fancy label. She’s a wolf, pure and simple. Smells like a wolf, moves like a wolf. Chewed my best leather belt like a wolf.

Let me give you an example: Marilyn Monroe could dye her hair the color of cumulus clouds, add some wiggle and a sparkly gown, and she was still just Norma from Van Nuys.

Same with this new puppy. You can dress her up, but she’s still just a wolf in a nice designer dress.

Case clothed. Let’s move on.

Surprisingly, the only one to pass the background check was Posh, who I’ve been suspicious of for a very long time. Four months ago, my wife put her fate in the hands of a man whose favorite song is the theme from “MASH,” who understands baseball’s infield-fly rule far better than he does the stock market or net neutrality or how yeast works.

Emotionally, I’m still at a stage where the right Jethro Tull song on the radio can make me late for work. And as my daughter noted recently: “Dad, your lips move when you text.”

What kind of person puts her faith in someone like that?

Well, the doctors had said “cancer, Stage 4,” so I suppose Posh was a little desperate. I was there to help, and eager as a dumb puppy. I didn’t feel responsible for her cancer, just every other challenge in her life: the plain little ranch house, the minivan with the “check-engine” light aglow, the dryer that kept scorching the shirts. Most of all, a topsy-turvy marriage.

The least I could do in the face of her diagnosis was get her to the appointments, fill her meds, keep the dogs fed, change the furnace filter, chase fur balls with a broom, tarp the leaky roof. Trust me, it was not as thrilling as I make it sound.

Bad as all that was, she had cancer, which is worse than about anything else that can ever happen. How could I gripe about the missing tax records — or anything — when she was enduring injections, transfusions, lab tests, fatigue, nausea and hair loss? A good day was one where they didn’t poke her with a 4-inch needle.

Her secret weapons were a Wonder Woman oncologist (take a bow, Lynda Roman), a rock star chemo nurse (take a bow, Kathy Dressler) and a warrior spirit. Not once did Posh complain.

Her other secret weapons were four very supportive children, one of whom moved back home from Cincinnati to help, and a wolf/husky that kept her laughing with her puppy antics. Lastly, chasing fur balls with an old broom, was me.

As I’ve mentioned, my wife doesn’t find me funny at all, but I haven’t told her the new R-rated joke about the pickle slicer (email me, and I’ll share).

Her final and very effective secret weapons were the thousands of prayers, the meals dropped off on the porch, the gift cards, the books from Pastor Chuck, the lawn guys Parker sent over, the hand-knit caps from the reader in Temple City, the inspiring cards and notes from all over the map.

Thank you. We are not out of the woods yet: 11 chemo sessions behind us, six to go. But the results have been remarkable. Four months ago, she could barely get up off the couch. Yesterday, she walked five miles just because.

And now as I do inventories, and audits of the soul, their mother is back to scurrying around the house, using barbecue tongs to pick up her sons’ repulsive socks, scolding the dogs, mocking me for making a margarita using her favorite crystal vase.

Hey, I just want to toast her properly.

“My ears hurt from listening to you, and it’s not even the first day of summer,” she told the little guy the other day.

Posh is back, all right. Cheers to everyone.

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Twitter: @erskinetimes

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