Wheel of Fortune

“Mrs. Foster, I have a headache.”

“You always think you have a headache, Katie. Go sit back down.”
And of course, I did. That’s what you did when you were in second grade, after all. You did what the teacher told you to do. You could go hobbling up to her, your severed foot in hand, plop it on her desk and demand she give you a band-aid. But if she told you that you were just fine and should just sit back down, by God you did. It was the third day in a row that week that I’d had a headache, and the third time that week my pleas had fallen to indifferent ears. Apparently I was meant to bear the burden created by all whiny snot-nosed second graders that would routinely ask to see the nurse for stupid things. My eye hurts. I can’t bend my middle finger as far as I can bend my pointer finger; I think something is wrong with me. I have an itch on the bottom of my foot and I can’t get at it. Those hypochondriac children cried wolf enough that good, honest, unhealthy kids like me couldn’t see the nurse unless we were half dead or vomiting. So I sucked it up, convinced that if Mrs. Foster said I didn’t have a headache, I probably didn’t have a headache.

I had decided to give up and resigned to the notion that perhaps I was just crazy, until the following day when I was shuffled out of the classroom and down the hall to the school psychologist’s office. I was blissfully unaware at the time of why I would be seeing a psychologist, but I wasn’t going to argue due to the numerous rumours I’d heard that she kept a healthy supply of candy on her desk. When I entered the room I immediately found the rumour to be absolutely true—among a number of other interesting tid bits I would definitely have to brag about later. She has these cool posters on the walls with kittens and puppies on them, I would tell my friends later. And she lets me sit in her chair when I’m there. The “You’re a special person!”-type inspirational messages strewn about on various posters, coffee mugs, mouse pads, and twelve-month calendars made it clear that her aim was to make me feel special. The Psychologist was called Mrs. Fecht, and she wasn’t the sort of woman who would insist you call her by her first name. Mrs. Fecht sat me down and started in. “Katie, tell me about your family.”

Aaah, so that’s where this is all coming from. Mrs. Fecht informed me that my headaches were due to stress, and that stress was due to my home life. I found her statement quite presumptuous, considering the most telling bit of information I’d given her so far was that sometimes my dog barfs on the carpet and I ignore it so I don’t have to clean it up. I wondered if it was my perverse cleaning habits that had created such stress. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know I was a stressed child—I recalled the day when I marched in a huff up to Mrs. Foster’s desk to inform her that Sarah wouldn’t share her crayons with me but she would share with everyone else and does this mean she doesn’t like me? Did I do something wrong? Should I write her a letter of apology? Mrs. Foster shook her head at me and said, “Katie, if you don’t calm down you’re going to die of a heart attack!” Wise, Mrs. F. Great thing to say to a neurotic seven year old. I took deep breaths and clutched my chest, praying my heart would keep beating.

Mrs. Fecht furrowed her brow and insisted I tell her more about my dad. That’s when the realization hit me. Who had told this complete stranger about my life? Who had told Mrs. “I have a PhD so I’m probably right” Fecht that not a day passes by where my mom and dad don’t scream at each other about something, or dad screams at me for something, or mom screams at him for screaming at me, or hands go flying or cars screech out of the driveway and don’t return for hours, usually with a drunken father inside? All the thoughts broke through my mental dam and came flooding back to me, yet all I could consider was how this woman knew, and why on earth she wanted to talk about it. I sure as hell didn’t.

It took only ten more minutes of vague chatting to realize that apparently she didn’t want to talk about it either. She just wanted some back story.

“Sit here, Katie. I have a game you can play while you’re here.” She wheeled me over in front of her computer and opened a program—Wheel of Fortune. I was pleased, of course, to be playing a computer game instead of completing my times table, but I failed to see how this had anything to do with my headaches or my stress. From then on I saw Mrs. Fecht weekly—my little doses of healing through mindless games. Each Tuesday I would be ushered down to her office by my teacher who was clearly happy to be getting me off her hands. Mental health crosses that line of things teachers can handle. Dealing with a psychologically injured student is like trying to decide how to sentence a man for the murder of an entire country—it’s just too big. Teachers can cope with lost teeth, bloody noses, and in worse case scenarios a deskful of vomit, but they’re more than happy to shuffle off a mental case to someone more qualified. A teacher of second grade who’s most developed skill is double knotting shoelaces simply can’t be bothered.
I would arrive at her office, on time and with my brain already strategizing for my game—I think I’m going to guess “M” first today, just because. I’d plop down in her chair and play Wheel of Fortune for an hour while she, I don’t know, did crosswords or something. I sucked on butterscotch candies while I bought my vowels and wondered which class it was Mrs. Fecht had taken in college that taught her all about the healing powers of word puzzles. Psychology 101: treatment with computer games. At 3 o’clock she mildly informed me to “head on back to class now, we’re done for today.”

Done with what? I still got headaches, my dad was still a jackass, I still worried daily about whether or not I would slip with my paper scissors and slice a thumb off, so what had we accomplished? I was left in life with a blank puzzle—some problem to solve and it was up to me to fill in the blanks. Sure, there was a game show host who seemed to know all the answers, had all the training, but they just stood there smiling their big white game show host smile while the contestants figured it out for themselves.

I’d like to buy a “U”. Maybe mom shouldn’t stay married to dad. I mean, if they don’t get along maybe the best option was just for her to leave.
Um, I’m going to go with “S” on this one, Mrs. Fecht. Maybe my headaches weren’t stress after all. Maybe I just needed glasses.

After a couple of months of sessions I realized my puzzle spelled “useless.” I had spun the wheel of fortune and landed on Nobody really knows how to help you. I kept going, of course. Even when our regular weekly sessions had begun to dwindle I would start to feel a tingle of anticipation around 2 o’clock every Tuesday and would pull some sort of neurotic stunt that would send Mrs. Foster into “What the hell do I do?” overload and I’d be whisked away again. Perhaps I’d pull out all of my pencils and line them up meticulously on the desk and stare at them blankly. Or maybe I’d burst into tears and insist between gasps of air that Emily’s desk was slightly longer than mine. She knew I was a nutcase, anything like that would work. I vaguely wondered if I’d ever be able to manage without Wheel of Fortune again.

In hindsight, it is interesting that it took a trip to the psychologist to convince me of my sanity. As Mrs. Fecht sat furiously biting her nails and laying the chewed-off bits in a small pile on her desk and I clicked away at a computerized word game, I realized perhaps she just didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. I’d like to go back to that office someday, knock on Mrs. Fecht’s door (probably interrupting an important crap session), and inform her that “Thanks, but it just turned out I needed glasses. That, and everybody’s a little crazy.”