What a man has to do, a man has to do.

To fall in love is the most wonderful feeling ever. When I was a young man, I fell in love with this most beautiful girl in high school. She had as I can still remember the most unusual eyes, one was blue and the other one was brown. She used to sit right in front close to the teachers desk. I sat in the back as far away from the teacher. I wanted desperately to be friends with her.

That time, if you desired to move seats you needed a good excuse and the reason to move closer to her was not a valid one. The front seats were anyway occupied by the teacher’s pets. I was never close to any teacher during my school years; I sat in the back for most of my school years.

During breaks, the girls were standing together in small groups except for a few who preferred to go after the boys. The group she was always involved in consisted of six girls nearly as beautiful as she was. These groups of girls were always talking or giggling about the boys.

To let a girl know that you wanted to be friends or going out with her was not easy. There were two possible routes: the first one: Write a little note to her and send it all the way up to the front of the class. The second one: Walk to her group and ask her.

As I was an average looking boy and did not have rich parents nor did I excelled in any sports or activity, the girls as such were not interested in me. I am sure that when they talked about boys they did not even mention my name.  

As this was a negative point, the first route worked like this: If I wrote a note and send it to her in the front, everybody involved would read it first and made all kinds of comments, there was a good chance it never reach its destination. If you were one of the chosen few, everybody would help getting the note to its destination without any hassles.

The second route was also out of the question because girls in a group always kind of protected each other and started asking all sort of questions before I could even approach her and ruined my chances big time.

I had to come up with another idea. I talked to my best friend and he suggested that I just forget about the whole thing. Of course I couldn’t.

Parents in my time, where much more involved with school as is today. Parent’s evenings were organized frequent to update them on the progress of their children. Special arrangement were made, if for instance a pupil could not participate in activity or gymnastic. Doctor appointments were always scheduled in advance by the parent with the relevant class teacher.

I came up with this ingenious plan to move closer to my dream girl without going through any of the due to fail routes mention before. It could be a longer route but it was worth the risk.

I talked to my mother that I had problems hearing the teacher, as I sat in the back of the class I was afraid that I missed things I needed to learn. The reaction of my mother was a bit different as I hoped for. She told me that the hearing problem was maybe the cause of an ear infection and that I should see the family doctor. She suggested that I should clean my ears properly because she will take me to the doctor the next day. I was a little bit worried because I did not look forward to visit a doctor and especially when I did not have anything. My mother phoned my class teacher at home to inform him that I would not attend school the next day as she was taking me to the doctor for a possible ear infection.

The next day we arrived at our scheduled appointment with our family doctor and he looked in my ears with a kind of penlight after my mother told him what the problem was. He asked me if my ears inside where pain full and when my ear problem first started. I said to him that it was not pain full at all and that my symptoms started about a week ago. He said he could not see anything wrong but to make sure he would subscribe an ear ointment which I must use twice a day for a week. If the problem still existed he asked my mother to contact him again for an re-appointment so he could take it from there.

What I really wanted my mother to do was, to request my class teacher to move me to the front but I was afraid to ask her at that moment. When my father came home from work that evening, my mother told him about the doctors visit and my possible ear infection being not to serious.

For the next week my mother made sure that I used the ointment twice a day and she suggested that I also use a cotton wool in my ears to prevent the ointment from leaking out.
I had one thing accomplished, I could not hear very well. On the way to school I took out the cotton wool plugs because I knew that I will get some ridiculous remarks from my friends and I would not let my dream girl see that I had this ear plugs in to prevent my brains leaking out. Before I got home they were back in.

During that week my mother asked me frequently about my ears and if the ointment helped me. I could not tell her that my ears were fine thus I told her that my hearing went worse and that I didn’t feel any pain. At the end of the week she was starting to get concerned and phoned the doctor for an appointment again. He was only able to see me the next day. Again I missed class.

At the doctor I was growing a bit more nervous because I did not know what he was going to say or do with my ears, but it was all for the good course. After checking my ears again he good not see anything wrong but as my mother said that my hearing went backwards he decided to refer me to a specialist for a better diagnoses.

Two weeks later I was at the specialist; it took my mother 5 phone calls to get this appointment. I am getting more nervous and question myself if this was a good idea. We had to wait about an hour and my mother grew more and more inpatient.

Eventually it was my turn and we met the ear, nose and troth doctor. My mother told him the story of my ears and that she was worried. He looked in my ears and found nothing out of the ordinary. He decided that I should take a hearing test what could be done there and then.

I had to stand two meters away while he whispered words. As I could hear very well I repeated the first two words instantly, forgetting that I was busy with a scheme. He continued with some other words and I pretended not to hear it as I remembered why I was there. He looked at me puzzled and repeated some words louder. I repeated a few correctly but most of them wrongly. My mother looked at me, and I started wondering if my scheme fell through. The doctor waved me to a chair and sat at his desk. He looked at me and smiled and said, you have a selective hearing problem. He said "I am joking" but there are apparent tones that you cannot hear, making it difficult for you to hear complete words. We need to do some more tests to establish if you have any damage to either your right or left ear. It is even possible that you might have a hearing loss on both ears.

He looked at my mother and said to hear, “I want to send your son to Amsterdam’s General Hospital they have new equipment that can test your son’s ears separately with audio tones, the result will give them an idea on which ear the problem lies and what to do to improve your son’s hearing.

My mother told the doctor, that I started to complain about my hearing approximately three weeks ago, she also mentioned that I was sitting in the back of the class. The doctor responded by asking my mother if it was possible to move me to the front of the class. My mother replied that she needed a letter for the Head master to facilitate this move. The doctor immediately started writing a note and gave it to my mother.

I had accomplished my mission but I was not happy, actually I was very worried because I had created another even bigger problem. I didn’t want to go to Amsterdam nor did I want to go to any hospital.

I could not let my mother go through all this expenses and time just because I wanted to be close to a girl a fell in love with at school. I had a big problem.

Back in my room at home, I sat down on my bed thinking what I must do. I still wanted to sit closer to my dream girl and as it looked now, it could be from tomorrow. I started to feel guilty because I lied to her. I love my mother and I don’t want to hurt her or get her angry at me. I decided after awhile to talk to her and tell her the truth. I went down stairs and found her in the kitchen.

I told her the whole story and that I was sorry about me lying to her. At first she frowned and then looked at me for some time. I was afraid that she became angry but she didn't, instead she laughed and gripped me by both ears and said “what a man has to do, a man has to do”. A little bit later she gave me the paper the doctor had written for the Head master and said, don’t say a word, just give it to him to morrow and I will phone him. You sit next to that girl.  

To honor my Mother, I cooked this fabulous Macaroni with Ham and Cheese and used her recipe.She used to make this for us, when we where all still at home. It was my Fathers favorite.


Macaroni with Ham and Cheese.

You need:

I big onion.
3 large Sweet pepper (Paprika) ( different colors like red, yellow and green should be nice)
I tick slice Hickory ham (500 grams) 
I tsp garlic.
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste.
3 tbs cooking oil.
250 grams Mushrooms.
100 gram grated white Cheddar.
50 grams grated Parmesan cheese.
500 gram macaroni. 


Prepare:

Cut the onion in small pieces.
In a frying pan saute the onions with a tbs of cooking oil.
Cut the Sweet peppers in small pieces and add to the onions and add another tbs of cooking oil.
Add garlic, pepper to taste and salt to taste.
Cut the mushrooms in 4 piece, not in slices as the mushroom will disappear. 
If onions and sweet peppers are browned and cooked, add the mushrooms.
If the pan gets to dry, add another tbs of cooking oil.
Cook the macaroni until done. (my mother use to put a little bit of cooking oil in the water to prevent the macaroni from sticking together)
Remove the excess water from the macaroni and cool the macaroni with cold water.
Transfer the macaroni to an oven proof dish and add the ingredients on to of the macaroni.
Mix everything carefully until mixture is even distributed.
Add the Cheddar cheese and bake until the cheese is molten.
Serve and add some Parmesan on top.
Serves 4 people.

Bob Appetite.