Two Guys, One Bathroom, Diarrhea

I've been somewhat quiet this week. For the third time in four months I have caught something, and it hasn't been pleasant. it feels something like the flu combined with a cold, with all the fun those things bring to the table. Mark got it first, so I called his visiting nurse and asked her to come by. She prescribed him some miracle pills and he's doing just dandy. Right after she left the house it hit me. Within hours I went from a little dry throat, to chills, sweats, and the mucus parade. It has been ugly. Just yesterday, as I was walking through the house, I blew my nose and shit my pants at the same time. I am now very wary about how things are going to work when I do that. Anyway, I went to the doctor. A new doctor for me. He was very nice and very attentive. He spent forty five minutes with me, and then he didn't give me anything for my illness. "You're getting over it already", is what he said. I guess that made me feel good. But a handful of what the nurse gave Mark would have been even better.

Remember When?

When I visit my mom, I sit and listen to her stories again and again. Most of them she has told me before, but she forgets. All her stories are of things that happened long ago. Rarely does she remember what she did yesterday or even an hour ago. At ninety seven her memory isn't very good. It's not Alzheimer's, she knows who I am and recognizes everybody who visits her. It's just a short term memory problem. Much like my short term memory problems. As I grow older I've noticed that I am forgetting things. It is worrisome. I look at my mom and realize, that is my future. I will forget many things. I guess that in a way it will be kind of convenient. For instance, I'll only have to put one crossword puzzle on my computer, and those reruns of Jeopardy won't bother me. It'll all be fresh and new. How bad is my memory right now? Well, here are things I forgot today. I forgot how to take a shower. I have an order in which I wash myself. This morning I forgot and got all screwed up. I had a problem with the eye-drops for my glaucoma. I didn't actually forget to put them in my eyes. I just couldn't remember if I did it. Even though I put a reminder on my computer that I check off when I've done the eye-drops, I still have big doubts in my mind that it has been done. So I trust the computer. Then there was the kitchen sink. An hour after I had rinsed off the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, I found the faucet running. One hour of hot water down the drain. I went to my computer to check to see if I had done my eye-drops. One hour later, after screwing around on Facebook for all that time, I couldn't remember why I was there. And then there was the dishwasher. I forgot to turn it on last night and didn't realize that the dishes were dirty until after I drank my morning coffee out of a 'clean' cup. So my memory is not very good. However, there is one thing I never, ever forget. I always feed the dogs on or near the same time every day. Those little fuckers would never let me forget that.

At the Sound Bar: I'll Have a High(deci)Ball

Last week I went downstairs to see if the mail had been delivered. When I opened the door to the vestibule, I saw three packages. Two of them small boxes, and one very large and strangely shaped box. Mark had been shopping on line again. Well, to say he was shopping 'again' is misleading. What he did was just continue the shopping he's been doing every day since last October. That was when Mark started to feel well enough to shop again, but not well enough to actually go to a store. I lugged the box up the stairs and into the living room. It kind of looked like a small chair or a door stop for a very large door. I turned it around and read the outside of the box. "LG Sound Bar".

"Mark", I said in a calm voice, "Why did you buy a sound bar? We have one of these. In fact we have two surround sound systems."

"I've been asking you for two years to hook up the sound bar to the television, and you told me you would as soon as you found the cables for it."

"Okay. I said I would, and I will. In fact I was thinking the other day that I might know where I packed those cables away when we moved."

"Ya, ya, ya. I got tired of waiting so I bought a new one that comes with cables."

Well, that made sense. So I unpacked the new surround sound system and installed it on our living room television. As stupid as it might seem, I am very glad Mark wasted more money on another new system. This one was even easier than the last one to connect. Only one cable and the big woofer speaker is wireless. I had it all together in ten minutes. Now we can rattle the windows when we watch movies, and those actors I thought were mumbling are much easier to hear. Besides, Mark wasted his own money on a whole new sound bar and if I do find the cables for the old one, I can put it in the bedroom. And if Dennis, whose bedroom is right above ours, complains about his bed vibrating, I'll just point out that in finer, cheap motels. he would have to pay for a vibrating bed.

The Candy Man

On Saturdays I do the grocery shopping. Mark writes up a list, and I go to the store and get what Mark wants. Through this story, just remember, I hate shopping. So, one thing Mark likes me to buy for him is candy. Candy is one of those things that I'd never buy on my own, but Mark wants his candy. On the grocery list I am instructed to go over to the 'Osco' side of the store, which is the drug store side, and look for the Easter candy. Mark wants Reese's fun size peanut butter cups and Hershey's Kisses. I search up and down the aisle not finding what Mark wants. There is a stock boy there and I ask him. He says, "Uh, I doan-know." and then turns and continues whatever the hell it was that he was doing. So I take my shopping cart and leave the 'Osco' side of the store. That's when I notice that Mark had written "Apple pie" in a corner of the shopping list. I had already passed through the bakery section which was all the way across in the 'Jewel' side of the store. So I schlepped on over there and found the apple pies that were on sale. As I put the pie into the cart I sensed something was wrong. My cart was filled with candy and all kinds of other crap. It was not my cart. This was the stock boy's cart and it was full of products he was moving around that aisle. My cart was still sitting clear over on the other side of the store with my hat and gloves in it, along with all the shopping I had already done. I was very upset, but don't worry. Only one "fuck" slipped out of my lips before I realized people could hear me. I started across the store, abandoning the cart full of crap as I raced back there. I wasn't pushing that thing all the way across the store. When I got there the stock boy was still in the aisle, looking kind of confused. Even more so than he did when I had asked him where the Reese's fun size peanut butter cups were. I quickly grabbed my shopping cart, which was right where I had left it, and toddled on over to the frozen food aisle. I know, I should have brought the stock boy's cart back to him. But if he was too dumb to know where the Reese's and Hershey's candy was, he was too dumb to figure out that I had moved his cart clear across the store.

The Young Ones

No, I didn't get shot in the head with a bb gun. On Tuesday I went to see a dermatologist because I was getting worried about my twenty seven years in Florida and my youth when I would tan dark enough to be banned from South Africa. Skin cancer has shown up in my family before. I vividly remember my grandfather being dragged unwillingly to the doctor because of a big brown sore on his nose. It was not benign, so the doctor cut it out right then and there in his office. My grandfather's nose had a big flat spot on it for the rest of his life. My biggest fear is my back, mostly because I cannot see what the hell is going on there. And Mark is no help. I asked him to look and see if anything weird was going on back there and he ran away screaming like a little baby. He's very squeamish. So I went to see the doctor. It appears that I have reached the age of old fart in the complete sense. I sat there in the doctor's examination room waiting for the doctor while the young, very young nurse asked me questions and took photos of my body. Then the doctor walked in. His name was not Doctor Doogie Howser, but he appeared to be of the same age. Now don't get me wrong, he and the nurse were very professional, but it was like I was being examined by two teenagers, maybe pre-teenagers. (Could I get into trouble for being nearly naked in a room with these kids?) To cement my membership in the old fart club, I made a series of inappropriate jokes that the kids didn't seem to understand. Then, after the doctor cut the mole off of my forehead, I suggested they paint a bullet hole on the Band-Aid that the doctor applied to the wound. Again, I could see confusion and maybe pity in the eyes of the kid doctor and his young nurse.

So in all, I had two suspicious moles cut out of my body. The doctor told me it would take two weeks to find out if they were cancerous. Then he put his ear buds in, jumped on his skateboard, and went on his way.