Jeopardy and Other Things

 

Twenty three years with somebody and you pick up a few habits. Every week day Mark and I would sit and watch Jeopardy together. Mark was very good at movie, Broadway, and author questions. I was good at geography, history, mechanical, and electronic type questions. Together we did pretty well, often beating the Jeopardy champion. Our rules did not include giving the answer in the form of a question, so that gave us a leg up. Also, as much as we liked being smarter than the contestants on Jeopardy, we liked beating each other to the answers even better. Mark has been gone for over two years now and only recently have I stopped yelling out the Jeopardy answers as if he were sitting over on the sofa competing with me. He's up on the fireplace mantel, and I finally realized he can't hear me. I now just think the answers and if there is such a thing as ghosts, I assume the ghost of Mark can hear me thinking those answers.

Last week I bought a three pack of Puffs facial tissues. For the last twenty five years I've been buying only Kleenex brand facial tissues because Mark insisted they were better. So last week I'm standing in the tissue aisle of the Jewel looking for the three pack of Kleenex tissues, and it hit me. Goddamn, Puffs are cheaper than Kleenex and besides, Jewel is sold out of Kleenex. I'll buy Puffs. I'm not sure how Mark was using tissues, but I can't tell any difference. I blow my nose in them, I blot my eyes with them after my eye drops, and I do not see any difference. This morning I had another epiphany. While I was standing in front of the toilet staring at the box of Puffs tissues, I remembered something. I never, ever bought facial tissues before I met Mark. No, for decades I used toilet paper to blow my nose or blot whatever needed blotting.

Don't get me wrong, I loved Mark and miss him. But these small things that I have let go of seem to help. Like deleting Bravo from my television guide. I did that the week Mark passed away. I hated Bravo.