Go Away

“’Tell me this,’ he said at last. ‘Have you a desideratum*?’

This queer question was unexpected but I answered it quickly enough. I said I had.

‘What desideratum?’

‘To find what I am looking form.’

‘That is a handsome desideratum,’ said Martin Finnucane. ‘What way will you bring it about or mature its mutandum* and bring it ultimately to passable factivity?’”

*desideratum: something that is wanted

* mutandum: something that is to be changed

 - Flann O’Brien, The Third Policeman

I spoke to my sisters-in-law recently. Apart from other explicit pearls of wisdom that drip off them like drool from the chin of a teething infant, I learned I have some problems with boundaries. Mine, that is.

I don’t want to talk to anyone except the pizza delivery guy. And that’s only because he’s moderately cute. Not like my imaginary friend, Paulo-the-Pool-Boy cute. But the best part of my day is closing the door behind Pizza boy and Paulo, second (or third?) only to hanging up the phone after a check-in call from DOS. I managed to get through the obligatory birthday call (on the wrong day, natch) like a laxative through DOB who is 4’10” and about as wide.

They may be perfectly nice people. Their brother loved them to the extent he loved anything that somebody graciously handed him for free. Their mother loves them to the extent that she remembers which end of the telephone received to put to her ear and also remembers who they are. They may love their mother to the extent that I did every fucking thing to assure her twilight years wouldn’t be spent on alone under a bridge drinking her dinner from a bottle in a paper bag while they asked me for free legal advice about their respective train-wreck lives.

I don’t want to be estranged from these in-laws. Estranged connotes confrontational partings, disputes about mutual relatives - now gone in body and/or in spirit, angry arguments or overt outbursts of passive aggressiveness. Contesting wills and arguing about large amounts of money. It implies some emotional bonds that have been emotionally broken.

Yeah, no. I just don’t want to maintain the travesty of the mockery of the sham that we were ever friends. So, while I don’t want to fight with them or tell them to get lost, I would appreciate it if they would just leave me alone.

AT$T recently did me a favor by disconnecting my cellphone over a bill dispute. It was satisfactorily resolved after about a week - and with minimal glitter. I may have forgotten to tell DOS that my cell now works again. It is a possible activity that I got the point across - like a circus elephant jumping a tiny bicycle over the Grand Canyon.

Mutandumed halfway to my desideratum. They still have my home phone number.

Photo Credit: Okamoto-Kiichi, from 50 Watts

Fear for Lunch

"Of the world as it exists, it is not possible to be enough afraid."

 - Theodor Adorno

I just got a call from Nicole. I had to ask if she was a real person. This surprised her because it turns out she was a real person.

Nicole: Hi this is Nicole, how are you today?

Me:  Hi, Nicole, are you a real person?

Nicole:  (So surprised her bored voice that would easily be taken as a disembodied robo-call reverts to a real voice) What?  No! I mean, yes, I’m a real person. We must have a bad connection.

Me:  Apologies…

WISIMH:  … not really…

Me:  I usually only get robo calls on my home phone.

WISIMH:  Like the one I got just now saying it was Agent Johnson of the IRS and I should immediately call her back on some urgent matter that would involve me giving a total stranger my social security number and continuing to drone on while I interrupted to tell Agent Johnson I was so glad she called because her mom just called me because she can’t reach Agent Johnson whose phone is always busy and going on to say (while Agent Johnson continued to explain the urgency of her call) that AJ should call her mom back urgently because mom needed to tell her that she’s suffering dreadfully from end-stage syphilis and Agent J should come home and get tested because one of the early symptoms is that you keep talking while someone else is talking.

Nicole:  So, we’re going to be in your area and we’re giving away – completely free – home alarm systems, and also, again completely free, wireless phone systems to replace you home phone landline because thieves are cutting phone lines and stranding…

Me:  Aha!  Finally. Something new to fear. Nicole, let me stop you there. I already have plenty of other things to be afraid of. Buh-bye.

What I continued to say aloud after hanging up: So, Nicole. I’m not worrying about thieves cutting the line we’re talking on because, and get this Nicole, I already had my phone lines cut: by AT&T when they replaced my previous landline with a wireless system. 

And plus, Nicole, I’m already afraid of dogs, Dutchman, and the gathering darkness. Full plate here.

Picture credit:Hoogspanning!: More Dutch Safety Posters

Quintessence of Senescence

"Like the wallpaper sticks to the wall

Like the seashore clings to the sea

Like you'll never get rid of your shadow

You'll never get rid of me."

Robbie Williams, Me And My Shadow

Yesterday, The Other Guy would have been 73 years old.  His Deadbeat Younger Sister texted me from her mother’s nursing home saying the Demented Old Bitch was “a bit ‘spacey’ today” and wondered why her son has not called her since her birthday. The Deadbeat Older Sister and DOS have decided not to tell DOB that her son died 4 days after he called her on her 96^th birthday.

Later, I had a phone call from DOS who is always sick and miserable and who, was particularly sick and miserable because it’s been snowing for about 100 years and she has cabin fever. We both said happy birthday to her dead brother/my dead husband.

DOS:  Mother fell twice last week.

WISIMH:  That explains the two voicemail messages I got to call the nursing home. The ones I deleted because I have told those people I relinquish all responsibility for DOB, her son is dead, and take my name and number out of their files.

Me:  What happened?

DOS:  She dropped something and leaned too far out of her wheelchair to pick it up and…

WISIMH:  Gravity is such a bitch. 

DOS:  And the second time she fell getting out of bed because she had to use the bathroom and she doesn’t like to bother the nurses for help. I keep telling her to call them.

Me:  And she doesn’t call them because she’s a stubborn and demented old bitch and besides, the staff ignores the call buttons, just like they ignore the bed alarm that rings when she slides out of bed onto the floor.

DOS:  Did they call you?

Me:  Didn’t they call you?

DOS:  No. And they didn’t call DYS either (who is living nearby while awaiting the next in an interminable series of divorce proceedings).

WISIMH:  How irresponsible of them not to intuit that when the first person on their apparently un-revisable contact list doesn't call back, that they might want to call the second person on the list. That's you. I know this because I filled the paper out in indelible ink.

Me:  Why don’t you call them and tell them to list you both as primary contacts? They’re supposed to call each time she falls.

DOS:  (Not so much ignoring the question as using this family’s genetic superpower to not hear anything that involves them lifting a fucking finger to do something responsible for a change.) Does the nursing home have mother’s cremation information?

WISIMH:  Unless they retrieved it from my garbage can where I ceremoniously dropped it in December - with her will - without even bothering to shred it, it’s doubtful they have it.

Me:  I suppose TOG might have assured they had all that information in their files. That would have been the responsible thing for him to do. You could check with them, I suppose.

WISIMH:  I crack myself up sometimes because I’m so hilarious. Because TOG was totally the most responsible member of this sorry family, not counting me who was the ONLY responsible person in the family. But you could check that when you call them to update her contact information. Wait! Why don’t I take care of that for you? I’ll get to it as soon as I re-wire the electrical lines in my house so they’re up to code, thereby assuring that my final conscious thought is not bemusement about where the smell of burning wiring is coming from this time.

DOS:  Well, she’ll outlive us all anyway.

Me:  You could mention to DYS that DOB has a pre-paid cremation contract with the Neptune Society and DYS could pick it up and deliver paperwork to the nursing home. The Neptune Society is literally within walking distance of DYS’ trailer. 

WISIMH:  Sometimes, I ponder whether there is a clinical distinction between being stupid, lazy, or senile. Perhaps you guys represent the hat trick: the quintessence of senescence.

DOS:  I have to upgrade the electrical wiring in my house to bring it up to code first, then I’ll get right on it.

WISIMH:  There is a pretty good chance that I just made that up. Maybe it’s time for me to begin a blog called What I HEARD in my head. Because I often think I hear DOS hinting I should invite her out to my place until winter is over in Pennsylvania. I have orchids blooming in my backyard right now.

DOS:  Well, the snow is really coming down. I can’t see as far as the street.

Me:  Happy Valentine’s Day. Hope you feel better. Bye.

My Contribution to The Insult File

“You are so clueless that if you dressed in a clue skin, doused yourself in clue musk, and did the clue dance in the middle of a field of horny clues at the height of clue mating season, you still would not have a clue.”

 - The Insult File

I have a bunch of un-used insults that I’ve written over the years intending to sprinkle them into future posts on this site, but the intended recipient of these insults is now “in a better place”. While I know other people – coincidentally blood relatives of the originally intended recipient – I now no longer have to correspond or relate to them. In fact, just this morning I deleted two voicemails from DOBs nursing home to ask me to call them about her. This, despite the fact that I have, not less than four times, asked them to remove my phone number from their call list, relinquished all responsibility for her care, and shredded her advance directive and prepaid cremation agreement.

So, I now offer these insults to pay it forward to anybody who might have a use for them, and who might enjoy mixing metaphors as much as I enjoy mixing vodka martinis.

You have the imagination of a tree stump; the table manners of a hungry sewer rat; the initiative of a broken toaster; the conversational skills of a drunken hobo with the DTs and a bad genital rash; the intellectual acuity of Albert Einstein (who died in 1955); the reaction time of a walnut in a drug-induced coma, the caring nature of a sociopath with an AK47, a meth hangover and a bad concussion; and the fashion sense of Disco Stu.

The extent of your situational awareness can be measured in nanometers. And speaking in metric, you are about one kilo short of a kilometer. You are several iambs short of a pentameter. On a good day you have the morals of Charlie Manson on a bad day. You have the fine motor skills of a small puppy; the haircut of a pineapple; and the personal hygiene practices of a toothless 95-year old morbidly obese diabetic dementia patient (too soon?). You’re such a micro-dick that you were apparently infected by a blanket contaminated by smallcocks virus.

You wouldn’t think of helping yourself any more than a badger would think of taking CPR classes. You wouldn’t think of helping anybody else any more than a suitcase that fell out of an airplane would think of dating a sea horse.

You have the energy of a dormant undersea volcano, the human compassion of a drug store pharmacist stealing prescription painkillers from uninsured chemo patients, the hypocrisy of a pope who apologizes to victims of clerical pedophilia within weeks of conferring sainthood on one of his predecessors who knowingly did nothing when these crimes were perpetrated on his watch, around the world, over several generations - thereby breaking the golden rule, among several other laws of god and man.

You, at least, wouldn’t do unto others much of anything because you’re lazier than the hair stuck in a hairbrush, more oblivious than a dust ball behind a broken piano, and weaker than scotch tape used once already to patch a flannel blanket. Your energy level is so low that it sucks in surrounding energy like a black hole. You suck the air out of despair. You have the initiative and motivation of a rusting 1970 era car with no battery and a skeleton locked in the trunk. (I know I already insulted your lack of initiative, but it’s a bit of a sore point with me.) You wouldn’t put off until tomorrow what you could put off until the day after that; and you won’t get around to doing that until late next week after you complete the first item on your 1987 to-do list.

You have the patience of a rabid dog from Lyme Connecticut who is several months behind in his flea and tick treatments; and the stick-to-itiveness of a tube of Krazy Glue that has been left open since Bill Clinton was President. You have the leadership skills of a pile of leaves being raked into a hefty bag by a marsupial without opposable thumbs. You have the ability to change the world only slightly less effective than my ability to shoot invisible death rays from my eyes into the brains of stupid people.

If wishes were horses, you’d be Genghis Kahn rampaging across the steppes with a horde of wild horses. Sadly, wishes aren’t; and your rampaging these days is about as proactive as a piece of yellow crime scene tape would be in stopping a lava flow.

If you had a conversation with the most interesting man in the world, the conversation would be of average interest.

Footprints in the Sand

“He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armour shouting 'All the Gods are bastards.'’

 - Terry Pratchett

I’m sure you’ve heard that pointless life lesson about the footprints on the beach when god was strolling along beside you. Then, you got to a rough patch in life and you realized there was only one set of footprints.  So naturally, you blame god for deserting you when you needed him the most. And then god says, I was carrying you, you ungrateful weak bastard. Oh, snap!

Well, I am not blaming god for abandoning me at that point where I look back and see only one set of footprints. That’s the part where my god and I each decided to hop on one foot. The footprints do sort of zig-zag unevenly: maybe we were walking home because we each thought the other guy was going to be the designated driver until we were both too drunk to drive.

The deep thought for today is that my god isn’t my designated driver. And my god has a sense of humor, while your god thinks you’re an ungrateful weak bastard.  

System Preferences

“'Miss Shorthorn,' I said, with a sort of innocent emphasis, 'you will excuse my friend's loud jocularity. It is rather late, I know, for his feelings to adopt such a strain, but really the subject on which we were discussing was so hideously risible that I can well understand his lengthy laugh.' "

 - Donald Dudley, exhibiting the glib felicity of language that is the hallmark of the literary critic.

I was recently discussing Hewlett Packard printers with myself. Very loudly.

It has recently come to my attention that I’m a negative whiney bitch. I honestly knew about the last part, and strongly suspected the first part. But, I now accept that I sometimes  whine. Fortunately, in my house, nobody but the cats can hear me scream on the subject of the HP printers. And, of course, Yosemite, which up until now has done nothing more ominous than steal half of my iTunes library, make me re-establish alibis for every app I want on my desktop and generally make the file finder function futile. Thank you and goodbye, iTunes. Hello Spotify.

I actually had one printer that printed most of the time. It even scanned some of the time there for a while when I used a third-party VuScan app. Then, thinking to fix it so it worked consistently, I downloaded drivers from HP. Nothing has worked since. At all. Despite hours of troubleshooting, whining, cursing, and faith healing. Admittedly, I have the faith of somebody in the Fifth Circle of Hell. Still, nothing has worked, and it is rather late to expect anything other than inappropriately loud jocularity.

So: I’m done whining about HP printers. I am no longer hideously risible wrt/HP. I’ve adjusted my attitude and my medications to reduce the strain on my feelings caused by all this technology. I’m so over Apple and HP. My biggest problem now is that the HP Officejet Pro 8600 is too big to use as a doorstop; and frankly, I don’t need no tech support to solve this problem. I have a large mallet and plenty of bourbon. 

My system preferences have now been reset. 

The Whole World is Spinning

“As long as the world is turning and spinning, we're gonna be dizzy and we're gonna make mistakes.” ~ Mel Brooks

I’ve always been very happy to admit to my mistakes. I’ve been known to admit my mistakes, even when I’m right. I’ve found it’s often easier to admit to a mistake I didn’t make than to try to explain to the hypothetically unmistaken person that it wasn’t my fault. Hell, I was expelled from high school a month before graduation based on somebody else’s mistake. That, and lack of due process. It’s a wonder I’m not bitter.

My professional career as a bureaucrat at Research-O-Rama University was based on accepting blame for mistakes made by people who outranked me but who were dumber than a nutless nougat bar when it came to using their words, their heads, or their mad CPA/MBA skilz. I generally used my bureaucratic superpowers only for good. Besides, I could run rhetorical circles around them and confuse them with big words like mesmerize, treacle, and ipso factoid. 

Even so, it was usually easier to apologize and get back to work than to cite a reference in a volume of the Policy and Procedure Manual (at last count about a dozen large light-blue loose leaf binders) and say “These are not the mistakes you are looking for.”

But humility is my greatest character trait - at the top of a long list of great character traits, granted. As an example of humbly admitting I am fallible, here’s a mistake I made once. I bought a pencil with an eraser on it.

As for actually making mistakes, I’m of two minds:

One mind says with age should come wisdom and my quest should be to attain perfection, aka, don’t make no more mistakes. Or at least maybe make fewer mistakes. As Nick once said to Nancy, if the world wasn’t spinning, the people in China would fall off. So accept that we’re all going to be a little dizzy; but try to hang on, you know?

The other mind says go fuck yourself.