Fear Old People and Garbage Trucks

“His age was indeterminate. But in cynicism and general world weariness, which is a sort of carbon dating of the personality, he was about seven thousand years old."

 - Terry Pratchett, "Guards! Guards!”

I am in that middle stage of life where I’m young enough that old people bother me and I’m not yet old enough to not notice whether I bother younger people.

Just getting into the parking lot at the doctor’s office this morning was an exercise in a slow motion demolition derby where the drivers don’t want to hit anything but they have the reaction time of a turtle with narcolepsy, the situational awareness of a small hill and a complete failure to understand how rearview mirrors work. And they drive like slow shit. Then, there’s the people with walkers, people trying to help people in walkers who are exhibiting significant senile agitation; and those who can’t read the sign that says which line to queue in at the lab. There was a long line to check in, but the waiting room itself was empty. Never a good sign. I always bring a book. The single receptionist seemed to be taking a long time checking in patients. I read a chapter and finally made it to the desk.

Receptionist at lab:  Have you been to Africa recently?

Me: Nope.

Receptionist: Have you been around anybody who has recently been to Africa?

WISIMH:  Possibly Nana in the walker painted like an American flag, who feinted left directly into me as I was trying to pass her at the exact moment she decided to detour to the ladies room. Now that I think of it though, that was in the hallway and I’ve been waiting in line for the 21 day Ebola incubation period, so I’m good.

Me: Nope.

Receptionist: Well, let’s see if we can find a sticker with your primary care doctor’s name and phone number that I can paste on your plastic ID card. (She’s fumbling in a large envelope of tiny stickers with different doctor names and numbers. Spoiler alert: never found it.)

WISIMH: I’ve been covered by Kaiser for about 40 years and have never had my doctor’s name sticker on my card. I’ve lived to tell the tale. And there are 15 people in the waiting line and now I see why it’s taking so long.

Me:  I was hoping to get my lab tests done before dinner. I’m fasting so I’m a tad grumpy. No caffeine and that.

Receptionist: Isn’t that the worst? Especially when the lines are so long and blah blah blah.

What I was Getting Ready to Say in My Head: No, sweetie. The worst is an idiot receptionist who is so scatterbrained she makes a rutted gravel road look like it has its act together.

Lady Too Good to Wait in Line:  Excuse me, I have an appointment. Do I have to wait in line?

Me: Or, you could read the sign and wait in the appointment line instead of the line where the common people wait.

Receptionist: (Using way too many words to interpret the sign that says “Appointments” and “No Appointments” with arrows pointing respectively left and right of the post with the straps to corral waiting patients.)

Me:  Excuse ME. I’m being served now. Perhaps you could wait until I check in and interrupt the next patient if you’re too important to read the sign.

I should note that while I may not be old enough not to notice when I bother people, I’m old enough to let rude people know when they bother me.

Receptionist: (Regaining consciousness, or whatever it is she uses in lieu of consciousness) Have you been to Africa recently?

WISIMH:  Yes actually, the waiting line extends to Sierra Leone.

Me: Nope.

Once checked in, there was zero wait time to get into the lab. The phlebotomist noticed the scratch scabs on my arms and the Band-Aids covering even worse and still bloody scratch scabs.

Phlebotomist:  Do you have a cat who jumps off your lap?

Me:  Yes, and I have an INR that makes my blood so thin I bleed when I sneeze.

WISIMH: Hence today’s lab test to confirm that so they can adjust my Coumadin to a level that makes my eyes not bleed when I encounter annoying people at the lab.

Phlebotomist:  My cat is afraid of the garbage truck. She runs away from the window when it comes.

Me:  Well, you have to admit garbage trucks are pretty scary.

Phlebotomist: Strangely, I was afraid of garbage trucks when I was a kid.

Me: Do you still run away when they come?

Phlebotomist: (Giving me a mildly confused look because apparently to her sarcasm is just a seven-letter word beginning with s.) No.

Me:  Well, I hope your cat will outgrow it too.

Recessive Jean

"For nearing its desired end, out intellect sinks into an abyss so deep that memory fails to follow it."

Dante, Divine Comedy

DOB fell. The nursing facility called. I told them I don’t care. I asked them to take me off their call list. They won’t. This is to déjà vu what being tapped on the shoulder is to being hit by a train.

Then DOS called to tell me DOB fell. Oh dear I exclaimed. Drama ensued as the details were related. Details included another move to another room precipitated by another fight between demented other roommates that apparently disrupt the more subdued residents. More time passed. It turned out she was not only fine, but by dinner had no recollection she had fallen at lunch. I think this may have happened before, but to say I no longer have the fucks to remember is like saying I have elevated cholesterol. Last time I bothered to check the overall number was >300.

To say I have zero fucks to give on this matter is to understate the degree to which this latest downfall depressed me. The German word I just made up for this post is unterfockingstadmunt. We’re into negative numbers trying to compute the fucks I give about DOB. Talking to people with these recessive genes on the phone is like entering a denser Higgs field where the drag on every particle of my body increases.

I mean it depressed me. I read an article this morning by somebody who suffers from depression schooling well-meaning people who say the wrong thing to them. It apparently didn’t occur to the author who listed the symptoms of the disease called depression by way of distinguishing it from say, a bad mood, that she missed one. Depressed people believe non-depressed people don’t get them. In her case she mistook my lack of fucks to give for lack of understanding.

I get it. You’re sick. Like cancer. It hurts. Like cancer. It even kills. Like… If I said I feel sorry for you, you’d be pissed. If I said I’d pray for you you certainly should be pissed. If I said I hope you feel better... If I said pretty much anything you’d be pissed. Why? Because you’re fucking depressed. So, since you’re going to blame me for making things worse by trying to make things better, I’ll just say I don’t care. Which is ok by the way, because I’m pissed about being depressed too. So I can use those words and merely sad people can’t.

But look on the bright side. Here’s some cold comfort. I don’t care about DOB slightly more than I don’t care for misunderstood depressives. I care slightly more that a person with depression might be pissed at me for not caring than I care about the depressing fact that while that my link to my dysfunctional in-laws is gone… They. Are. Still. Here.

Apparently, they don’t get me. How depressing.

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.