So. It’s been an interesting few weeks of collecting events upon which I shall, and will, report to you on these pages, hereinafter presented. Having spent considerable effort in debate with the dogs about what (which?) order these various events should (shall?) be presented, the Goat Dog and I have voted a quorum over the Squirt.
“Looka here, dumbass,” the Squirt told me upon hearing the final ballot tally, “Nobody really gives a shit what order you use. My money is that you have already forgotten half of what you were going to say, because you can’t remember what you did five minutes ago much less the chronological order of random occurrences from the last two weeks.”
“Wrong-o, Chuckalita. I’ve been practicing memory tricks from that book whatshername gave me, you know the one with the blue cover that I left over to the hamburger joint last week. Those memory exercises have helped remind me that I have the dreaded ADD, which, in turn, has assisted with rememberating to put vinegar in the dish washer before I start it.”
A quarter-cup of cheap vinegar will add years to your dish washer’s life, your dish washer being mechanical or carbon-based either way. Yoda and I voted on a chronological ordering of the things we wished presented for your reading pleasure (displeasure) and the Squirt wanted them mentioned in ascending order of their importance in our lives. Upon further cogitation, it seems, mayhaps, that the best efforts will be to mention what events I can remember as they come to mind. Starting with what I’ll call “grocery wars”.
Item one: I was over to the Kroger—the big one out on the eastside on Loop 288—shopping for the ingredients for Mint julips to be sipped as we watched the Kentucky Derby. Having decided that we needed a new family tradition, the dogs voted for the Derby against my wanting to add the Texas spring football game to our familial traditions. Never having had a mint julip, as my beverage preferences are strongly tilted to not-sweet drinks, I was somewhat at a disadvantage on this shopping spree. I knew I needed bourbon, which I had, and I was reasonably certain I needed mint. It was that whole “julip” thingie whereat I remained flummoxed while searching the aisles. I was surveying the book aisle for a drink mixing tome when a quite pleasant looking lady caught my eye as she glanced at me—from askance—as I studied the bookshelves.
“Are you alright, sir?”
“Who, me? I asked. “Why I’m better than maple surple.”
Where, inthefuck, did that come from? Wasn’t it my dead sister who couldn’t say syrup, in much the same way one of my sons called the Nickelodeon TV show “nick-a-noke-a-nik”?
Must have been something in the sweet countenance of the woman. I turned to the nice lady and noticed she was scooting sideways toward the magazines farther (further?) down. “You seem to stir fond memories in me, Miss. Might you be interested in a cuppa Joe, or maybe a mint julip?”
Turns out she had no time in that her mother is in hospice and in need a final batch of reading materials to fill her last hours.
Remembering I needed a jar of tomatoes for some sauce for our Derby dinner, I left the reading section to find canned veggies, and upon entering that area I encountered an elderly couple—she on a walker and he holding her elbow as encouragement. Moving at a snail’s pace as they blocked my entry to the wide pathway, I debated walking around to get to the far end of this aisle where the jarred to-maters sat shelved. But the tenderness of this couple’s saunter struck a chord in me, and I chose to watch them amble, then stop at the canned peas and beans area.
They did a swinging gate maneuver—a slow-motion affair that would have gained the affection of any marching band director—and after a few minutes left room for me to pass. I walked around them to the tomatoes, stooped, and found that the choices had expanded. Having additional choices is both a good and bad dealio for me. I like choices, but choosing can be problematic, so I must have spent quite a while stooped because the couple had managed to matriculate from peas and beans to be situated into alignment with me—her at my back and him at her side. They toddled to where her walker almost touched my shoulder and they stopped.
I heard him ask, “Do we need Depends?”
The old girl giggled and sniffled a snotty nose, and then I heard a sound that answered his question in a strong affirmative.
“Pppshlooop!”
When my father lay on his death bed, filled with caustic chemical drugs and the cancer that was consuming the last vestiges of his life, his bowel movements had a unique odor. I started having another flashback, this one to the time of Daddy’s death as the smells settled over me from the ass end of the woman. The acrid odor of Daddy’s death clung like that time I ran through a blackberry thicket that was infested with a fresh tent caterpillar infestation. I was covered with sticky webs that only further grabbed skin and hair and clothes as I tried to get them off.
As the smells of the woman’s movement blanketed me, tears filled my eyes—not from the odors, but the memory. She managed to trigger my sense of loss for my father and my sister. I wasn’t quite blubbering crouched there in front of the tomatoes, but I did manage to re-catch the eye of the lady from the reading aisle when she turned the corner and came my direction.
The dogs and I had Manhattans as we watched the horse races, and beef tacos instead of the planned pasta with tomato sauce for dinner. Squirt won the fifteen dollars we wagered on the Derby and she told me she would use it to buy me another book for my memory.
A next event mention started with a comment from the Squirt. Seems she’s been steering my life with increasing frequencies. We have been debating what to do for a vacation this summer and deciding as well do we even want to take one. “This might be the last time I get to take a vacation, Mooner, she told me. “If my back goes out again…”
We then started talking “what if last times”. What if the next vacation is our last, next birthday last birthday, last dance, last kiss, last cow leg bone to gnaw on, last icy cold Carta Blanca beer to swill on a last summer night? Talking about lasts made me weepy. I started tearing up over memories of past lasts and then started bawling when considering future lasts. Since then the three of us have decided to not let the last of anything important have already happened.
In this morning’s psycho therapy phone session, Dr. Sam I. Am-Johnson told me that it is likely some stress that is triggering the sorrowful memories. “Anything stressing you out?”
Duh! “Can you say “President Donald J. Trump?” my response.
Fuck Walmart and every single Trump voter!
