And so we start this particular tale with a link to a song that sometimes reminds me of bits and pieces of my youth.
The Dreams In Which I Am Dying have continued albeit not on a nightly basis which makes it clear to me that some part of my mind is unhappy with how close I came to dying.
So during the daylight hours I sometimes close my eyes and try to walk through it all again because I have better things to dream about.
Because sometimes when this almost 57 year-old prostate chooses to rouse me I wander into the same bathroom I lay bleeding out in and wonder if I am stepping in my own blood.
I always know I am not and I always know that I didn’t die because otherwise I couldn’t be engaged in this kind of thinking.
So I stand in front of the toilet, doing my best to aim in the dark, eyes half closed and working on quieting what has wakened so I can go back to sleep.
Sometimes it happens and sometimes I climb back under the covers feeling like something is coming for me.
And every time I get that sense of something lurking in the dark I silently urge it to show itself. “If you want to do this let’s go and we’ll get it sorted.”
That slowed a bit after I had surgery on the almost bionic arm but not much. I thought about how I didn’t want to reinjure it and how irritating it was not to be able to use it the way I wanted to.
I thought about how The House Is So Very Quiet and how it would have been nice if we hadn’t had to say goodbye to my furriest child. I thought about all I wrote about him and how I would have liked to have thanked him one more time for everything.
And then I remembered a conversation my father had with me a thousand years ago. I thought about how he made it clear that it was my job to protect the family and it didn’t matter whether I had two good arms or whether I was bleeding out.
“Life isn’t fair and you play the hand you got dealt not the one you wish you had.”
If there is something after our time on this plane I am certain he knows I learned the lesson and am holding up my promise
And if there isn’t it doesn’t matter because the last conversation we had was at the hospice. I looked him in the eye and told him he could let go and rest because I would do whatever I could to look after everyone.
I won’t forget the soft squeeze he gave my hand or how hard it was. But that is how it goes, life doesn’t ask if you are ready or able to deal with the good or the bad.
You handle what comes or you get run over.
Someone told me that sounded like a very rough way of looking at things and I suppose in some ways it is, but it doesn’t bother me.
It feels like a realistic way of looking at things and that is my preference. I can’t fix what I don’t know is broken or manage what I can’t see.
Better to walk in with eyes wide open and do our best.
Got a work of fiction just below this and a link to past posts over here. Got a lot of good things going on and lots to be grateful for.
Might take a few minutes tonight to go over my mental gratitude list, it is a pretty good exercise that I encourage you to try. See you around/
It Wasn’t Worth Getting Arrested
She insulted my manhood and said that if she had a gun she would shoot me. I told the clerk to call 911 and asked them to bring the manager over. When he didn’t move I calmly repeated my request and told him that I didn’t want any trouble. She looked at him and said that if he picked up the phone she would kick his ass.
Hindsight is 20-20 but that was probably the moment I should have walked away. There are lots of other grocery stores to choose from and a smarter man than I would have found one. But I didn’t take her threats seriously so I stood there calmly and proceeded to scan my items, taking care to place them in the bags in the bagging area.
Did I mention that grocery stores are the source of one of the great mysteries of life. I want to know why they bother to set up 27 checkout stands but only have two or three of them manned by a cashier. I suppose that the growing number of self checkout stands proves that the stores have finally realized the folly of providing so many unmanned registers.
Who knows. What I do know is that that the problem started when she told me that the sign said that the line was for 12 items or less. She told me to get out of line or put something back. I smiled and said that I would be just a moment longer. “No, you put something back now or get out of line!”
I nodded my head and kept scanning my groceries.
“You selfish asshole, get the fuck out of line. You have too many things!”
Had she been a man I probably would have responded differently, but she wasn’t physically threatening to me. A medium size woman in a pair of flip-flops and a blue sundress. What reason did I have to worry. I was substantially bigger than her and certain that in less than two minutes I would finish checking out and be on my way to the car.
That would have been how it went except that the universe has a funny sense of humor and decided life would be far more interesting if it caused the machine to stop working. She told me to “stop fucking ignoring her” and I turned my head.
“Relax, I don’t respond to hysterical bitches who can’t count.”
If I told you that I wasn’t trying to irritate her you would accuse me of lying and I would say that you were right. Experience has taught me that the combination of “relax and hysterical” will have the opposite effect.
I like to describe moments like that as having occurred because my “brain slipped into neutral.” The motor is running but we’re not going anywhere. Correction, we’re going somewhere and we’re moving quickly. We’re heading towards a cliff at a million miles per hour. The question is are we running there as The Road Runner or are we Wile E. Coyote.
And Then Things Took A TurnWhen the scanner didn’t pick up my items I looked up and called the clerk over to help. It was the same kid who had ignored my requests to call 911 but this time he responded. “I don’t know how to fix this, let me find my manager.”
Somewhere in the back of my mind I could hear Robbie the Robot yelling Danger “Will Robinson!” but I am not Dr. Smith or that damn coyote so I stood there and waited for the manager.
Short, dumb and stupid screamed at me and then promised that her boyfriend would kick my ass. “I think you left your boyfriend in the produce section.” I couldn’t help but laugh at that line but I did note that instead of screaming at me she was screaming into her cellphone.
The guy that walked in the store wasn’t exceptionally tall but he was wide and heavily muscled. He must have been sitting in the car or maybe Scotty beamed him down because seconds after short, dumb and stupid finished screaming she gleefully announced that her boyfriend was going to “kill me.”
As he lumbered over I took a hard look at him and tried to decide if the better course of valor would be to exit stage right. And maybe I would have walked away. In a different time and a different place I might have chosen to handle things differently, but today was not that day.
No, today was the day that the guy next to me had a large salami in his basket. I looked up at the ceiling, thanked god and then took my impromptu Hebrew National hammer and walked towards the boyfriend.
Oh No You Didn’tOh yes I did. I took that salami and I told him to step back, turn around and leave the store. He sneered and kept advancing. I looked at the crowd and announced that I didn’t want trouble.
“Too late asshole, I am here.”
He probably should be grateful that I didn’t have a frozen leg of lamb because I didn’t hesitate to meet his charge. As he ran towards me I gracefully stepped to the side and smacked him in the back of the head with my salami. It wasn’t hard enough to knock him or slow him down which is why I found myself wrapped in a bear hug.
My friends, let me assure you that the last thing you ever want to emulate his technique. A bear hug is no match for an angry man with a salami. For I took said salami and proceeded to beat him silly with it. Fortunately I was smart enough not to hit the two cops who came ostensibly to break up the fight.
The same two cops who gave me the gift of silver bracelets that I wore behind my back. The same two cops who couldn’t stop laughing about the guy who got his ass kicked by a man with a salami. Something tells me that this story is going to become a station house legend.
Even so, it really wasn’t worth getting arrested.
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