Just another day

blogapril14

The brain is like a slab of Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy; one good whack and it crumbles into a million pieces.

Trying to hold it together in the best of times is a challenge. Now, it takes a Herculean effort or even an Olympic effort.

Take my daughter, please. I will not ask for details but she can easily use up a roll of toilet paper in one visit to the bathroom. I think that like the great Jack Kerouac, she may be writing her great novel on toilet paper.

If I have told her once, I have told her a hundred times. When the toilet paper is gone, it is every man to himself. The gloves will be off. And it’s time to gather the leaves. or newspapers.

And my son, the great boy that he is. He is a human compacting machine. He inhales food and there is no satiating him. It all just vanishes in a haze, the chips, the hot dogs, the English muffins, the Coke, everything. Fortunately we have a stash in our locked Armageddon closet so we will not starve. At least not today. Now, that may be the answer to the toilet paper debacle.

I have thought of wrapping the refrigerator in chains and fastening it shut with a combination lock. But I would forget the combination and we would all starve. I thought of standing vigil all night to stop the late, late night food raids but that’s just too much work.

The older daughter cannot understand why she can’t go out and be with her friends. She promises to maintain six feet, crossed her heart and hoped to die. Maybe I could chaperone her to her friends. I’m sure she would like that. She is going a bit mad in her private hell of forced imprisonment.

Do I put padlocks on all the doors and windows to keep her inside? Or would it be wrong to lock her bedroom door and windows? Or maybe stand vigil outside her door every night? Nope, too much work. Just have to have faith that a 16-year-old girl will do the right thing. Right.

And there is my husband who along with millions of others, is working from home. God I love to have my private time ripped from me like hyenas savaging a wounded deer. Why do men resort to a mindset of the master and the plantation?

Can you get me a roll and butter? Can you bring me a coffee? Did you do the bills? What’s for dinner? We’re out of cat food. I, the dutiful slave, slowly plunge the dagger into his breast.

But this is all within reason. I can deal with almost anything. Almost. Last night was my time. The massah had gone to sleep, the novelist had hunkered down, the eating machine had finally had enough and the teenager somehow made peace with her imprisonment, with help from the iPhone.

I could have popped a few pills but that’s dangerous. I don’t want to become addicted. I’d rather become an alcoholic.

So I went to my secret place, popped open the bottle of Merlot, pulled the chair away from the table and dropped the bottle on the floor, all of its precious blood flowing away from me. I reached down to rescue my only source of escape and cut my hand, badly, on a shard of glass.

The blood mixed with the wine and I prayed for help. I needed stitches at the emergency room which is filled with people with suspected COVID-19. I would rather spend a night with Pence.

Enough pressure on the wound eventually staunched the bleeding and I was able to find another bottle and find restful, alcohol-induced sleep, in preparation for another day in paradise.

And all was good.