Following Program In Living Color

So I'm at Wal-Mart at 2:30 this morning, come home with about $90 in stuff, bananas, low fat, low sodium turkey, cheese, bread without grain or seeds, toilet paper, paper towels and germ free handi-wipes in quantities unmatched by normal human beings.

I'll exclude, of course, Howard Hughes, possibly Michael Jackson, or that clean and bald Howie from "Who wants to be a millionaire?"

Jello, Snackwell cookies, skim milk, lowfat pudding. Welch's 100% grape juice, minced garlic, a pack of smokes for me, and Ocean Spray cranberry juice from a bog in Wisconsin, go figure.

Case of Spring Water, the right stuff, I hope, Icy Springs, not the other brand from Menard's that "made her mouth dry."

It's colder than hell, I finally get a warm car by time I pull into the garage, unload the stuff quietly, very, very quietly, so not to disturb the sleeping sack of gray hair in the same sweater that she lounges in, for whatever the reason, as an alternative to her pajamas.  

I hear her moaning, foot pain, I tell her to take a tylenol, she never took one before, in her life, 962 months and she's never taken a god damned tylenol..

So, I get the water, the two coated pills, and go into the room where she's like a little kid asking, "will it hurt?"

She goes on to tell me AGAIN that she's never taken any pills, she fakes a few chokes and has me take off her pink sock with the ruffles on top. The complaint department (which by now is turned off) hears her gripes about the brightness of the light, noise of a passing train, the sounds from the humidifier and the furnace,  a neighbors landscape light filtering through the blinds, and a couple more almost inaudible mumbles.

I see nothing but an old foot, with a bunch of veins, thin skin, crooked toes and corn humps. 

I go and wash the thought of the foot from my hands, foot and mouth disease will not run rampant in this condo, oh no, not here. I don't think they make such a wipey, not yet anyway. 

Now it's time for the big event, I can't help thinking of the old commercial where the kid asks, "mommy, does it hurt and have a tempurcher?"

Or "Call Roto Rooter, that's the name and away goes trouble, down the drain."

Or, "This program was brought to you by 20 mule team Borax".

Without a drum roll or cheering section, she swallow's them, AFTER I look just one more time at her unswolen foot.

It's now about 4:15 AM, I hear a few more academy award winning deep breaths, mumbles and groans, she then drifts to sleep. I'm watching some show on Court TV about a Polish Polka King from Hazelton, Pa. That bilked fans and investors out of about $10 million with 12% interest promissory notes.

My interest is less than 6.

This morning, I get up around 10.

She wants her sandwich early for some damn reason, like she has an appointment or something.

I make Grilled cheese, tomato, and roast beef sandwiches on rye as we continue to talk about her foot.

I print some internet stuff that supports that a doctor might suggest ibuprofen, ice, wrapping etc.

She bugs me about her cholesterol pills......I'll call the pharmacy, even though it is two days early. I dial the phone and tell her after the computer confirms the call that we can pick the pills up tomorrow after 11. "

 Why not today?" she asks.

I go to the garage and smoke , inhaling deeply. I'm in my robe, in the cold, watching the smoke billow above into the cold, stale air.

"This is GREAT," I think.

I come upstairs to check email, I go back downstairs, she's on the couch, clearing her throat, probably still reeling from the trauma of that tylenol event.

She now has the pudding in her hand. The label and ingredients are full of polysoributonally laced words that only a medical examiner should be concerned with. She looks blank from the inside out. Her old eyes are stretched to stare above her glasses, until she simply states, "I can't eat these."

Alcohol. Sugar alcohol, it turns out, is the offender.

I come upstairs, do a google search of jello pudding and alcohol to at the very least  give her something else to read.

It is pretty scary stuff.

I made up that 17 letter word, everything else is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Note: Thanks so much for stopping by!

I have recently unearthed nearly fifty years worth of stories to share. Keep in mind that this was the winter of 2007, and I was also newly divorced.

Taking care of my mother, Mary, was a gift that I will never, ever, forget.