Saturday, October 4, 2008

Stupid Anger

Fuck, I'm dying a stupid death. Stupid, stupid. Please life, let me at least make it off the toilet before I completely stroke out. The electrical tingling feeling inside my skull continues to build. Any second now the pressure from all of the blood pouring into my brain cavity is going to start hurting. If I stand up I'll pass out for sure and finish myself off with another blow to the head. Ok, I've managed to pull my pants up. Now I can save face with the first responders. If I could just get off of the toilet onto the couch I could die with complete dignity.

Pnut comes home. I'm on the couch. Alive. Clothed.

"Hey Daddy"

"-"

"What's wrong?"

"The mirror by the toilet fell on my head."

"The . . what? How did that happen?

"I slammed the bathroom door while I was sitting on the toilet."

"Why did you do that?"

"Angry."

"Unbelievable . . . Are you sure you're OK?"

"Not really."

Pnut continues to walk around the apartment doing stuff. We're both anti-hospital and mostly anti-coddling. It's agreed that the hospital is good for obvious broken stuff, but anything that can't been seen is off limits. Strokes, cancer, blood diseases, funny feelings - your on your own. Considering my non-slurring speech and undisturbed vision, I know I'm not getting a ride to the hospital. What still bothered me was the brutality of the event. The 1/4" thick mirror was affixed to a 3/4" piece of particle board that covered access to a crawl space. The thing weighed a minimum of 25 lbs. Luckily I was still partially leaned over from slamming the door when the board (with the mirror affixed) dislodged, fell on the back of my head, then shattered on the tile floor. It sounded like someone had slammed a solid door on my skull. Trauma. The worst part of it was that lately I have been freaked out by my left inner ear canal occasionally falling asleep after laying in bed on that side. Seconds after the mirror finished bludgeoning me, I felt the hot, horrible electrical tingling in that very area. This triggered the resigned feeling of certainty that I was only moments from losing consciousness.

The inner ear hemorrhage feeling is mostly gone now. Still angry though. An agitated life review bubbles through the surface of my thoughts. I'm stuck. I know I'm stuck. I need to be making more progress in my art life. Everyday I obsessively think about this. I live my life intuitively for the most part. When I don't make an effort to listen or act on what comes wafting my way bad things start happening. At first stuff stops working out. Something doesn't function properly. Somebody doesn't show up. Then stuff starts breaking. The next step is me being very grumpy . . . angry at little things, like this fucking piece of paper that won't fit in the envelope. I folded you correctly, now fit! Why won't you fit! GHAAAAAAAAAA!!! RRRRRRRRR!!! FIT!

I immediately decide that I must take a week off from work before I end up dead. Incredibly I am able to get seven days off starting next week, "if that's not too soon of course" No, no, not too soon. That works great.

The very day preceding the start of my vacation, life starts reaching for the big stick again. I make a mistake at work. I show up at a customer's house, back up to the garage, pop the trunk and get out to ring the doorbell. I am met by a stunned looking caretaker.

"Is there luggage ready I can start loading?"

"Luggage? Luggage?!"

"Uh, am I here on the wrong day? Are they not hea. . . did I read the schedule wrong?"

"-"

"I read the schedule wrong. They're not at the airport are they? They're at the airport. Ok, they're at the airport aren't they? Ok, alright, I'll fix this."

"You better do something!"

Numbness. I feel numb as I'm scrolling down the screen on my smart phone. Yep, they're at the airport. The private airport. This couple happen to be internationally known, full-time philanthropists complete with British accents. It is now exactly 3:58 and I have no doubt that they are standing on the tarmac while the ground crew unloads their luggage, wondering where their car is. The company I work for has been providing these people with transportation for decades. To my knowledge no one has ever left them stranded at the airport. The only other driver closer to the airport is currently with another passenger in the wrong type of vehicle (a van without a step which would require him to physically insert the unhappy couple into it.) They ended up getting a cab from Burlington. The next day I delivered an apology card and a pint of cherry tomatoes from my garden to their office. That was the first day of my vacation. Six days later I made my inaugural post on this blog. Life has stopped trying to humiliate and kill me and I carry on with my purpose like a good little mammal.

2 comments:

p said...

it was so strange to come home and see you lying there on the sofa, corpse like and quiet in the middle of the day. when you told me what happened and i went into the bathroom i could not believe all the thick chunky glass broken everywhere. couldn't imagine the awfulness of being in the pitch black, on the can, being pummeled in the head by that wood and glass. it was time, we both knew it ~ then and there...no more stalling, get to work on the blog, on the art stuff...on what's next!

Bob Johnson said...

Lol you guys kill me, good story writing.