for lunch. last week. in the hospital. cooked, pickled beetroot. with some sort of sauce. i’ve never experienced this before. pickled and cooked. boiled? possibly. most likely. who really knows? probably the chef, you’d say. but even that’s not certain. the act itself of cooking a pickle and serving it for dinner is clearly evidence of some sort of madness wherein nothing is certain. or sacred. was it a mistake? did they mean to cook something else? was it some sort of cry for help? or a protest? some arcane declaration of war? what… does it mean? are there people out there who actually cook and eat pickles? like it’s normal. acceptable. some seedy underworld where… no. enough. i want no part of this. there was also sweet and sour chicken. spinach. mashed potato. somehow i ate the whole lot of it. i don’t even know why. it doesn’t make sense. to willingly inflict that level of suffering on oneself. but i feel fine. i think that’s what disturbs me the most. the nurse too, since her facial expressions seemed to convey every possible variety of disgust. i hope she managed to sleep that night. huh. and it started out as just another ordinary tuesday.
the old bugger called last monday. had a hissy fit. i almost hung up on him. it was about 7pm so i’m guessing he’d been into his whiskey. stewing on a tantrum all day. finally got some courage in him and decided to ring up and let me have it. all nice and friendly a few days later when i saw him next. silly old coot. he knows it, too. he’s usually mentally sharp enough that it’s easy to forget his age. maybe some senility is creeping in. i can usually shrug it off when he throws a wobbly like this but i feel like one day, probably soon given his mood lately, one day i’m not going to be able to stop myself. then he does something like completely struggle and fail to connect two garden hoses together. the spring clips at the end of the hoses defeated him. that would be frustrating.
it’s the pain in his legs. i can empathize. i think the problem is i’m not at all sympathetic. he gets short, sharp pains. lasts 10-15 seconds. they’re not constant. only when he gets up to do things. or after he’s done something then sits down. 10-15 seconds? short and sharp? and not constant? no, not constant. well that sounds like fucking paradise if you ask me. and i think that’s the problem. if he calls needing help with something and i’m not there then he gets mad at me for not being there. a while back i told him i’d put off doing something until i felt better. he got mad at me for that, too. not for putting it off but for not telling him when i don’t feel well. reasonable enough, i guess.
we’re opposites in this respect.
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