Published Thursday, January 06, 2011 12:10 PM
Updated Thursday, January 06, 2011 12:11 PM
I don’t like having to carry a pair of reading cheaters everywhere I go, but the alternative is stand 15 feet away from everything I read.
I don’t like the fact that I get up nearly every morning, without fail, by about 6:30, no matter how late I stayed up the night before.
I don’t like that spicy foods and beer are becoming insidious gastric enemies rather than comforting friends.
And I absolutely cringe every time a young girl calls me, “sir.”
I am also discovering I am far more prone these days to Freudian slips, malapropos, and other such brain flatulence of the highest order. On the other hand, maybe I’m just getting more comfortable with being candid.
My Beloved is famous for occasionally talking in her sleep. I remember awakening about four in the morning not too long ago because she apparently was having a bad dream. But I didn’t know that. All I knew was that she had kicked me, and when I rolled over and said “what?” she sat straight up, stared intently at me, and said, “I said I would not tolerate THAT.” Then she rolled over and began snoring anew.
I have no idea what it is she won’t tolerate, and I’m afraid to ask.
Once, I thought I’d have a little fun with her. She was reading; I had dozed off with a book over my face. At some point, I must have started babbling in my doze, because she gently shook me.
“What did you say?” she asked.
I snorted and mumbled, “There’s a hundred thousand dollars in unmarked bills buried in the back yard right next to the ...” and unleashed a big snore.
She kept me awake for the next three hours. “Are you sure you’re just kidding?”
Then there are moments of mistaken identity. More than once I have carried on lengthy conversations with people I thought I knew, only to discover that not only have we never met, but I addressed them by a name that was not theirs, or anyone’s they knew.
My favorite case of mistaken identity, though, has to be attributed to my dear, sainted mother several years ago.
She was driving down our street when she saw an elderly neighborhood lady walking, sort of looking a little dazed. Quick as a flash, mom concluded this woman was our neighbor’s Alzheimer’s suffering mother, who was famous for sneaking out of the house and walking to the house where she spent her childhood. Realizing that this woman needed help, Mom suddenly remembered that the traffic cop helping kids across the street down at the elementary school had probably not left his post yet. Quickly, she drove down to the school and sure enough, saw the officer still at his corner. She pulled up to him, explaining that there was an Alzheimer’s patient wandering loose on the street and could he please maybe go take care of her, call the family, maybe take her home or at least someplace safe until family members could come retrieve her. The cop said, sure, glad to, and off he went on his errand of mercy.
About two blocks later, Mom said the following thought suddenly crashed into her mind: “Oh my God; that wasn’t Mrs. Thusinsuch!”
In fact, at the moment she wasn’t sure who the woman was.
Slamming on the brakes, she wheeled it around and hustled back four blocks to explain her mistake, only to find both cop and woman gone. Mom was having horrifying visions of some random person snatched from her morning walk, forced into a strait jacket and taken to the nearest padded hotel.
Then thankfully, her memory gave her reprieve, even satisfaction. Apparently, the woman was someone who had done Mom dirty in a business deal.
Maybe there’s something to this memory fade thing, after all.
Who are you people, again?