Mostly Anecdotal

My wife sells Avon. No, that’s not quite right. My wife buys Avon because she gets a discount selling for Avon. She recently had a rash that wouldn’t go away. She tried creams and oils and various products, but nothing worked.

“It’s probably a reaction to something you’re putting on your skin,” I said. “The only way you’re going to figure it out is to stop using everything and add them back one at a time.”

“No makeup,” she said.

“Nothing,” I said.

“I can’t go without makeup,” she said.

“An attractive women like you doesn’t need makeup,” I said.

I still know how to charm a woman, and she was getting desperate and so decided to give it a try. It turns out that most Avon creams and lotions contain something that she’s allergic to.

“Does this mean you’re going to stop ’selling’ Avon?” I said.

“Oh no,” she said “Avon sells lots of things that aren’t cosmetics.”

She produced a catalog and started showing me the merchandise.

“Here’s a nice watch with a cool metal band,” she said, “would you like me to get you one.”

“No thanks,” I said. “They give me a rash. ”

I like to drive the shopping cart when we’re at the grocery store, and my wife humors me.

She says I’m practicing for my old age. “It’s a rolling walker,” she says, “all you need are those little hand brakes and you’ll be set.”

One day I’ll make a mistake and say “Whatever do you mean?”

She’ll say, “well you know sometimes when you get older you get unsteady on your feet.

“I’m steady,” I’ll say

“But someday you may not be.”

“And”

“You’ll be old an unsteady and need a walker, and walking around with a shopping cart is your way of preparing.”

I don’t use a shopping cart to prepare for a walker.

“Then why the obsession with the cart?”

“I’d rather not say.”

“That’s just your way of not admitting that it’s walker practice. ” “No really, it’s not walker practice.”

“I’m not buying it until you explain yourself.”

“Oh all right.”

“I’m waiting.”

“I do it because I like controlling the cart, deciding where it goes, what aisle we go down next.”

“That’s it.”

“Yep, that’s it.”

I explain, when I control the shopping cart I can skip the junk-food aisle. You know, the aisle that is packed with stuff that clogs your veins and puts extra padding on your hiney.

“I control the cart for you Dear, because I love you, and because I don’t ever want to see a bubble on your butt.”

“You’ve never skipped the junk-food aisle before” she’ll say, “and without your walker to hold on to your bubble butt would go bouncing down the aisle.”

You might have heard that Elvis is dead, he’s not. He drives the delivery truck for our local thrift store.

We have enough junk to supply all the thrift stores in our area for years. We’re like a giant distribution center. Our house is so full of crap that we are in danger of being trapped in an upstairs bedroom, surrounded by junk. The house is full; it’s reached flood stage. One day soon the roof will pop off, and our stuff will flow over the sides and into the neighborhood. A yard sale three yards wide, and on the move.

My stuff is mostly books, they’re double parked throughout the house. The problem is 650 feet of books and only 300 feet of shelves. I need a little voice in my head saying you don’t really need another book. I need a little voice to say go to the library, don’t buy it. I probably wouldn’t listen to a voice like that, but I need one. I give books away, and I sell some, but somehow they accumulate faster than I dispose of them.

Gail is a crafter, and a painter, a deadly combination, her half finished projects are stuck in every corner, and stacked to the ceiling. Coke stuff, she collects Coke stuff, and not the kind you recycle, it’s the kind you keep forever because it will be valuable. Then there are the Furbies, she thinks they are cute, and collectible; of course. I think they were designed specifically to annoy me. I’d like to rip their little heads right off, but I want to stay married too, so I don’t. She has half-finished painting projects in every room. They’re affecting my sleep. The boxes cast shadows that look like monsters creeping through our house at night, and there are voices. The Furbie is singing Figaro in the spare room. Who woke him up, a bad guy, or maybe it’s a homeless person staying for the night.

I put my foot down, like in sweetie can we talk about our junk problem. I put my foot down figuratively, because there really is nowhere to literally put it down without stubbing a toe. Gail recently spent three days cleaning out her craft room and barely scratched the surface. She’s like a tornado that comes through periodically, she doesn’t remove anything she just rearranges stuff leaving it in a different order. “Some of this stuff will be valuable some day,” she says. “Sell it on Ebay, or you could have a thrift store pick it up,” I say.

The guys from the thrift store came today. I know they came because I heard the truck, and then a ruckus. My wife was yelling, was she yelling because she was having second thoughts. Her words, muffled at first, were now clear; she was yelling for me to get out there and quick. Had she changed her mind, was she arguing with the thrift store guys, was she trying to unload the truck?

“Look, at this guy,” she said, “he looks just like Elvis.” “Listen to him talk,” she said, “he sounds just like Elvis.” ‘Say something,” she said to him. Elvis was ready, “I don’t know nothing about music,” he said, “in my business you don’t have to.” “Not bad, not bad at all,” I said. “He’s great,” she said, “I can’t believe it; Elvis is picking up our stuff.” “Nice meeting you Elvis,” I said. He smiled, “just taken care of business,” he said.

There may be hope on the junk front, my wife is talking about getting another load ready for the thrift store. “Do you think Elvis will come again?” she says.

The alarm sounds, an annoying sound. It’s meant to be annoying, a cadre of bees ready with a morning aria, their voice as one. They may be the same bees missing from hives across the country, and out of work have volunteered for the job of waking our family.

Today it is Gail they are waking for she is the one that has to be to work first. She slides to the edge of the bed, sits up, and punches the snooze returning to her place alongside me. We drift back to sleep only to be awakened again by the same buzzing sound we heard moments before, and again she repeats the now ritual motion quelling the annoying buzz once more.

A few moments later the incessant buzzing returns. “You’re having trouble getting up today” I say, “well I want you to know that three alarms is my limit. If you lie down again you’ll have to take the day off.” She springs forward and shuts off the alarm, and then mumbles something about changing her starting time at work from nine until ten, springing forward so as to avoid springing forward. Will she adjust, will we adjust, or will we wait impatiently until November when we can fall back?

She’s across the room your eyes meet, a little wave, a nod of your head—all good choices, but no you choose an innocent wink. You’re young, newly married, and still believe that she will understand that the wink was innocent. You’ll learn.

“What the hell’s going on, I saw that” she said.

“Nothing just saying hi.”

“A wink is how you say hi?”

“My hands were full.”

Oops, now you compounded your mistake, honesty is the only policy, it may seem like an innocent lie, innocent like the wink but she’s not buying.

“No they weren’t,” she said.

Come clean, do it now.

“Your right, I was just embarrassed, you thought something was wrong with an innocent wink, and so I tried to make it seem not so bad.”

Remember, there are no innocent winks.