I Am a Literal Saint... Albeit Begrudgingly But a Saint Nonetheless

Wednesdays are a busy day for me. No, not at work. I only have like three or four busy days a month at work and they don't often fall on a Wednesday. Wednesdays are busy home days. Why is that so? You may be asking yourself. The answer is plain and simple. Thursdays are trash day. Need I elaborate? Whether I need to or not, I will elaborate because otherwise this would be a relatively short post and, as we all know, I don't kowtow to brevity peer pressure. The fact that Thursday is trash day is important because I need to place the containers by the curb so that the collection truck can pick it up and do whatever they do with trash. In a bit of a side note, I really don't know what they do with the trash. A co-worker was having issues with the disposal of a dead skunk once and I suggested throwing it in the trash and she was appalled. Apparently, it's illegal to dump dead animals in the trash  I have made a mental note of that for future reference. Not that I have ever disposed of a dead squirrel, after the BF's puppy killed it that one Sunday morning, by placing its lifeless body inside two plastic bags and depositing the bags in the trash bin. FYI, the two bags were to make sure that it didn't attract any animals and they in no way indicate that the squirrel was torn in two or more pieces thus necessitating multiple bags. Come to think of it, there was not any blood so I am pretty sure it died because its neck snapped and thus endured a quick and painless death. Also, this probably did not happen because I totally did not put that squirrel in the trash collection bin. I realize that, by now, I have gone on three different tangents. Let's recap: first, there's the main story about Wednesdays being busy; second, we have the skunk story with a co-worker which is being used as a means to illustrate that I don't know what happens to trash once it is collected; and third, there's the non-incriminating story about the squirrel. The squirrel story, just as its titular character, has reached its end so I will finish up the second tangent. As I was saying, a co-worker was appalled that I suggested dumping the skunk remains in the trash because it is illegal and, this she added of her own volition making me pontificate on what happens with trash once we are done with it, because she felt sorry for the people that have to sort through the trash to try and salvage whatever may be recyclable. I told her that I did not think there were people that sifted through the trash but the seed of doubt was planted in me. Luckily, the seed never germinated as I was not curious enough to look up whether trash gets sorted or not. I think it's about time for me to go back to the main story.

Wednesdays are a busy day for me. If you factor in that the house is only occupied by me and the Old Man, it is obvious the house does not get too messy. Especially since I have not really cooked since Medea and Dad left for Mexico and the Old Man avoids cooking because he makes a big mess. I never told him anything about the messes he used to make. I would just go after him cleaning and he finally got the hint. Do I feel bad that he does not cook and has to purchase most of his meals? Yeah, I do. But, not too much because he loves onions and he used to stink up the whole house with the smell of burning onions. He is not a great cook. All this to say that, although I pick stuff up here and there throughout the week, I really only clean on Wednesdays. Now, you will be reading this post on a Monday, but I wrote it on a Thursday so from now on when I say yesterday, keep in mind I mean Wednesday and not Sunday. Are you with me so far? If you are, let's move on. If you are not, I don't know what to tell you. Maybe I will apologize because your education system failed you. I am not sure if I will apologize though because that is not my fault. Regardless of whether I apologize or not, I am moving on because there is no reason to hold everyone else back just because a hypothetical you can't keep up. Try to follow along and maybe you'll get it. Anyway, yesterday (Wednesday, remember?) after work I went home and had a light dinner and started straightening things up right away and worked diligently until I was done. Ha ha, as if! After dinner I laid down on my bed for a while (an hour or two) and watched some Saturday Night Live. It was still Wednesday, by the way, but Netflix has a whole bunch of old SNL seasons available for instant streaming. I really gotta stop referencing all these days of the week. It gets confusing after a while. Well, I finally set about cleaning and I did work for about two hours in the common areas of the house. It's not that I have attention deficit disorder, but I get bored easily. To avoid being bored while I am busy with mindless chores, I always play Will & Grace in the background as I own all eight seasons. Why is that important? You ask. It's not. I just wanted to share that with you. Does everything have to have a point? The answer to that is "I hope not because otherwise I have wasted a lot of time writing about cleaning on an article about me being a saint." I am getting to that, by the way. Don't rush me. Not everything is about the destination, sometimes it is about the journey. This time it is about the journey so allow me to be your guide and quit complaining about the many detours so you can enjoy the word landscape I paint before you. A forced metaphor, perhaps, but nothing is perfect so let's move on. Among my most hated chores, and I hate them all although with different degrees of severity, is washing dishes. Especially since I still wash dishes by hand as I don't trust dishwasher machines since I was raised washing dishes by hand and that is the only way that I feel that dishes are really clean. Washing dishes is not only annoying; and gross; and smelly; and your hands get all wrinkly from the water during; and they become very dry after, forcing you to use copious amounts of moisturizing lotion to regain a semblance of normal skin; but it used to always make my back hurt. I say used to because I have learned that if I sit on a stool while washing dishes, my back won't hurt. Well, I was sitting on my stool washing dishes and watching Will & Grace when the Old Man returned from wherever he goes during the day and attempted to tell me about his day while I washed and watched (dishes and TV respectively).  The conversation did not go well because I am not a great multitasker and, despite the fact that I have watched all eight seasons of Will & Grace at least five times and can quote my favorite jokes in every episode along with the actors, I was way more interested in the TV show than in what he had to say. He eventually got the hint and went quietly to his room where I expected him to stay for the rest of the evening/night.

I finished doing dishes and moved on to sweeping, taking out the trash, and mopping. When I was finished with all the cleaning and while I was getting a glass of water to take to my room, the Old Man slunk out of his room and asked if I would take him to the emergency room. I had just finished mopping and was wearing just a white undershirt and some shorts and was all sweaty so I told him I would have to take a shower first. He then said that he may not need to go to the emergency room right then because he had just taken some medicine and he wanted to see if it would take effect and that he may not need to go to the emergency room after all. He said that he would let me know. I told him that was fine and went into my room hoping that his medicine would do the trick. I was putting some clothes up and straightening out my room a bit when, about half an hour later, he knocked on my door. I begrudgingly opened the door and he said that he would have to go to the hospital after all. I asked him to give me a minute to take a quick shower and change. He told me that was unnecessary as all I had to do was drop him off since he was not expecting me to wait with him. I asked how he was going to get back and he said he would call someone when the time came. Dun, dun, dun... Since I was just going to drop him off, I decided to just throw on a shirt and put on some flip flops as I was envisioning just pulling up to the door for him to get out before I just drove away. I did not even comb my hair or grab my hat or anything. On our way to the hospital, he casually mentions that he meant to grab his handicap tag from his truck so that I could park in a handicap parking space. I asked him why would I need it and he mentioned that he wanted me to go in to make sure that he could communicate what was wrong to the ER staff. I was already unhappy about having to drive him there but asking me to go in with him after not having a chance to get ready was really going over the line. I managed to swallow my frustration and, after dropping him off at the door and finding a parking space, I quickly ran my fingers through my hair and headed for the entrance. Allow me to paint you a picture. I was wearing black flip flops with a pair of black shorts made out of the same material as sweat pants and which people usually wear around the house during the winter. On top of this, I was wearing a t-shirt with navy blue and white stripes that did not match the shorts or the flip flops. Add to that a disheveled head of hair and, although not a miasma, a subtle hint of sweat and exhaustion that one could hardly describe as pleasant. I was not happy. When I walked into the lobby, the Old Man was already in a wheelchair and they were wheeling him into the admissions area. He motioned for me to follow and, surrounded by an aura of embarrassment and defeat, I followed them into the admissions area. Luckily, the lady that came in to take all his information spoke Spanish so I was able to quickly and easily excuse myself and head back to my car to drive home.

As I walked back to my car, the whole nightmarish ordeal now behind me, I started to feel better. Was I happy that I had helped the Old Man? Not really. I am not a selfless person at all. However, I could not help thinking that, independently of whether or not I was happy about it, I had done a good deed and I had good karma coming my way. I felt really proud of myself and decided that I deserved a treat for my saintly work. I mean, I may not be Mother Teresa but I did take the Old Man to the hospital so that should count for something. It did not take me long to decide on how I was going to help the cosmos reward myself. I headed to Chipotle. By now, it was nearly ten at night. In fact, I got to Chipotle just five minutes before they closed. I saw this as a sign that the universe was thanking me for my good deed. When I left Chipotle, brown paper bag in hand containing the scrumptious components of a very late and heavy meal, and got in my car, serendipity surprised me yet again. Upon turning on the radio and switching stations I heard this song and interpreted it as another sign of the good fortune of which I felt I was really reserving,

If you have not heard that song before, please watch the video. I swear to you that it is worth watching. I first ran across this song back in February of this year. It caught my eye because it was on sale on iTunes for sixty-nine cents and it was by the singer of that "Thrift Shop" song that was being played everywhere. I clicked on it to listen to the sample and remember hearing the first two lines, " When I was in the third grade / I thought that I was gay." I was not sure if I had heard right so I headed over to YouTube and listened to the whole song and by the end of the song I had tears in my eyes. No, I was not blubbering, but I could have if I did not have an instant urge to share it with everyone I thought would be open to its message. Upon further research, I learned that the infamous "Thrift Shop" was Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' second single and that "Same Love" had been released a few months prior to it. At that point it made me very sad that "Same Love" did not get any airtime in Texas. I was not surprised, mind you. Just saddened. I own the song and the video to "Same Love" and I can't listen to it without feeling a sense of pride and getting a bit choked up. Needless to say, I was pretty excited that it was on the radio. I could not believe my good luck that "Same Love" was getting some airplay in Texas. I, being the humble and reasonable human being that I am, assumed that it was all due to my grand display of charity and turned the volume up in my car as loud as it would go as I drove home. I was walking on air by the time that I got home and I felt that nothing could go wrong. I went inside and feasted on my Chipotle burrito while enjoying one of my favorite British comedy shows, The Catherine Tate Show, on Netflix.

At around 3:30 a.m. my good luck ran out. I woke up and I was feeling nauseated. I figured out pretty quickly that it is not wise to eat a whole Chipotle burrito with spicy salsa, chips & guacamole right before bed. I had to get up and take some Alka-Seltzer and sit up for a minute so that my indigestion would subside. Fifteen minutes later I was back asleep. Unfortunately, that did not last long. At 4:40 a.m. my phone started ringing. Remember earlier when I wrote "Dun, dun, dun..." after the Old Man had said he would call someone to pick him up? Guess who he called? I answered the phone and one of the nurses told me that the Old Man was ready to go home and he had asked her to call me to pick him up. I, naively but hopefully, asked if he would be waiting for me at the door and I was told I had to go in to room seven to pick him up. I was not happy. I was very not happy. I know unhappy is a word but I felt like saying "very not happy." Get over it. I got up and got dressed. This time, I had the presence of mind to wear jeans and a cap so that I did not look as scraggly. The general air of exhaustion, exasperation, and discontent remained around me through the whole ordeal though. As I was driving back, I could not help but to feel I was being punished for something.  I did not know why though as I did not deserve to be punished but rewarded for my good deeds and my humble ways. I was not even pleased, well too pleased, when the song "Thrift Shop" came on the radio reminding me that "Same Love" had played on the radio the night before. I arrived at the hospital to find the Old Man still in his room complaining about what they had done to him and the fact that they had given him fluids. The nurse came in for him to sign his discharge papers and it was then that I found out that he was being discharged because he refused to be admitted. How did I find this out? I had to sign a paper saying that I was a witness when he declined further medical assistance. I begrudgingly signed the paper just to get everything over with. I was seething though. I was woken up because the Old Man refused to be admitted to the same hospital he had made me drive him to the previous night. The nurse may have noticed my annoyance because she asked if I wanted to go get the car and wait out front for her to wheel the Old Man out. I gladly stepped out and drove the car to the front where I had to wait about ten minutes for the Old Man to get all the crap he had brought with him in a Wal-Mart bag. I had been concerned earlier whether or not I was emitting any aromas since I had been sweating in the afternoon but once the Old Man got in my car I realized my concerns were invalid as there is no way anyone would have been able to smell anything on me as long as I was near the Old Man. I almost felt bad for him but then I noticed what time it was and good old fashioned rage surged its way through my veins once again. On the ride home, he kept trying to complain about how they had given him liquids and how he had refused to let them draw blood and how they had not done anything for him and I started feeling bad for the ER staff. He kept trying to complain even though I kept turning the radio up louder and louder. I finally was able to find a song I knew and started singing along and he finally realized that I had no interest in talking to him or listening to his imagined slights from the hospital staff. I am not trying to make him sound hard to relate to but at one point he made sure to point out that the reason the doctors did not know what they were doing was because they were Middle Eastern. I wasn't drowning him out just to be mean, though that was an added perk. I had to do something or else I was going to reply with what was really going on through my head and that would not be good. Let's see, at one point I was thinking that we really need to pass a euthanasia law in the U.S. Even now I am not convinced that a euthanasia law is such a bad idea. We made it back at around 5:45 a.m. and, as much as I tried, I could not get myself to go back to sleep.

I am sorry. I just lied in the last sentence of the previous paragraph. I did manage to fall asleep. I fell asleep a full twenty minutes before my alarm went off. I am actually convinced that it would have been better to not fall asleep again as waking up was a total... drag, for lack of a better word, this morning. Right now, I am exhausted. I have had coffee and chocolate so far and I am still not fully awake. I don't do well if I don't get my sleep. You can ask anyone (BF) and they (he) will tell you how bad I am when my sleep is interrupted.  As for now, I do believe I received a karmic reward last night for dropping him off. I am still very excited about hearing "Same Love" (if you skipped the video earlier, please go back and watch it. It is totally worth it. I promise.) on the radio. However, there has been no reward yet for picking him up and I am about to go from a saint to a martyr, sleep deprivations is among the worst forms of torture, if I don't get what's coming to me. It's not just the fact that my sleep was interrupted but that I have to go the whole day in a somnambulistic state. I guess that is the price I have to pay for being a good person even if I am being a good person against my own better judgment and will.