Blue Tooth, Stephen King and Death by Toaster

I have a blue tooth, not to be confused with I have blue tooth, the short-range wireless interconnection for our devices. I have an actually blue tooth in my head. It’s a temporary given to me by my dentist at the first of three appointments to give me a new cap. At the second appointment I’ll get a core built and impressions make, at the third appointment I’ll get the new cap glued in. I asked the dentist if he’s afraid he’ll forget which tooth he worked on when I come back and he said, “No, but I thought about not telling you it’s blue so you’d freak out the next time you brush your teeth.” While he had my mouth full of Novocain he replaced two other fillings that were put in more than twenty-five years ago---silver fillings that are now white fillings. Not that they had any problems other than they were “showing some wear.” But I said, “Ya, sure, take them out if they’ll help you pay the rental fees on your boat slip.” 

On the drive home I thought I might be morphing into a character in a Stephen King novel. Along the side of the road was a dead cat, curled up and looking like it was sleeping, and someone had tied a ‘Happy Birthday’ balloon to the poor animal. Who does that? Several thoughts entered my head, each more gruesome than the next: Maybe a neighbor didn’t like the cat pooping in his petunias and killed it. Maybe a husband was jealous of the attention his wife gave her cat and poisoned it. Maybe a stalker murdered the cat and placed it where the owner would see it on her way to work. I couldn’t think of logical or innocent reason for why someone would tie a balloon to a dead cat. Like did someone just happened to have a balloon in their car and used it to help its owner find their missing pet? And if they did, what were they thinking! Wouldn’t the average Joe or Jill know that would be creepy? It creeped me out as I fought against tears coming and once again---in less than a month’s time---I find myself typing, “And I didn’t even know the damned cat!” 

Stephen King plots of evil doings were still on my mind when I stopped at a garage sale where a guy who had a John Wayne Gacy serial killer look about him was selling a tea cup yorkie puppy---six months old, spayed and supposedly housebroke and in good health. Great with kids. Recent haircut. Price tag: one dollar. These dogs usually go for hundreds and when I asked why he was selling her, he said and I quote: “It’s complicated.” Complicated as in the puppy doesn’t actually belong to you? I wanted to ask but instead I said, “I’ve got time for ‘complicated.’” But he didn’t and, my gosh, that puppy was sweet! It’s the hardest thing I’ve done in recent memory to walk away from that puppy but my instincts were telling me he was selling the dog out spiteful towards an x-wife or girlfriend. Who knows, but I didn’t sense any love lost on the wee little thing. I thought about giving the guy his dollar and taking the puppy to the vet to have it scanned for a microchip so to see if she was reported as lost or stolen. Then what if it wasn't? I felt guilty leaving that puppy behind thinking it could end up like balloon cat along the side of the road if no one snatched her up and gave her a good home. But getting a non-returnable, second dog is just not a whim decision you make on the way home from getting a blue tooth.

The next day I boarded the mini bus owned by my senior hall. I hate that bus. It feelings like traveling inside a tin can and I’m probably the only one who rides in it who actually uses the seatbelts. We all have to die of something but a highway accident is one of my least favorite ways I’d like to do it. It doesn’t help that we used to live near a person who drove an ambulance and who got a gruesome thrill out of seeing dead people. She’d describe how “cool” it was to see an eye that had popped out of its socket---stuff like that---and it comforts me to know she lost that job for undisclosed reasons. She was the type who’d harvest your organs to sell on the black market before driving your body to the morgue…well, at least she would do that in a Stephen King novel.

The reason I was on our mini bus is because we were headed to Holland, Michigan, for our annual restaurant crawl. How a crawl works is they drop you off at high-end restaurant for the first course of salad or soup, then you shop your way down the street to another restaurant where you have your pre-ordered and paid-for main course. Then you shop your way around the block before hitting the last place where we have dessert. For my tastes, they allow too much time for shopping but the tourist town has plenty of benches for enjoying the sunshine and I was with two of my Gathering Girl pals, so we had a good time not to mention the food was to die-for. I did buy something: a $2.50 bamboo toast tong. I didn’t even know they made a gadget like that and I was thrilled. Now I can quit worrying about electrocuting myself when I stick a fork in the toaster without unplugging it. Never let it be said that I wasn’t a risk taker in my pre-toast tong days. ©

Image at top: a Penny Black rubber stamp