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
Image at top: a Penny Black rubber stamp
