“You know, it’s impossible to keep your eyes open when you sneeze.” He waited expectantly for a reply.
She wondered if it was too early to just do her brow arch, that disdainful look that said without words, “you’re freakin’ nuts.”
Figuring it was way to early in the game for that, she just looked over her mug of coffee, letting the pain slowly enter her eyes, still not willing to take the bait she saw dangling before her.
“It’s true,” he muttered. “Otherwise your eyeballs would come blowing out from the pressure. That’s just a theory of course, since no one can keep their eyes open when sneezing that is. Can’t be properly tested. You know what I mean surely, it’s like that string theory stuff you talk about. Untestable.”
A shiver ran down her back as she examined this man who kept imitating her husband, at least in look. He’d hidden this mad side of himself quite well during the courtship. Yes he had. If she had suspected, well, things would have been different. She supposed they would at least. but then maybe not.
She sat her cup down and prepared for more, all the while hoping against all hope that perhaps he would go back to his online poker game. But no, she could see that he was in that “mood”. She could never be quite sure what it all meant. Was he purposefully trying to drive her bat crazy? It was not like there was any inheritance to gain. So it could only be from the pure pleasure of watching her slowly lose her precious mind.
Just last night he had sat squirming in his lounger. Finally, she asked so perfectly kindly, “Dear what is the matter?”
“My bibs and my boxers are all bunched up and wanging my balls,” he moaned. She looked on in horror. “Well my God, take off your bibs then, and put on something else!” Alas the words had slipped out before her brain had caught up.
“REDRESS? Are you mad? (now that beats all doesn’t it?). It’s 8:30 at night. Do you think I’m going to redress this late? Why that would be purely crazy. Normal people don’t redress. That’s a huge chunk of time I would never get back. Just willy nilly give up precious HOURS of my life in redressing! How absurd.”
She retreated into silence and then viciously replied, “Well just sit there quietly in your agony then, and don’t complain. Man up as they say.”
Recalling that conversation, she tried desperately to return her concentration to GMA, hoping that his string of insanity was done for the morning at least. On the screen, Robin Roberts towered over the tiny George Stephanopolous. That was a scream if there ever was one. Who in the hell made that mistake?
She shuddered thinking of Tiny George. How would you like THAT crawling up your leg at night? Much as she realized how insensitive it was, she still had trouble with smallish humans. One never knew what to call them to be politically correct these days. “Little people” she supposed.
But of course, twas not to be. He butted right into her reverie on the demerits of being unfortunately born unheighted, and continued his assault on her peace of mind.
“Speaking of redress, prefixes are just a lazy way of creating a new word without working at it, doncha think?”
She had fallen into THIS trap before. This man was just damn lucky she was so incredibly sane and more so STABLE, that’s all. Plenty of women would have flipped out, grabbed the nearest knicky knack from the table, and battered the old goat over the head. Course, it would have passed quickly, and then the horror of the “accident” would set in, and then, well. . . .
She’s watched a lot of Law and Order and Perry Mason, and before you know it, she would have tried to make it look more accidental, and the police would surely figure it out, and then no one would believe her perfectly believable story about how he drove her over the edge, and then she would be in prison, and she had watched way to many episodes of OZ, to know she didn’t want to spend her golden years THERE.
No, she was stable and could foresee that consequence, so she wasn’t about to brain him. Given that there was no record of his eccentricities, at least.
“Take the ‘word’ PRE-DRILLED, as in “the wood is all pre drilled for you.” His face lit up in glee. Now logically speaking, there is no such thing as a pre-drilled piece of wood. It’s just a piece of wood, you see that don’t you? Before you drill it, it’s not drilled, just wood. So there is no such thing as pre drilled. It’s a fake word.” A long breath escaped as he gave a look of superb satisfaction, much as a puppy who finally “got” housebreaking. All wiggly and wanting to lick your face.
“Yes I see that,” she whispered. And slowly, ever so slowly, she realized that she might write this down as a story. Online of course, so thousands, perhaps millions might read it and understand the torturous life she was chained to. And then maybe, just maybe, if that little accident should just happen to happen, well, then it would be like a record wouldn’t it?
She pondered that as she went to collect the laundry for washing, and plan out the dinner menu. A smile crossed her lips, ever so slightly and a little tune began to percolate and cross her vocal chords. She began to hum a happy tune.
Existential Ennui 