I’ve tried to explain that living with the Contrarian is an experience hard to describe.
It’s not for the feint of heart.
It’s not for the seriously humorless.
It’s not for your average joe-ess.
Plainly, you must be slightly off your rocker.
Since I am, it all works fine.
When I say I am off my rocker, I mean in that way that to the outside world doesn’t show, but is only known to myself and my inner workings which are one hellofva weird chaotic mishmash of circuitry with a whole lotta cables hooked up to nothing and just there “in case”. If you get my drift that is. If not, I suggest you skip reading further and return to old issues of Cosmopolitan which are probably more your speed. (Make that Sports Illustrated if male) I was going to say Popular Mechanics, but I have no idea whether that is still published or what made some mechanics popular while others were apparently not. Could be the chest hair.
In any event, which means nothing but takes up ten letters and about an inch of space, I am married to The Contrarian, which is the prototype for all contrarians, though I don’t think anyone has ever asked for the plans.
I just thought I’d catch you up on some of his escapades, or adventures in our fair state of New Mexico, which is as they say, neither “New” nor “Mexico”, which makes it a great place to hide out as both Billy the Kid and Walter White would tell you if they were (a) still alive or (b) real.
As pointed out on previous occasions, my dearly beloved has some sort of “balance” issue, which causes him to walk while weaving like a drunken sailor, which is half right since once upon a time he was most assuredly drunk but not a sailor, wearing the insignia of the army instead of a rubber ducky. Now, he has been probed, examined, MRI’d, ear-peered at, and all the rest numerous times, only to discover that by golly-g, he has a brain and there is some sort of lesion there, which is as they say “organic” which basically means that “we have no clue and try the auto lube joint down the road”.
So to avoid having to go around the block, always leaning to the left, to get across the street, he sometimes uses a walker, which doesn’t walk at all, but rather rolls (comes with hand-brakes!). He doesn’t use it all the time, but only when the “wobblies” (as we call them) are bad. On his steady days, he runs marathons. (just kidding).
So one of his true delights has been discovering the motorized shopping cart. He loves those buggers. Not all said ve-hick-als are made the same. The K-Mart one’s are too speedy and have you racing down narrow aisles at Indy speeds, without a small enough turning circumference to make the intersection turn (think riding lawn mowers). The one’s at Lowe’s tend to run out of juice too soon, which is a real pain since that store holds about 14 football fields within it’s confines. The Walmart (we make our customers comfy so they spend more) is of course, “just right”, having speed, dexterity, and staying power to make your shopping experience a deep pleasure.
What the Contrarian has discovered is that with the cart, and the proper expression of sadness, mixed with frustration, and a sip of melancholia, presents the perfect picture for lots of ladies to offer their assistance in getting things off the shelves. No matter than he can stand and walk almost normal, why do that when a bevy of women are there to fetch for ya. (It helps to extend the arm to it’s natural length and wiggle the fingers just a bit, and sigh of course while doing so).
Shopping has become a joy and one that he relishes each week now.
To that can be added of course the “accident” which makes him all the more helpless and pathetic.
The accident was the culmination of a lifetime spent using power tools with blades all without incident. Years of chains saws and tree toppling, slicing and dicing, and splitting all without injury. Until the “sled”. Now, I don’t know exactly what a sled is, except that it “slides”, somehow managing your piece of wood to it’s destination with the “blade”. He somehow designed it in such a way that a blind spot occurred wherein his finger resided (thumb actually), and before you know it blood was flying and he realized it was best to shut that sucker down.
Now, no animals were hurt in the making of this tale, other than the cat gut used to sew up said digit (and I think all that stuff is synthetic these days). Cats are grateful. He cut no bone, and no tendon either, just the big fat part of his thumb wherein his identity lies. Doc says that part of his thumb shall be forever no more, once the healing has finished and the dead skin is flushed. So I figure a life of crime is a good second career, since he can’t leave a print with his left thumb any more. Which makes working in a super accelerator requiring thumbprint identification impractical, or in the heart of the mountain where the big button is located that will end the world. I figure it too requires a thumbprint to make sure you have the au-thor-ity to doom the world.
Which all leads to the exceedingly boring story of what a baby men are when they have a little boo-boo. I mean seriously, the moaning never stops.
He had it checked at the hospital on Monday, and there was no infection, but he was thoroughly upset because the doctor made him “look at it”, which is akin, in his mind to making him look at two-headed snakes and other such unnatural and “icky” things.
So, I took out the trash for him, and made his breakfast (once), and open his candy bars at night. I told him he need not cook on Friday, but he said as long as I made the batter, he could probably flip a pancake. He can’t break an egg, because he can’t without both thumbs, so he says.
He pouts a lot.
He’s says it itches.
He complains that the lady nurse rewrapped it much more stupidly that the guy who did it the first time.
Diego sniffs it every day and will alert us if he finds anything worth eating in there. So far, no, and given Diego eats EVERYTHING, that’s sayin’ something.
So, I asked him, do you want bacon or sausage with his pancakes on Friday? and he said patties, which I took to mean sausage, which he meant to mean sausage but not links but patties, which makes no freakin’ sense since they both TASTE THE SAME.
And he thinks he should have a body cam so that he can play back our conversations because he is sure I asked him links or patties instead of sausage or bacon. And I’m really sure I didn’t, because I never think of patties versus links and only decided to do the links because I like Johnsonville and they don’t make patties at least as far as I saw, so that’s why I got the links in the first place.
And he just purses his lips in that way that men do when they are thinking, “I’m right, but what’s the use?”.
And I’m thinking, “You’re right, there is no use, since I’m right.”
And he’s off to get my oil changed which came out all wrong, since I don’t get oil changes but my PT Cruiser does, and he has my girl in his custody.
He wants a new bandage put on his thumb, but decided to wait until he got back, because he’s going to the “filthiest place on the planet” after all, so there is no use getting his thumb all spiffed up before THAT. And, no he was not referring to the Jiffy Lube, but rather to WalMart.
My eyes, were examined by an expert the other day, and they came off with an A+.
No wonder, all the eye-rolling I get to do living with this man. Exercise is very good for your eyes they tell me.
If you can beat any of these stories (which are true I swear with just the slightest hyperbole to make it interesting), I’ll roll my eyes for you too!
Existential Ennui 