Mama Said There'd be Days....

Thankfully I don't have this kind of day often or I'd just go out and find a sidewalk to leap from. I feel like I've eaten a peck of cockleburrs.

It's laughable really. We live quite successfully in a very tiny space but some days it seems all we do is knock each other around like a couple of billiard balls. Both of us are slightly weak today, which in practical terms means we tend to lose our balance easily, trip over shadows, fall into anything we look at, and drop anything we pick up.

Usually it's one or the other of us that is like this, which creates a sort of manageable chaos. Today it's both of us, and it's more like a carnival of the addled. My poor husband has been veering from pillar to post all morning, like the proverbial bull in the china shop, and since I have been too we have collided more than once. Things have been spilled, crashes have occurred and there's been some blood shed while wrestling with overzealous packaging.

I went to town first thing this morning. I wanted to take advantage of a very good sale to buy two nightstands for the new trailer. Pretty little things which will fit in the tight spot available on either side of the bed. Each has four square drawers which will be handy for the flotsam and jetsam you can't seem to live without.

Then I went to the grocery store and filled a cart. Although we run out of many things we never seem to run out of appetite! We could do with less of that actually. Time to think about calories and portion control - sigh.

But even with my padding I am still an attractive woman, or so it would seem. As I loaded my groceries the man in the truck adjacent climbed out, came over and struck up a conversation. He was a voluminously bearded Russian and said he really liked my haircut. He wanted to know how old I was, and said I didn't look a day over 50! (That was a letdown I'll tell you. No woman under 95 wants to be told she doesn't look a day over 50!)

Well, turns out the gentleman (a very spry 84) was very much interested in acquiring a girlfriend. (Apparently old ain't dead.) He showed me his all-original though not in mint condition teeth. He assured me he was easy to take care of as he cut his own hair and would eat almost anything. He talked about how nice he was, although it was a little hard to understand him, as I was growing dizzy from the vodka fumes.

I felt like a deer caught in a crossbeam. I told him he looked young for 84, but I was a married lady, and I bolted for my truck. I have never mastered the graceful exit.

When I told this little tale to Tony he reminded me that when I was in my late 30s and spending a lot of time in the library researching a book I was followed around the library by a man day after day. I finally grew anxious about it and asked the librarians to keep an eye on me. He kept ducking behind shelves and peering at me through the stacks. After four or five days of this we eventually met face-to-face in an aisle and I realized he was just a boy, no more than 14 or 15.

He stammered, "Wanna go onna date?"

I was dumbfounded. I blurted out, "I have kids older than you!"

He sort of yelped, "Oh Jezuz, I thought you was 14!" and turned and ran. The poor thing. (But at least he said I didn't look a day over 14 - not 50!) I have a devastating effect on men, and not in the "Hollywood" sense. Loose cannon comes to mind.

Oh well, I think the cockleburrs are subsiding, and if I can get up and get to the sink without knocking Tony down, or being knocked down by him, I'll do the dishes and get on with the day.