This is a backwards day. When a series of things go wrong, just a little or don’t follow the plan, just slightly… it is a ‘backwards’ day. Not a day to curse. Not a day to slap. Not a day to hibernate. It is just a ‘backwards’ day. I tried to get my ballot in the first shipment of mail (I believe it goes at 10a.m.) but I needed a tracking stamp, so had to go in to the office. The office was closed at 8:30 and I had to scoot back to the house to meet with the construction guy. When I was through my meeting and headed back to the post office, it was 10:30. Darn all hecky. Well, okay then, the ballot goes off in the next mail. (1 p.m. or thereabouts) Shoot tooty. Nothing to be done, that’s the way it goes. Sigh. I am over eager, of course. I didn’t accelerate my package the way I planned and that irritates, just a little.
Now, the construction guy is going to charge me $600 to put a beam on a couple of patio stones and call it good. I trust his assessment of the situation and that it will be safe, he does know what he is doing. This isn’t what I wanted but I don’t have the money right now to do more. Crap, darny heck. Well, okay then..I will have my support beam and it will be sufficient. I can paint the deck, replace the skirting and leave it a while. Sigh. Not what I wanted and that frustrates, a little.
To cool my nerves, I settled on traveling to the office for a writing session. I discovered my battery is low and my favourite seat is occupied by someone else. I am trying hard not to send mocking thoughts in her direction. Backwards, backwards, backwards. Now what? All of these frustrations and irritations are brought to me by my unwillingness to confront another soul in even the most benign way. I accepted the construction guy’s cheap fix and I accepted that the U.S. won’t accept registered or expedited mail, I accepted the too-skinny Karen who chose to usurp my place and I accepted that I have to write on a different tablet, the iPad, the one with lots of battery that is difficult to download from…Grrrrrr. Don’t be surprised if I send my bagel back to the kitchen with a few choice words today! There! Confrontation at last!
Maybe I could mean to someone on the phone? That usually satisfies me pretty well. I haven’t made anyone cry but I am pretty good at firing back into the mouthpiece when baited. I could fire an email off to “Letters at the Star” or “Letters at the Globe and Mail.” Maybe, I could wait until exactly the right moment and blast someone with an extremely well planned and amusing fusillade that causes anyone nearby to laugh out loud, bruising the ego of some foolish but otherwise completely innocent person. “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night!” (Bette Davis in ‘All About Eve’.) Is that truly a talent that gay folk have?
Wait, no…there is a young lad here who fits his jeans very well indeed. He is a mite on the short side but very well proportioned and has a sweet little carefully close cropped dust of a beard. He might be chubby but that remains to be seen (clothing off). Don’t care about that, he is too handsome. He took his mask off and a has a lovely round face that is enhanced by the beard. If I had any sense, I would go hiss a bit of “Hi, there…” and offer up a snaky lick. That’s all I needed- a breath of freshness to offset all the botheration.
Interesting, the phrase “Speaking with a forked tongue” has, at it’s root the story of Adam and Eve and isn’t an American English idiom but you already knew that. Well, it is off to work on the novel/biography and finish the rewrites. I am having fun in spite of old age, back pain and minor frustrations. On we go.
Robert On The Air 