Relaxing
Headline from nypost.com: “Trans-identifying male in women’s prison found having sex with female inmate: report.” He/she has found paradise.
Headline from foxnews.com: “Passengers are turning to drugs in order to board Boeing planes.” Who can blame them? At present, were I to make reservations, I would ask who manufactured the craft.
Here’s an excerpt from a story from the By the Numbers collection I’m working on. The title is Two Relaxing:
Ben Amico massaged his wife’s right foot, her left resting on his right thigh as she reclined, head resting on the cushion on the new couch in the cozy living room of the Brooklyn house bequeathed to them long ago by her parents.
“I think I had too much wine,” said Toni dreamily, eyes closed.
Ben decided not to say he agreed. So what if she had? He switched on the large screen TV.
“Ugh!” Toni grunted. “Find somethin’ else besides the news. It seems like the whole world’s gone crazy lately.”
He was glad to shut the madness out, settling on an easy-listening music channel he’d programmed into their favorites.
“Much better,” said Toni. “What was that thing we useta say at Saint Mary’s about the countries?”
Ben thought a moment. “France was Hungary, ate Turkey, slipped on Greece and broke China.”
Toni smiled, eyes still closed. “Right, right. What was it supposta help us remember?”
Ben shrugged. “I think it was just somethin’ some clever soul came up with.”
Toni’s cell phone rang. They recognized the tone.
“We went out to eat,” she told her daughter. “What d’you mean ‘again’? Why shouldn’t we enjoy our retirement? We celebrated your father’s two months without hemorrhoids.”
Ben chuckled and tuned out the conversation. During his latest colonoscopy he’d had a banding done, rubber bands tied around his tormentors. In days they fell away. He didn’t know how or why it worked and didn’t care. It had skyrocketed his quality of life. Each morning since the procedure, he’d dreaded the return of the demoralizing issue, and rejoiced at the absence of blood. It was one of the jokes life played, which seemed to increase with age. A friend who had experience milking cows on an aunt’s farm had told him the procedure was done on animals. He found it hilarious.
Conditions today were as tough as they ever get at the Anti-Inflation Book Shop, an icy wind that seemed to be blowing from all directions keeping me in the car. I was expecting a goose egg but got lucky. My thanks to the gentleman who bought two kids’ books and The Melt Method: A Breakthrough Self-Treatment System to Eliminate Chronic Pain, Erase the Signs of Aging, and Feel Fantastic in Just 10 Minutes a Day! by Sue Hitzmann, Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, Grown and Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults by Lisa Heffernan, Mary Dell Harrington, et al., and The New Sugar Busters! Cut Sugar to Trim Fat by H. Leighton Steward, Morrison Bethea, et al.; and to Wolf, who took home Zero Day by David Baldacci; and to the young man who purchased this:
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