DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME

My tummy hurts.

It is only 10 in the morning. Here is my day so far:

I woke up late--6:29 am. I remembered I'd agreed to meet Abercrombie, our anesthesia attending for breakfast at Ernie's. Since I'd blown him off a few weeks ago, I decided I'd better go. But I didn't want to. I consulted The Book of Answers, which I'm addicted to, and it said, "DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME."

Nuts. Time with Nick is so precious, you know? Even 15 extra minutes in the morning. But I went downstairs, woke him up and ironed his shirt. He can iron, but he won't starch, and I think it's important his shirts be starched for this internship. Then I threw on some old ripped jeans of Jay's and a t-shirt (and that great grey cardigan I found a few days ago!). I can't find any of my sunglasses for some reason, but I did find a pair of Lilly's from when she was about 9 under her bed. They are little kids sunglasses, too small, and with thick white frames and a picture of Pocohantas on the side, but I can't stand life without sunglasses, so I put them on. Then I went upstairs, made myself a cup of cafe con leche in the Blue Willow cup--yes, it's back--got in Elka, the Saab, and went roaring off to Ernie's. Puttering off, actually. I think Elka needs her brakes checked because when I step on them lately, it's sometimes a little bit before anything happens--i.e. the car stopping.

I get there. Place almost empty. No Abercrombie. Fucker, I think. He stood me up. Oh, well. I sit down. Cindy is my waitress. She was my partner in microbiology lab. She's smart as shit, and looks like a short slightly pudgy Rebecca Romijn. (spelling? sorry). She was going gangbusters in science until she got married and had a baby. Now she's waiting tables at Ernie's. The fate of many of us. She'll pick up the reins again, in her thirties, probably. I sit for a few minutes, then go ahead and order. Fortunately, I've brought a book--Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys, with whom I feel a reluctant intellectual kinship. Well, one knows when one's sniffed out one's pack, I guess.

But Abercrombie shows up. Unshaven, slightly stinky, and with his dad.

"He's living in my basement," Abercrombie states, and doesn't offer any further explanation. Abercrombie is in the middle of a divorce. I warned him. He told me about a year ago his wife was taking kickboxing.

"Your marriage is in trouble," I informed him, right there, standing at the pyxis.

"That's ridiculous."

"Pay attention. Your wife is about to leave you."

It sucks being right all the time.

So now he has 4 kids under 5 and a dad living in the basement. His dad was really nice, though. Funny, easy to talk to. We had a nice breakfast. He picked up the check.

"If I didn't like you," he told me. "I wouldn't have picked up the check."

"I'll leave the tip."

Abercrombie informs me as we're leaving that he's meeting with his lawyer right after this. Right next door.

"Hunter? Your lawyer's Hunter?" Hunter, if you don't recall, is Jay's best friend.

Small towns.....

I really have to go to the bathroom at this point, but the rhythm of the situation doesn't allow for it. I think: I'm close to home. I'll just rush home and go. As I'm driving, my phone rings. Thinking it's Jay (we're going on vacation in about 3 hours) I pick up the call without screening the number. But it isn't Jay. It's Charles. Charles is my first boyfriend from college. He's an astrophysicist. But he has no common sense and is very absent minded. For example, Charles once couldn't go to church because he couldn't find his shoes. Then he couldn't go to work, either, for about 4 days. He worked at NASA. He's very smart, and they were very forgiving. He eventually did get fired. I used to think it was for his political convictions which are, no surprise, way left of center, but now, come to think of it, maybe it was because there were just too many incidents along the lines of not being able to get to work because of no shoes....he speaks very slowly and is impossible to get off the phone. He's been through two wives. They've all been driven crazy. He's very good looking, in a Humphrey Bogart sort of way (in fact, Humphrey Bogart was his great uncle or something) and he was amazing in bed.

"I can't talk," I tell him, "I have to pee desperately."

Long silence. "I remember," he says slowly, "when I used to go down on you and sometimes I think you would sort of pee. That was exciting." All of this takes almost 9 minutes to get out.

"Great. I'm getting off the phone. " Yuck! Men are pigs. 24 years ago I was an idiot and went out with him for 6 months, and he's still stuck. I pull up to the house...and realize I don't have my key. I walk around the house, trying all the doors, getting mobbed by the dogs, but of course, my responsible son has locked everything up tight. Finally, in desperation, I decide to go in the back yard. "Can I stay on the phone while you do that?" Charles asks.

"No. I'm hanging up now."

"Okay, wait--the reason I called is to get your advice."

"Hurry, my kidneys are going to burst."

"Clarissa has kidnapped the children."

Clarissa is his frequently institutionalized estranged drug addict wife.

"How long have they been missing?" My bladder is sending stabbing pains throughout my abdomen.

"3 weeks. "

"3 weeks!"

"I initially thought I might have gotten the date she was supposed to bring them back wrong."

"Call the police."

"Really?"

"Do you know where they are?" I ask. "Have you heard anything at all from them."

"No."

"You must call the police. Now I have to pee."

I hang up. Mercilessly. 3 weeks. He needs to write things down--like when his kids are due back.

I pee. Then I realize I have to do something else, too. But I don't want to do that in my back yard. I decide to go to my parents, hunt for their spare key, and poop there. I get in the car, go tearing off to my parents. My brakes are really frightening me. Pull up, run into their house, make my way through the stacks of newspapers, priceless china and silver and old clothes, move all the books off the top of the toilet and go. Where have they been bathing, I wonder as my bowels loosen, staring at the ancient dead crickets in the tub. They've been in Ohio all summer, but the tub looks like it hasn't been used in months. Then, when I'm done, sitting relieved, I remember that, for reasons known only to them, they always shut off all the water in the house when they leave. I wipe, get up and run around looking for the water main. Can't find it anywhere. I find a pile of keys and grab them, hoping one is mine. Then I go back to my house, after first wandering aimlessly around my parents picking up old pictures and getting all teary. That house is a trap. One of the keys does indeed open my door. But what am I going to do now about their toilet filled with Ernie's relics?

I have a lot of empty glass milk bottles in the car that I intended to take back to Clover's this morning before I left on my trip. I fill them up with water. Then I go back to my parents house, dismantle their toilet and pour the water in. Success. I am able to flush the toilet.

I have never had such trouble flushing a toilet. I have never been so greatful for city water.

Wow. Plumbing is a major major advance for civilization, isn't it? That never really hit me until today. I mean, I always knew it, but...

DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME.

That book had no idea.

That's my 1/2 hour.



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