CLEAN AS A WHISTLE

     I only asked for one thing this year for Christmas.  I did that on purpose too.  I did that to see if I would get it.  When you are the only man living in a house full of women, it seems that my wants fall a distant second to the wants of the women.  My girls hate when they tell me some outrageous thing that they want and I reply, "It is good to want things."  That response is always good for a legitimate eye roll.  Those eye rolls are the only things that keep me going sometimes.

     It all works out though.  I always seem to get what I need, regardless of what I want.  They always give me what I need.  What I need to survive.  Not much more than what I need to survive, mind you.  But, honestly, I don't deserve much more than that.

     So, this year, I asked for one thing.  I asked for a book.  A five hundred page book about my favorite football team.  And you know what I got?  I got that book!  I got another gift too.  It was a surprise.  I love surprises.  It was wrapped in a plastic Rite Aid bag.  These girls are always joking around with me like that.  So I reached in and pulled out the goodies.  I got a 64oz bottle of Gatorade, two 5mg Dulcolax tablets, and a 238g bottle of Miralax.  I looked at them for a second.  I have gotten pretty good over time at reading the subliminal messages these women silently scream at me.  This one had me stumped, though.  

     I looked up at the girls, all smiling smugly at me.  So I did what all men do in this situation.  I faked it.  I said, "This is perfect!  How did you guys know?  It is just what I wanted!  Green Gatorade too!  The original Gatorade!"  The kids started rolling on the floor, convulsing in alternating spasms of shrieking laughter and shrieking shrieking.  Trixie sat on the sofa.  She was sizing me up.  I have seen her size me up for years now.  I knew she knew my size too.  I had no idea what she was sizing me up for.  I am a big size.  I only knew it had to be big.

     "Do you know what that gift is for?" Trixie asked. 

     "Sure I do, it is for me." I answered like I just aced an exam.

     "Correct.  It is for you and your prep."

     "My prep? What am I prepping for?" I said.  The girls stopped laughing but they kept up with their convulsing and shrieking shrieking.  Girls can convulse for quite some time you know. They can shriek even longer than that.  

      "You are prepping for your colonoscopy." Trixie said.

     "A colonoscopy?"

     "A colonoscopy."

     "When?

     "Day after tomorrow."

     "Ok, let me get this straight.  You scheduled me for a colonoscopy two days after Christmas? So that means that I can spend the day after Christmas, the immediate day after this Christmas day, the twenty four hours after I have celebrated the birth of my dear sweet Baby Jesus, my Lord and Savior, to prep for a colonoscopy?

     "Merry Christmas Daddyboy!" Sugar said.  "Can they get some pictures of your colon so I can take them to school?" 

     "Look at the bright side.  You can eat all you want today," Trixie said.

     "Daddyboy does that everyday anyway Mom," Sugar said.

     "Or I could just cut to the chase and throw my dinner in the toilet.  You know?  To save a couple of steps," I said.

     So we had our Christmas.  And we ate a fabulous meal.  I almost felt sorry for that food as I crammed it down with even more zeal than usual.  I felt like I was playing a cruel trick on that food.

     After dinner I said to Trixie, "So you guys got me the book that I wanted to trick me into getting a colonoscopy?"

     "No." Trixie said, "We got you the book so that you would have something to keep you company while you are prepping." 

     "Keep me company?  You mean you guys aren't going to be here?"

     "Are you kidding me?  We don't want to be around for that!  We are going shopping." 

     So I prepped.  And I read.  I was on page two hundred and twenty two when I thought I might be done prepping, so I went in to take a nap.  Nope.  On page three hundred and sixty four, I laid my head on the sink and did manage to sleep for a few minutes.  At page four hundred and twelve I ran out of toilet paper and made a panicked break for a roll of Charmin.  And by page four hundred and fifty one, it was done.  To be sure, though, I sat there and finished reading that book.  Even though I knew the ending, the book was really good.  Sometimes you get what you want. Sometimes you get what you need.  Sometimes you get both. 

     That is all.

Post Prep

     My doctor told me in a wonderfully understandable Indian accent that everything looked great.  "Clean as a whistle," he said.

     He also said that under sedation, there are two kinds of people.  Those who never say a word and those who never shut up.  

"Which one am I, Doc?" I asked.  

"You live in a house with women don't you?" he asked.  

"Yes."'

"Me too," he said.

CHRISTMAS STUFF

My mother, Peggy, had to leave the place that she was staying one day.  It was a long time ago, but there are still some things about that day that I have trouble forgetting.  My mother was less upset about finding herself without a place to call home, and more upset about not being able to take all of her stuff with her.  She was not talking about the things that she would need to live, she was talking about her “Stuff.”

     Her “Stuff” was the accumulation of just about anything that would remind her of better days.  Days long before. Long before everything started to go badly.  She had saved anything of even the slightest significance from her childhood and from the lives of her four kids.  When I say anything, I mean everything.  First shoes, first school shoes, horse shoes.  Christening dresses, first communion dresses, Indian headdresses.  Silverware, flatware, underwear.  She saved it all.  It was her "Stuff.”

      “That ‘Stuff’ is all of my memories,” she would complain to me.  

     “That ‘Stuff’ is the ‘Stuff’ that is just ‘Stuff,” Peggy.” I would always answer.  “Your memories are in your mind.  They can never be taken from you and you have them wherever you go.”  That is what I would always say to her to try to get her to let go of her “Stuff.”   To realize that it is only ‘Stuff.”  That the memories matter and that the ‘Stuff” does not.

     We got her moved into a nice garden apartment, with enough room for some of her “Stuff.”  Even then it was not enough, though.  To her, some “Stuff” was more important than just normal “Stuff.”  She wanted the important “Stuff.”  In particular, she wanted her Christmas “Stuff.”

     She wanted the ornaments that we made as kids, in school and at home.  She wanted the ornaments that she had custom made for each kid and grandchild.  Ornaments and her stocking from her own childhood.  The stockings that each of her children were given for their first Christmas.  The tree topper that was a gift on my very first Christmas.  The strings of glass beads that draped over and around the tree.  Ornaments that she unpacked so carefully each year after Thanksgiving to place on particular spots on each tree and repacked so carefully after Christmas for 40 years.  Her kids knew these ornaments well.  They helped her hang them each year.  It became an obsession with her.  “It is just ‘Stuff,’ Peggy,”  I would tell her again and again.  And over the years, she begin to hear me.  She began to listen.  She began to talk about her memories, instead of show them off.

     Peggy became very friendly with the people who lived and worked in her Garden apartment complex.  When they stopped by to check on her she would usually hold them hostage while she recalled a half dozen memories or so to share with them.  When the guys that worked there stopped by to fix something or to take out her trash for her, she would go on and on.  I would apologize for her to them.  They always told me that they enjoyed listening to her.  Slowly the talk about her “Stuff” faded away.

     My sister managed to collect Peggy’s Christmas “Stuff” over time.  And one year, before Christmas, she gathered it all together to give to Peggy at Christmas.  It was raining that day, so she put the old beat up and worn boxes in trash bags to keep them dry.  When she got there, it was early.  Peggy was still sleeping.  She called me and I told her that I would be by in about an hour.  I told her to leave them in front of the door and that I would take them in to Peggy when I got there.  She left them in front of the door.

     When I got there, there were no bags at her door.  Peggy must have already found them.  I thought.  I walked in, expecting to find Peggy, gleefully poring over her lost “Stuff.”  She was still in bed.  I walked back outside and walked around the building, thinking that my sister must have put them in front of the wrong door.  One of the men that worked there saw me and said hello.  

     “Good morning!” I said. “Have you seen any bags at my Mom’s front door?”

     “The trash bags?” he answered.

      “Yes!”

     “You didn’t have to stop by, sir, I already took them to the dumpster.  I wanted to get them in while the trash truck was still here.”

     Behind him I could see the trash truck making the right turn to leave the apartment complex.  I didn’t say a word, because I couldn’t say a word.  I felt like I was going to throw up. 

     “Are you ok, sir?” he asked.

     “Yea.  So the bags went into the dumpster and the dumpster went into the truck that just left?”

     “Yes sir.  Is something wrong?”

     “No. Everything is fine.  Thanks for looking out for Peggy.  Merry Christmas.”

     "Merry Christmas to you, too, sir!” he said as I walked away.

     I did not tell Peggy about that for a long time.  Most “Stuff” is easier to deal with, when it is other people’s “Stuff.”  What was in those bags that day was different, though.  There were a lot of my memories in those bags.  My “Stuff.”  When it is your “Stuff,” that puts it in a different perspective.  So I had to deal with my "Stuff" in the same manner that Peggy had to deal with her “Stuff.”  That took a little time too.  But, I kept the memories and I let the “Stuff” go.  

     You can keep a memory forever.  A memory never gets old.  A memory get told. A memory never dies.  A memory lasts forever.

     That is all.

Other "Stuff"

     When I ended up telling Peggy what had happened to the Christmas "Stuff,” she sat down.  She looked at the floor for a few minutes.  A tear or two fell on that floor.  Then she looked up and shook her head and said "It was just 'Stuff' anyway."  We spent most of that afternoon talking about the things that were in those bags instead of just looking at them.

This morning dove sits in the tree outside of the window of my office, in our backyard.  It sits there in the same spot, at the same time, every year around Christmas time.  Someone told me it's because of the warmth of the sun.  May be.  May not be too.

I GOT NOTHING

I am a grateful man.  That was not always the case.  These days, I am grateful for what I have, and for that I am grateful.  I usually think of the things I am grateful for each day, as I am lying in my bed at night, thank God for them and then drift off to sleep.  These days I sleep like a baby.  A three hundred pound snoring baby, but a baby nonetheless.  That was not always the case either.  Last night, though, my gratitude reached another level.

     Last night I could not fall asleep.  For some reason I started to think about the things that I don’t have.  Things that I had once and no longer have.  Thing I have never had.  Things I should have had but never got.  There were a lot of things on that list.  I tried to think of them all and every time I thought I had finished the list, something else would pop into my head.

     Once, I had a job I hated.  I don’t have that job any more.  I used to drink too much.  I don’t drink any more.  I used to be consumed with a fear of the future, and the unknown. I am not afraid of many things these days.  I used to worry.  These days I prepare instead.  Guilt, shame, envy, muscle tone- all gone.  Lost for now.  I could have them all back, I suppose, if they didn’t weigh me down so much.  I am too old to carry that weight these days.

     Then there were the things that I should have had but never got.  Things like the broken back that should have left me crippled. I am not crippled.  The night I should have frozen to death, but didn’t.  The times, that if I had gotten what I;d deserved, I would have likely spent a lot of time behind bars.  Today, I am free.  And I am free because I did not get what I deserved.

     Then there are the things I have never had.  I have never had cancer or any terminal disease.  I have never lived in fear of being diagnosed with a terminal disease either.  I have never worried about getting fat and out of shape and that explains exactly why I am fat and out of shape.  I have never had everything that I wanted.  I wanted a rhinoceros once.  I wanted a machine gun too. I never got them.  I wanted to die once too.  I didn’t get that either.

     So, this year, I am not only grateful for what I have, I am even more grateful for what I don’t have.  Because what I don’t have has given me more than I ever thought I would have. 

     That is all.