The Flesh And Blood That Makes Me Whole

When I say to you, "Hey there, you, I'd really like the pain in my right hip to stop, say on a par with my wanting the crane digging by the Route 18 overpass to quit before it reaches that load-bearing concrete pillar I treasure more with each passing day I cross the Albany Street Bridge and am not smooshed" I really mean that I want pain in my right hip to stop, but I'm not going to the doctor. That's a huge waste of time. I am so special medical science insists I don't exist, and since I refuse to work with that existential nightmare, I went to Costco to stock up on chicken soup.

Now, I am not saying these bulk shopping warehouses wear the tights and cape in the fight against budgetary Eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil, but I'm me and you're you, and you're probably just as amused as I am when you turn a corner and see bales of toilet paper. I don't buy them since I switched to bales of recycled toilet paper and Costco doesn't carry recycled brands, yet I am amused! In the Improbable Cures aisle, I found Joint Juice. Months ago, Georg urged me to start taking a Glucosamine/Chondroitin complex and I tried. I bought tablets. I stare at the bottle. I don't take them. I looked at this case of 24 cans intended for once-daily consumption. I stood there. I thought about whining online about exercise and pain. I thought about whether or not I'd have the nerve to mention this lenghty interval on the blog. Then I thought about whether or not I planned to spend the rest of my life deliberating so I put the thing in my cart and decided I'd own up: if I feel better in 24 days, I'll buy it again and try another 24, and we'll see if this is the method that works for me. In the meantime, if I locate the case strategically in my apartment I can use it as a drying rack for my socks.

The other find was flannel sheets. Recently, I scoped KMart for flannel sheets and discovered I'd rather slit my wrists than install those drab, lifeless colors in my bedroom, because if I didn't, I surely would afterward. I shopped online and was gravely disappointed in even sale prices and patterns that made me wish someone would dig up the Dadas and take notes. And I really almost walked away when I saw sets of queen size flannel sheets with repeating pine trees like a table runner with an inflated sense of tasteful importance. I stuck to the hunting and found simple, cream-colored flannel sheets, which I would never have picked for any other room I've ever slept in but for my current bedroom, cream-color isn't the worst idea if lovely, verdant greens aren't possible, and before you even think it, you can just forget about those damn pine trees. I looked at the price. I thought about what I'd seen in other places, at other prices. I hesitated, then put the sheets into the cart.

I shop to solve problems. Today, I bought light bulbs for the nightlight in the bathroom that before it burned out kept me from accidentally kicking my little black cat in the dark. Yep. That episode was so unpleasant the cat now runs from me after sunset since I am a dumb monkey, though I hope we can put that behind us now. Interesting to note that by 11:30 Sunday morning, I had spent the Gross National Product of Uraguay for chicken soup - don't forget winter is coming and you'll need broth once the vaccine hawkers lose their minds again, as they do every November - and juice, and at a reunion picnic of my erstwhile drinking buddies in Johnson Park that afternoon where people who've known each other for twenty inebriate years and never seen each other's beloved faces in daylight, most of what I said was, "I love you but I bought flannel sheets and I can't wait to walk home, washer/dryer 'em, and put yummy flannel sheets on my bed! I believe this will help my invigorating arthritis pain."

For once, I was right.

Crossposted at Running Scared.