My Sunday morning

[Tyo]

I was lying on my back on the floor in the front bedroom/computer room streaming blues and thinking dark thoughts. It was late Sunday morning and I was not well at all. This was Partner’s fault. He had dragged me out to the bars the night before and then stood over me with a whip and a cattle prod and forced me to drink about 12 Mojitos in three hours plus a Stinger for the road.

It had been brutal. Well okay, he didn’t really have a whip. We don’t own a whip. We have talked about getting one, but that’s another story. He did have a cattle prod though. It was a little one cleverly disguised as a violet glow stick, but probably still pretty powerful. I knew he would use it if I didn’t obey.

And then on Sunday instead of letting me get the sleep I desperately needed he insisted that I get up at 7:15 and go to the gym with him. I tried to stay as far away from other people as possible because I didn’t look good and I smelled like the Bacardi rum factory. I survived six weight machines and a few minutes on the stair stepper before drifting off to the showers.

When we got back home we found that one of the cats had barfed all over the slip cover on the sofa so partner took that off to the giant washing machine at the laundromat and I was finally able to suffer in peace there on the bedroom floor with fluffycat on my chest. He was purring and doing that kneading trip with his paws. Then there was a knock on the door.

I almost didn’t bother, but I was curious. We don’t get many visitors showing up on our doorstep without prior notice except for God and he doesn’t knock. I opened the door. The kid was 11 or 12ish. At first I thought he might be a miniature Mormon missionary what with the dark slacks and white shirt but he was way too starched and pressed and his tie was straight. Plus there was only one of him.

For whatever reason I don’t think I was what he was expecting to see, but he recovered nicely. “I’d like to leave these with you, “ he said looking me right in the eye, “I think you’ll enjoy reading them.” “Enjoy” is not the first adjective that comes to my mind in connection with The Watchtower and Awake, although the illustrations are sometimes luridly cool. But when you are pushing these things your options are limited. “Read and believe or you’ll fry in Hell,” is not a good opening line.

“I’m an atheist,” I replied. He tensed up visibly. I might just as well have told him that I was a vampire. “But I’ll take them and check them out. You’ve probably got a quota or something, right? He didn’t say anything. “I mean I’ll bet the sooner you ditch these things the better.” This was not at all necessary and I knew it. Just take the fucking magazines and shut up. There was no reason to do this to the kid.

Then I noticed the woman standing at the end of the sidewalk partially hidden by the Eastern Redbud. Even at a distance I could see that she was too old to be his mother, she was probably a grandmother. I was relieved that this guy wasn’t out all by himself. But 12-year-olds shouldn’t be going door to door trying to spread the Gospel even with granny monitoring things from behind the bushes.

“Well, thank you.” he said. You could see in his face that we’d gone way off script and he was really ready to move on. I thanked him for stopping by. I thought briefly about giving a friendly wave to the aged relative in the greenery but I already felt like enough of a prick. I went back and stretched out on the floor. Fluffycat had wandered off so it was just me and the streaming blues.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

1. Hopefully, the kid will grow up and question

bullshit of every kind.

You performed a service today.