Trials of an Average Monday

A swarthy band of banana slugs has taken up residence in my backyard compost bin. I gulp back waves of nausea and close the compost door, trying to shake the image of tiny drops of pure goo (baby slugs, I presume). I vow to learn how to kill the things with beer to protect my garden, and wonder what brand of beer they’ll like. My composting plans are indefinitely kaput.

Returning to my room, I note with panic the banana on my DVD player, which has started its spotty metamorphosis from delicious yellow to disgusting brown. I wonder, desperately, if I could manage to eat it - I cannot. I wonder if I could throw it in the garbage just this once - no, no, I cannot. Liberal guilt is a terrible affliction. I remember the two mangoes expiring on my shelf - oh god, the mangoes. (It’s probably for the best that I completely forgot the thriving ecosystem of my crisper drawer.) What, for the love of Earth, could I do?

I grab a small bucket and add some dirt, the banana, and the mangoes, which had begun to ooze (I was traumatized by flashbacks to baby slugs). I close the lid, and then open it again to add a backyard of harvested dog poo. There was an egg shell inexplicably on my back pathway - I threw it in, too. Okay. No slugs. If I understand science correctly (I most certainly don’t), this will yield some sort of dirt in a couple month’s time that my garden will love.

Crisis successfully averted.

***

I am walking home from work. It’s been a particularly heinous evening and by 12pm, when I leave the drop in, I am seething with poorly suppressed rage. The bus is late, and I smile politely at the driver and take my seat. My iPod thinks I want to listen to the Beatles. I do not want to listen to the Beatles. Yet another round of Paperback Writer makes me want to hunt down and kick Paul McCarthy. I decide this would be difficult, and instead focus on getting home. The bus eventually drops me off eight blocks from my house.

The final eight blocks are, generally, a pleasure - the area is residential, the cherry trees are blooming, and the sidewalks well lit. There is some traffic (a car every minute or so), and compared to downtown it is infinitely peaceful - on clear nights, you can see the stars.

After a bad night, however, any quiet inevitably feels like the calm before yet another storm. I feel acutely aware of every passing car and fellow pedestrian, bristling and ready for a fight (or, more likely, a slow and incompetent flight). I am aware of the moon, the eerie energy, and my own tiny and vulnerable stature. I want to be locked indoors with my puppies.

Two blocks from my house, I glance over my shoulder at two cars coming up the otherwise deserted road. A minute later, one car had passed me; the other had not. I walk a little faster and fish through my purse for my cellphone as the second car continues to tail me, slowly, creepily, for a full half block. I wonder if I should stop, or run, or turn onto a more deserted side street. I watch the car’s headlights in my peripheral vision, stiffening.

Finally, it passes me, and stops at the curb ten feet ahead.

It’s a fucking police cruiser. The driver rolls down his window to ask, with concern, “Is everything okay, ma’am?”

Well now it is, jackass.

***

My little sister has pneumonia. I suspect swine flu. My mother does not suspect swine flu, and was most discourteous when I suggested that her judgment had been impaired by fever due to swine flu. My mother does not want to talk to me during global pandemics any more.

I remain concerned.

***