I checked my messages, and won my ten dollar bet with myself — there were three fresh messages from my mother, asking me to come to Seattle for the church’s big celebration at the end of the month. The third call was more telling me to come than asking.
♦ ♦ ♦
Beatrice brought me more crumpets, but it wasn’t a gift this time. I’d given her $20 to please buy and bring more Costco crumpets, since I'm not a member and can't shop there. Turns out $20 buys more crumpets than I’d expected. Poor planning on my part.
Two crumpets are a snack, and four make a light meal (but I don’t usually eat light meals). Six is more filling, and eight is enough, but I now own thirteen-dozen crumpets. 156 crumpets. My tiny freezer is already full, so they’re all on a shelf, and gotta be toasted and eaten fast. Even if I eat only crumpets, the last few dozen will be moldy before they’re opened.
♦ ♦ ♦
On my way home from work, I saw a man and a woman walking on the sidewalk, him yelling at her and her yelling at him. Both of them were furious, and screaming so loud that their volume was what got my attention — from a block away, in downtown San Francisco, which is not a quiet place at rush hour.
I can’t know their story, of course, but that won’t keep me from ignorantly assuming they’re married and madly in hate.
Maybe they're Bogart & Bacall having a bad afternoon. I suppose that’s possible. They didn't sound like rookies, though. There was no shock in their voices, no surprise — it sounded like habit. Old habit. Like they'd long ago said it all, heard it all, memorized it all, and this was just another day.
I can sort of understand being shitty to strangers, if you’re an ass — and god knows, I’m occasionally an ass. But I can’t understand being shitty to people you’re pretending you love.
If I’m right about my ignorant assumptions, if their lives are anything like the minute-and-a-half I witnessed down the street, then why — two why's, actually: Why are people are so shitty to each other? And why would either of them settle for life with the other?
From Pathetic Life #4
Monday, September 12, 1994
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