I’m starting this on Saturday night because I’m bored and I have stuff to do tomorrow. Past weekends have shown that I tend to avoid the really crappy tasks that come up, like finishing up steaming the carpet in front of the couch. It got trashed during the years I drank and spilled stuff on the carpet. It kind of got out of control and no amount of store bought rug cleaner could get it out. The steamer works like a charm, It loosens the crud up and all I have to do is put it n a bag and toss it. Then and only then do you use the stuff they said would clean your carpet. Also, I’m watching TMZ and my IQ is dropping a tenth of a point a minute. I should be drooling by the end of this blog. The upside is that Comedy.TV is on after the gossip. Let’s start.

My week sucked. Monday I spent two hours cruising looking for a spray bottle. I need it to apply insecticide to kill off some invaders. They’ve been gone but you can never tell. Tuesday I go to my doctor because she want to check me for bedbugs. I don’t have any. Before the appointment I take a scalding shower put on shorts and shirt right out of the package. I pull on clean socks and drive to the VA. I get there and my doctor calls me right in. We’re sitting in her office chatting, mostly about meds and blood sugar numbers. She stops talking. She’s staring at me. I look down onto my brand new shirt. There’s a small round bug crawling across my chest. She fishes out gloves and a plastic bag and knocks the bug off. All of a sudden I start to feel really bad. She comes back into the office. I try to pick up the conversation by mentioning that I had a story rejected the week before. The conversation stopped. She escorted me out of the hospital by a back way. I was outside when it began to fall over me. The hospital rejected me, my story was rejected, my birth mother rejected me and it went downhill. By the time I got into the garage I was looking for a hose to hook up to the exhaust pipe. That didn’t work, no hose and I couldn’t close the garage door. I went upstairs. Now, contemplating suicide is nothing new to me, it’s come up a loot in the past. Yeah, I know it’s the “coward’s way out” but sometimes it’s the only logical option. You don’t think about all the other people in the world who have S**t that’s five hundred times worse than yours. This is very self-centered. By the time I was in the apartment I was thinking of killing fourteen years of sobriety and maybe having some meds for a snack, along with a anti diarrheal pill or three to keep from messing the bed up when I fell asleep. My plans were interrupted by a call from the VA. The nice lady ran the events of the day by me and I ranted. She said that my therapist would call (she hasn’t) and they would work out something for my cardiology appointment. After a bit she rang off. My day was pulled up maybe three points out of a fifty point drop. I stayed home and sober. I fell asleep after paying solitaire on my tablet until four in the morning.

I made to Stop and Shop the next morning. I found everything. Got to checkout. One lane had kind of a short line. I got at the end. The checker was quick and the bagger was a new employee who hadn’t started talking too themselves or asking questions about your purchases. The checker was Marina. She was about twenty or so and cheerful just below the level that becomes obnoxious. She smiled like I was someone she was looking to see. She chatted, not to pass time but to make feel that I was a welcome customer. I smiled at her. If there wasn’t such a vast age chasm I might have asked her out on a proper date.

What you read above might sound like self-serving, self-pitying bulls**t. Here’s some facts, we’re all crazy, only to different degrees. What might be a drop of water off of your back might be a ton of bricks for me. Way back when, I was in group therapy. For you neophytes it’s a circle of psychos sitting around in uncomfortable chairs vying for the attention of a professional who’s supposed to be in charge. There’s a guy whose wife tossed him because he got drunk and won’t go to meetings, there’s one who’s in a relationship and hasn’t a clue on how to make it work, you have a normal crazy who’s unemployable and his family is too ashamed to have him put on a ward where someone could take care of him 24/7. I was the suicide, obviously unsuccessful because I was there. Some weeks you went in with no problems, some weeks it was like God was putting you into the Job competition. Just dumping crap on you to see if you’ll crack. I started to listen. It was amazing. Just when you think that you’ve got to the end of your rope, there’s somebody who’s so far in doo-doo that they can’t tilt their head forward.

I went to the store Saturday morning and Marina was working. I waited in her line. She was pleasant to everyone. If I could see her and have her smile at me once a week it would make my week, maybe my month.

Saturday I saw my second private eye. The first was investigating a former neighbor. This one couldn’t hide it. Black suit wrapped around a barrel body with a high and tight Marine Corps hair cut. He was wearing white cowboy boots, apparently he didn’t get the notice about wearing white after Labor Day. He was walking up and down the aisles in the parking lot. He wasn’t used to it. He was carrying a sheaf of papers and a set of car keys. He found the car. It was in the same aisle I was parked in. He made himself as inconspicuous as possible being as big as he was. He ducked into the car and did some business and tried to fade into oblivion. I tailed him out of the lot. There’s a story there, I’m just waiting for it to come around on the machine.

Syria, the Right is teaming up with the Left, hawks are flying with doves and at 1600 no one has a clue. Obama got blocked by Putin and he’s trying to save face. Here’s the thing, at times I’ve advocated bombing the entire area into the Stone Age, or strategically striking known target or my present favorite just stay the hell out of the Middle East and let them sort out their problems. Israel is as old as I am and can take care of itself. They have oil and we need it? We’ve got the scientists. Get them off their asses and figure out a renewable source of energy. We might have to kick some corporate ass but it’ll be worth it. Congressional deadlock? You’d be surprised how fast they’ll work if a few units of the Marines and Army surround the Capitol and don’t let them out until they take care of the budget. We can solve education and poverty, just lean on the dummies we mistakenly elected and tell them educate our kids, make sure they’re fed and that our seniors and children have proper medical care. It’s not Socialism or Communism, it f***ing humanity. We’ve become a country peopled by those who care and can’t do squat about it, those who think we should pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, which is impossible if don’t have shoes and the 1% who laugh their a***s off because everything is taken care of for them. I’m not advocating revolution, that time came and went. What I’m saying is what we need is maybe a Third, Fourth and Fifth Parties. People showing common sense and remembering all the asshats we’ve elected in the past and making sure we don’t do it again.

See you in the funnies.