Posted by Marsha on March 10, 1998 at 06:18:03:
Did you ever wake up one day and look in the mirror --- but first get your husband off to work and then have a cup of coffee in your hand --- and look in the mirror and there was no one there?
ONly the tick of the Grandpa clock by the front door and the yip, yip, yip of the neighbor's stupid dog and the drip, drip, drip of the shower your husband has been promising to fix for 6 months, and you realize that you've never seen the light hit the kitchen counter like that in seven years in the new house because Saturday morning you're shopping and Sunday morning you're at church and every week day you're at work at this time (if you're home sick you're REALLY SICK in the bedroom) and the light looks so bizarr-o since you can see all the dust, how badly the counter needs you to clean it and all the bills and coupons (yeah SURE you're gonna do something with them some day!!!) and rubber bands, and that's when you look in the mirror and go pardon my French what the Hell have I been doing all these years!
Well, believe me, I have!
Because you lost your job like a loser and it's still only 10:00 in the morning.
And then your father dies.
So you turn into a rubber robot. Make it back to Pennsylvania, make it through the funeral. Do what you gotta do, Marsha. No more Daddy to yell at you because he cares. Or make a scene in a restaurant becase he thought your soup was too cold. Nobody to protect me, in other words. Except Mike of course, right sweetie?
Then the rainy days come. The rainy days you saved all those doctor prescription medicine bottles you didn't need for just in case. And then you are feeling no pain believe me. It rains and rains and rains and rains, ha ha.
Then you're throwing up in the GArbage can outside the back porch in a cold nightgown with the neighbor lady watching, la la la la la la, etc. etc. we won't go into all that.
You don't want to tell your husband becase you're putting too much pressure on him anyway by being unemployed but he finds out anyway. Macaroni and cheese and green beans three days in a row, duh! He yells "What do you DO all day?" etc. And creepy stuff like getting all your old tennis shoes out of the bag in the basement and your Girl's Tennis letter sweater and your team pictures and sitting there in the hall holding your tennis racket and wondering should I call coach Jake (Jacobsen) and where is she now?
Two words: I was in BAD SHAPE.