Tales of Toenails

I could so put the ass in assisted suicide right now. To paraphrase Homer, if the Bible has taught us nothing else, and it hasn't, it’s that old people are a drain on society’s resources. Please don’t think I’m saying we should discard old people when they become useless. Useless is ok, it’s neutral wrt/draining society’s resources, and I fully support uselessness. We don’t have to actually kill old people until they become sucking piles of selfish need that smell like piss.

And yes, in case you’re asking who should decide. Yes. I could totally be a death panelist, or even chairperson. Not only do I know Roberts Rules of Order, I once helped a stranger off a bus, so I’m not totally devoid of compassion.

My main qualification to be on a death panel is that over the years I have developed an uncanny nose for all kinds of piss and related bodily smells. I can distinguish more than 17 levels of unwashed human ass before puking, which only puts me out of the game for as long as it takes me to get a martini buzz again.

DOB’s home health aid dropped in this morning to ask if I had some hydrocortisone she can use on DOB’s latest rash. I gave her some, plus a tube of Benadryl. Neither worked on my own facial rash in June, but then my doc prescribed an anti-viral because he said I have face Herpes. Charming, eh? But face herpes doesn’t stink. Turns out DOB was using an ointment for sunburn which – guess what? – was apparently exacerbating the skin rash.

Also was informed that DOB ripped out an entire toenail trying to cut her own six inch thick toenails. That’s right: not long, thick. Since she only wears bedroom slippers anymore – even when we go out – one of her toenails was curling back dangerously. After I relayed this to TCG, he talked to her about seeing a podiatrist and also about the questionable wisdom of self-medicating. For her self-medicating, not for me.

TCG: She’s adamantly refusing to see a podiatrist to get her toenails cut.

UCC: So that’s it? No podiatrist? Maybe it’s time to start treating her like a recalcitrant 2-year-old in need of a nap since that’s how she behaves. Hell, maybe it’s even time to talk about moving her somewhere where they’ll treat her like that.

TCG: Yeah, no. That’s not helpful.

WISIMH: And would it be helpful to observe that you sure as shit aren’t going to cut her toenails. Today’s lesson: if at first you don’t succeed, give up. Brought to you by clean and sober UCC whose current dose medicinal herb has not yet kicked in enough to make me censor what I say. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered to state the fucking obvious only to have you shut me down without discussing it. “First Do No Thing” is the family plan for being prepared for life’s slings, arrows, and piss-soaked laundry.

I mean, why do something when there is no god, or heaven, or hell. In fact, the heat death of the universe is a mere blink of an eye away geologically speaking, so why bother? Why not help entropy do the fine job of decaying it has been doing since the Big fucking Bang.

UCC: Ok, then remind Mother to return my hydrocortisone and Benadryl when she’s done.

TCG: I’ve already put them on my shopping list. I’ll get you new ones.

WISIMH: You know, don’t you that she has more money in the bank than we do, if you don’t count our modest retirement annuities? You know that I know you subsidize her substantially, and that doesn’t even count our time and energy she sucks up. You know that I think you should stop that.

He knows something's wrong because it turns out last night I yelled at him after I’d spent a hot day doing household laundry, making dinner, and picking up the house. Picking up means putting away shit he leaves out as part of our silent war to become/not become eligible to appear on the Hoarders reality program. There I was, trying to sit still after taking my second nitro pill and get a good blood pressure reading. He started talking to me about a mistake I’d made and I simply opened my eyes and screamed at him to shut up. Without using the f-bomb, even. He is so clueless about when and why I might need some of his care, compassion, or even scant attention. It’s not like the impending signs of my frustration weren’t visible to anybody with half the sense of my retarded cat.

Oh, right. The signs of my building frustration weren’t apparent to anybody except my cat. He blinked in surprise when I yelled. Then he said: “Calm down. Shit,” which, surprisingly, was unhelpful advice.