We once had a bush by our back door. It seemed much in need of a
trim. I had never owned (or even used) a pair of loppers before and, so,
became a little drunk with my new found lopping power. My boyfriend
asked me to stop…then pleaded, then insisted, then finally just walked
away. It was not long before the bush became a stump and then the stump
became an impaling stick. Since it was so close to the doorway, the
impaling stick seemed like a real liability. A heavy-duty
truck had to be employed to remove this sharp little nubby because,
apparently, mighty bush roots grow deep and wide. To his credit, my
boyfriend remained with me in spite of the bush episode and hundreds of
other moments just like it.
I was reminded of the bush incident tonight, as I continued
to trudge through a basement filled with boxes upon boxes of old
records, fully equipped with my trusted black Sharpie. Even though our
new fire-pit arrives via fed-ex tomorrow and my boyfriend has begged me
not to waste time “redacting” personal and financial information from
the paper scraps that are intended to be tinder, here I am at 12:00am
with marker in hand and going strong until, finally, my “redacting”
project is done.
Cognizant of all of this as I scratch out my personal data
with a vengeance, I ask myself why I do these things. Lop, lop, lop
with the loppers. Scratch, scratch, scratch with the marker. Then, as
if in response to these questions, I came across an old credit card
bill. It is strange just how much going through old boxes of papers in
your basement can be like an archaeological dig at the site of some
long-lost civilization and how an old credit card bill can tell quite a
story — short, simple, and blunt.
March 7, vet visit (dog has scratched his eyeball and it is now infected), $315. March 9, vet visit (dog is having adverse reaction to eyeball medication), $298. March
13, emergency vet clinic (2:27 am, dog manages to get small object lodged in his nose and starts making a horrible choking sound), $267. March 14, follow-up care
with regular vet (new medication regime is prescribed requiring hourly dosing), $99. March 15-17, vet care plus boarding (because,
dear mother of God, I have a trial in 2 days to prepare for and I just
can’t keep driving to the vets every other hour), $197. March 18, Giant
Food Store for wine and cheese (trial is over, client's custody case has been dismissed because she did not show up for court for the
third time in a row, and client has left voice mail message emphatically stating that she
will not be paying her legal bill), $37.92. March 19 (at approximately
1:58 pm), beloved dog decides to dine on a tarp, requiring yet another visit to the vet's office (tarp removal),
$212.87. March 19 (3:05pm, while dog waits in car), ABC store charge
for Jose Cuervo and a bottle of lime juice, $38.95.
Suddenly, the reasons why moments like the bush lopping and
the paper mark-ups occur seem very clear and simple to me. Lop, lop,
lop. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Drink, drink, drink. And people ask
me why I don’t have children.
© 2013
Jennifer Mandell. All rights
reserved.
