R&R

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At the end of a long day -- the stressful morning commute, the exhausting hours of work, the mad rush-hour struggle to get home -- Bob did not, he felt, ask for much. Dinner on the table, and not burnt. A half-hour with his pipe in the alcove of the living room that he called his den. A quiet, relaxing evening in front of the TV.

He didn't feel that these were too much to ask for, and so felt himself justified in becoming angry when they were not provided.

"I'm sorry," Cheryl repeated tiredly. She kept her hair dyed blonde at his insistence, but hadn't touched it up in a while, and the brown roots were showing. The sloppiness only added to his irritation. "I didn't mean to have dinner late, but I didn't get Lynn back from the doctor until three-thirty, and then there were still the other kids to pick up from school..."

"Then you should've made them walk home," Bob snapped, even though it had been he who decided that Cheryl should take their school-aged children to and from school in the first place. "Maybe then they wouldn't have the energy to whine all through dinner. And for Christ's sake, could you maybe put some damn salt in the meatloaf next time? It was like trying to eat shoe leather." From somewhere down the hallway that led to the bedrooms, three-year-old Lynn started crying again. "For Christ's sake," Bob repeated in disgust.

"The doctor said you needed to cut back on your salt," Cheryl murmured, but he could tell she wouldn't try to pull that health-foot shit again.

Bob shifted position on the couch. "Now hand me the remote and shut that kid up, will ya?" he grunted.

"Oh, but before you get too into your show," Cheryl began.

"But nothing." She handed him the remote, and he shook it at her. "I've been working my ass off all day to make money for you to spend, Cher; I need to relax now, and you are going to let me relax."

She retreated quickly down the hall. He heard her talking to Lynn, but softly, as though she was afraid to make too much noise and thus incur his wrath. Well, fine. It was nice to be shown a little respect for once. Maybe she could even get the kid to quit whining. Hadn't the doctor prescribed any damned pills?

Maybe five minutes passed; in the kids' room Cheryl tried to soothe the pain of their toddler's ear infection, and on the couch Bob flicked idly through the channels. He had just about decided which of the two currently-playing episodes of CSI to watch when his son advanced cautiously into the room.

"Uh, hey, dad?" Terry's voice was just starting to change, and the words came out in a sort of squeak. The boy cleared his throat and tried again. "Dad? Can I, uh, have the TV now?"

"What the hell is wrong with you people?!" Bob snarled. "Can't you see that I work all damn day for you, and that the least I ask is to have some peace and quiet when I finally come home?!" He glared at Terry. "Get out of here before I really lose my temper."

Cheryl emerged from the hallway just as Terry tried to disappear down it. "Honey, that's what I was trying to tell you." She made a helpless little gesture. "Terry has to watch that special on PBS tonight for his honors English class."

"The hell he does!" Bob roared. "Terry, you're grounded for a week and don't you dare tell me any more lies." The boy pelted out of the room, and Bob turned his attention to Cheryl. "I knew you were stupid, but falling for a twelve-year-old's lies? Christ, woman. Christ."

Lynn began wailing in pain again, and Bob winced. "And now I've got a headache. Great job, Cheryl. Way to ruin my evening, again." Then his voice dropped. "I ought to just strike you," he muttered, glaring at her. "God knows there's no other way of getting any sense in your head."

Cheryl took a step backwards, and he noticed that. Terry, listening from just outside the room, clenched his fists and then held them to his mouth to stifle a sob. Fortunately for him, Bob didn't notice that.



This one's for you, dad. Are you dead yet? I honestly have no idea. If so, how's the weather down there?

Sometimes I wish you'd beaten up on us kids, instead of just always telling us we were worthless, and screaming at us if we were ever in the living room/bathroom/kitchen/wherever when you Needed To Be There, and regularly threatening to hurt mom while being just crazy-crafty enough to not actually do it. Maybe if I'd shown up to school with my eyes blackened and my teeth knocked out when I was eight, then you wouldn't've still been around to make our house a place of fear when I was eighteen.


For the record, this scene never happened, and Terry isn't me. The scene just kind of popped into my head when I saw how happy that bear was to have his R&R.

*adds the 'sidetrack' tag*

Preparing Next Week's Medications

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She watched him out of the corner of one eye as she worked, carefully removing the cap from each of her prescription bottles, measuring out seven or fourteen or twenty-one of each pill and depositing them carefully in her pill organizer. He was doing the same, brows furrowing every time he had to twist open another bottle. His arthritis had been so bad lately, despite the medication.

She waited patiently, and at last he raised his head to look at her. "Could you do the rest of mine, dear? My hands..." He flexed them, once, then winced.

"Of course," she answered calmly, reaching across the table to take the bottle from him. "Shall I do all the rest of them for you, too?" He nodded gratefully, and she busied herself with the task as he rose and padded to the fridge. She could have offered to help without waiting to be asked, of course, but it was better this way. He wasn't even paying attention to her, now; he was up to his shoulders in the refrigerator, looking for the milk that she had buried at the far back of the shelf.

She worked with unhurried efficiency, opening the bottle that had stymied him -- the big orange pills, prescribed by Doctor Farson for his blood pressure -- and carefully placed one pill into each of the seven compartments of his pill organizer. Next were the pills for his kidneys; two small green pills each day, tik-tik, tik-tik as she filled out the container. The last bottle was his arthritis medication, nondescript yellow things with numbers embossed into them far too small for his failing eyes to detect.

Without pausing, she uncapped this last bottle and measured out a week's dosage. Then her hand slipped quietly into her pocket, to emerge bearing seven nondescript yellow pills, which she distributed methodically into each compartment. No numbers showed on these pills; there were, in fact, no markings of any kind, but she needed none to know what would happen to him if he kept up this dosage. Very soon they would start doing more than simply fail to help with his arthritis. Perhaps even this time next week she would be preparing her medications alone.

She closed up the prescription bottle and set it back with his other pills on his side of the table. When he finally came back over, glass of milk clutched carefully in both gnarled hands, she was just finishing up with her own medications. She smiled briefly at him as he approached.

"Thanks, love," he said, reaching out to take the container of pills. She smiled again at the sight of it in his hand, seven little boxes in a row, each with its own little secret of a clever yellow pill that was not for arthritis.

Four Legs

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Brad glanced up as his roommate wandered vaguely through the living room. "Finally woke up, huh?"

"Mnuh," Charlie replied vaguely. "Been up for a while, actually. I was just thinkin'."

"Uh oh."

Charlie fwumphed down onto the other end of the couch. "Yeah, see, that book." He pointed at the copy of Animal Farm in Brad's hands. "So the animals take over 'cause they're mad at the humans enslaving them. Right?"

"Well, gee, thanks for spoiling it for me," Brad deadpanned.

"The animals do all the work, and they still have to sleep in cold barns and eat hay and whatever else." Charlie nodded, as though agreeing with himself, then raised a finger. "But what if it happened today?"

Brad blinked. "What if farm animals, having turned out to actually be sentient and capable of holding a grudge in the first place, revolt against humankind... today?"

"Mmmyep. Just think how much more screwed we'd be just because of 'Old Yeller'."

"Huh." Brad closed the book and tilted his head. "Dog befriends family, dog defends family, dog gets shot for his trouble. You do have something there."

Charlie started ticking off on his fingers. "Babe: pig buys into the establishment and spends his life slavishly imitating his human masters. Lassie: dog spends its life getting the same damn kid out of every well in the tri-county area. Mister Ed: horse has nothing to do except stand around talking to some loser. We are not in good standing with the animal kingdom, my friend."

Brad laughed. "I still think you're kind of exaggerating the problem here, man."

"Two words," Charlie answered, grinning wickedly. "Air Bud."

"...point taken," Brad replied.



My immediate response on viewing today's Pluggers was something along the lines of "So, the animals... prefer movies starring... animals. Gotcha. Next startling revelation, please." Then I thought of the Orwell angle.

And no, I never had to read Animal Farm for school. I'm just a nerd.

R & R

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Evan's eyes lit up as soon as Vivian entered the room. "Nana!" he cried, holding his arms up. "Story? Please?"

With a laugh, Viv scooped her grandson out of his bed -- which was harder now than it used to be; good lord, was he really almost three already? -- and sat down in the rocking chair with him on her lap. "All right, dear. But only one, all right? Your mom doesn't want you staying up too much past bedtime."

"I wanna hear the one with the bunny!" Evan declared, tugging at her arm. "Please? The bunny?"

"All right, we'll do the bunny," she answered, smiling. She leaned over to the bookcase by the chair, one arm holding the child firmly on her lap while she grabbed the book that was his current bedtime favorite. Then she straightened, smiling at him as he curled up comfortably on her lap. "Ready?" Evan nodded enthusiastically. "All right then."

The boy tugged at her arm again. "Nana?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Can I be a bunny too?"

Viv chuckled a little and ruffled the boy's hair. "Maybe in your dreams tonight," she answered. "Let's read the story and get you to bed, so you can find out."

Golf

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There was a pause in the conversation, and Barry could picture his mother struggling to come up with an answer. Finally she settled on "You were what?"

Barry grinned ruefully, though she could hardly see it over the phone. "Well, yeah, ma, it's for my degree. I'll be playing golf basically every Monday afternoon for the whole semester."

A loud sigh. "Barry. Your father and I have not paid all this expensive tuition money just so you can skip class to go golfing -- "

"I'm not skipping class!" he protested. "It's part of the business program here! Honest!" Sensing her disbelief, he went on, "They've just started doing it this year, everyone majoring in business has to learn how to play golf. Because people are always cutting deals on the golf course, or something."

His mother sighed again, but not quite so loudly this time. "Well, I suppose that's so. Still, it seems awfully strange a thing to learn for a college degree, but if that's how they're doing things these days..." Her tone of voice suggested that most things done these days did not meet with her approval.

Barry nodded. "I'll keep up with all my classes, ma, really. You and dad don't have to worry about me wasting your money, okay?"

"Well, just don't get too good at playing golf," she said pragmatically. "Nobody likes people who win all the time."

Entertainment

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The room was quiet but for the ticking of the clock on the bookcase, the humming of the furnace, and the rustling of Paul's newspaper. Outside the picture window, snow fell in lazy drifts, piling up around the bushes that lined the porch. Paul made a mental note to call the Jensen boy down the street -- the front walk would need shoveling again, and little Charlie was always eager to make an easy five dollars after a snowfall.

Paul chuckled to himself as he turned the page. Not so little anymore, that boy. Charlie had to be... what, thirteen, fourteen by now? Before him, it had been his brother Matt who had kept Paul's walk shoveled in the winters, but now Matt was away at college. Studying something with computers. He was a bright boy; hard worker, too. Paul figured Charlie would follow in his footsteps soon enough, going off to college to get some fancy degree. There were no more boys in the Jensen family, but Paul supposed he would worry about that when the time came.

The clock chimed softly, rousing him from his thoughts. Ten o'clock. Time for bed, that was. Paul folded up his newspaper, set it on the table by his chair, and stood up slowly. He walked over to the window, twitching aside the curtain to look out at the snow for a moment; then he turned around and left the room, switching off the lamp as he went.