05. same difference
Still staring, delving deeper into her apathy, Dee went through her
daily ritual. No certain time to get up. She would leave her bed when
she could not sleep anymore, make a cup of freeze-dried coffee, feed
the cat, read the Fresno Bee, attempt to solve the Wee Jumble
cryptogram puzzle, and contemplate doing her morning exercises while
playing solitaire and waiting for the mail to arrive.
After the day’s climax, there was lunch, an excuse to drive the
automobile somewhere, buy something needed for the household, pick up
Martin’s suits from the cleaners or stop off at the nursery, the
garden, the trash, the neighbors, then dinner. Local and national
news at six, a glass of wine, prime-time television, evening snacks,
another red wine, robe, late night snacks, late night talk show, late
night in bed.
Dee sat and shat, wondering if the noise she was hearing meant that
some intergalactic vibration was causing the cat to dart around the
house.
She leaned forward, reached around with her right arm, and wiped
her rosette from front to back. Grab, tear, wad, reach and wipe, a new
wad of 4-ply toilet paper necessary for each swipe. Without bothering
to glance at the final soiled wad of Charmon, she stood up, closed
the toilet and flushed. Over the years her morning beauty ritual had
increased in duration and complexity in converse relationship to the
number of people who would care about the final result. Today she
chose to shower.
Dee’s objective was to thoroughly purge herself of any and all
bacteria, grit and scum that had collected on her body since her last
cleansing. It was a leftover phobia from her farm days when dirt had
been a constant menace.
She turned on the shower and got naked, singing a melody that she
never quite managed to remember. When the water had reached just the
right temperature, she entered the cabin. With the random flow from
the designer 4-speed AquaBrush shower nozzle cascading down her body,
she rocked back and forth humming the mangled tune. After
considerable deliberation, she chose the Pretty Maid body emulsifier
from the collection of bath gels, scrubs, conditioners, and rinses
that lined the cabin’s rim.
Dee had inherited from her father the trait of sweating profusely
from the scalp. So she was forced to wash her hair daily otherwise it
would hang like a wet mop. Only a few drops of Dr. Bonner’s miraculous
All-for-One Shampoo sufficed. After gently combing Lorial Pearl Drops
conditioner through the ends, she did her weekly Booty Shoppe
raspberry douche, despite the evidence against them. That overall
feeling of freshness could only come from inside.
There was zero degree visibility in the bathroom when she exited the
cabin. She patted herself dry with a fluffy oversized towel, sat on
the vanity stool, slathered generous amounts of Mary Kate extra-rich
moisturizing cream on her arms, legs and creped décolletage, and
plugged the sweat glands under her arms with Lady Kate deodorant. Her
body’s natural odors masked, she wiped the bathroom mirror free of
fog with her towel and peered at her face.
A stretch of her face muscles indicated where B.Loader anti-wrinkle
cream was required. Then came the sunblock, the foundation specially
concocted for her skin type by the cosmetologists at Nestlé, and a
dusting with anti-aging powder. Her facial palette changed according
to the seasons. As it was spring, she painted her eyes with blue
shadow, her lips in glossy red, and her cheeks for a rosy glow. Her
professionally colored and straightened hair was bobbed for casual
spring activities, allowing for a simple fluff-brushing. From the
bottles of perfume crowded on a mirrored tray next to the bathroom
sink, she selected her standard MeMe by Lovan.
Finished with her toilette, she stood staring into the mirror and was
suddenly overcome with a more than usual feeling of unattractiveness.
She picked up the can of Lysol Room Deodorizer kept next to the
toilet for just such moments of self-loathing, and proceeded naked
out of the bathroom, continuing to spray disinfectant to camouflage
her insecurity.
On her way through the house, she discovered the vomited remains
of Sisi’s last meal on her beautiful oriental area rug. Repulsed, she
sprayed the vomit with Lysol, and went back to the bathroom for a wad
of quilted-4-ply. While there, she applied an extra dab of MeMe under
her nose to help mute the stench of what she would soon be cleaning.
Dee had experience ridding her carpet of disgusting animal bile, and
knew just what to do to bring it back to its pristine just-purchased
state.
“I don’t care because I don’t have to”, she reminded herself as she
knelt next to Sisi’s half-digested Kitty Chow Down and dabbed at it
with the crumpled paper product. She chose to contemplate instead the
activities that would fill her day. Coffee, cards, medication, mail,
internet, Sally on TV and afterwards Let’s Make It Happen. It would
then be three, at which time she would have to make decisions about
which friends to visit, which mall to pop into, and what kind of
dinner to throw together.
She discarded the vomit-soiled wad in the toilet, flushed, and went
back to spraying her favorite household disinfectant. Going into the
pantry, she opened a cupboard and surveyed the array of new, improved
and fresh-smelling household chemicals displayed. They were all
neatly lined up in alphabetical order: starting with the understated
mushroom-shaped Airsick Solid Room Deodorizer and ending with the
Zuff Heavy Duty Stain Remover. The latter was a powerful laundry
detergent that Dee had found to also be effective in removing the bug
stains from her concrete walkway. She had written to Mother Steward
about her miraculous discovery and received a whopping $25 of on-line
credit.
Armed with a can of Totally Loyal rug shampoo and the free
sample of Let It Be Fresh rug powder she had received in the mail,
she got down on her knees and applied generous amounts of the shampoo,
which foamed over the stain. The directions said to wait ten minutes to
allow the active chemical ingredients do their work. This would give
Dee enough time to get dressed.
She left the cleaning products on the rug, and went into the walk-in
closet in the master bedroom. She picked out a Victoria Crossheart
bra from the pile of lingerie overflowing from the top drawer of her
dresser. She strapped it on and adjusted, and slipped into the
matching white panties found buried in another drawer. With ennui,
she put on a pair of blue Bermuda culottes and a rosebud-patterned
tunic.
Wearing pink rubber gloves and carrying a roll of paper towels and a
plastic Tubberware bucket from under the kitchen sink, she returned
to the stain for the third time. Nearly half the roll of paper towels
was necessary to expunge the cat’s bile from the fibers. After
sprinkling the wet mark with Let It Be Fresh, she rose, confident
that she had caught the stain early enough for it to be completely
eradicated.
With one last punch to the Lysol spray nozzle, she returned her
cleaning supplies to their proper places, and emptied the bucket in
the garage. She then pulled the vacuum cleaner out of the hall closet
and rolled it into the middle of the living room and started
vacuuming. The ever so slightly pulsating drone of the motor and the
repetitive manual movements got her thinking about her carpet of many
years, the one thing that she had never dared to replace.
In the days when marriage with small children had settled into a
routine, Dee was one day seized by the notion that every house needed
an oriental carpet. Soon after, a door-to-door salesman
coincidentally happened by selling carpets made from Woolyon, the
remarkably stain-resistant miracle fiber by Lepont. She remembered
being amazed when the visiting carpet salesman had broken off a piece
of the blueberry fruit pie snack he was eating and ground it into the
carpet sample that he had brought along. He had then removed the blue
stain from the sample with a paper towel. “The stain has been wicked
away!” the salesman had exclaimed.
After numerous consultations, she picked a familiar oriental design
from the hundreds of patterns available. She chose to have it made in
avocado, beige and burnt orange after he complemented her on her
outfit. It was the first time they kissed. It took six months to
arrive from asia, and he regularly came by to update her on its
progress. He came for the last time on the day the carpet was
installed. They both recognized that it was just one of those things.
Martin was content with the carpet until he got the bill a few weeks
later. The very next day, Martin hit a small child while driving to
attend the state fair in sacramento. The child’s leg was multiply
fractured. Martin remained in a coma for three days, waking up only
sporadically to request the wand to return to the magic forest. Since
then, Martin had not referred to the carpet and she had not mentioned
its replacement. She turned off the vacuum cleaner and stood in the
middle of the living room. Calmed by the surrounding avocado, she
caressed the soles of her feet on the wool-like surface, and felt the
carpet talking to her, telling her the stories of its life, how it
had survived Bianca and Denver growing up and leaving home, and
remained unstained.
Dee was proud of Bianca, a former sect member, deprogrammed and
turned top-notch Mary Kate sales rep with a catering business on the
side. Though divorced and childless, she had recently been awarded a
pink Cadillac for her excellent sales figures.
Denver, her younger child, had disgraced the family by becoming a
homosexual artist and communist. Poor, and with terrible sleeping
habits, he loved to talk about his bowel movements and his use of
illegal drugs, particularly during family outings.
Dee did not understand the importance of these issues, and had no
qualms about showing her ignorance and disrespect for his alternative
lifestyle. She could not understand how she could have raised a
sidewalk poet and no-goodnik who freely admitted that he enjoyed
sponging off of society.
Leaving the vacuum cleaner in the living room, she spontaneously
decided to call her favored child. Dee used the telephone as an
extension of her thoughts. Today, although she had nothing in
particular to impart, except that she had just seen that her Glamette
Body Lotion was running low, she nonetheless continued to chat
nonsense with her daughter until she remembered the unfinished
household chore. She pulled the receiver away from her face as if in
a rush, saying she was in the middle of vacuuming, and ended the
connection.
In the kitchen, Dee dumped two heaping teaspoons of freeze-dried
gourmet coffee and some low-calorie sugar-substitute tablets into a
mug, filled it with water from the cooler, and placed it in the
microwave. Before returning the vacuum cleaner to its home, she
glanced at the spot where the kitty vomit had been and confirmed its
removal. The microwave peeped as she closed the hall closet door.
Household chores were completed. Her coffee was ready. It was the
perfect time to move onto her next activity.
Sitting at the breakfast nook, Dee shuffled the deck of cards and
even gave an extra shuffle knowing it would make it harder to win.
After lighting her first Virginia Svelte and taking a sip of coffee,
she cut the deck, tapped it three times with her left index finger,
and dealt a hand of klondike.
She gave a little yelp of surprise as one card after another was
quickly played, and within minutes Dee had assembled the suits and
won. This sudden victory, a rare occurrence, left Dee wondering for a
long time what she should do next.
