grimmutterings

Tuesdays, they’re worse than Mondays she thought as she stood looking out of her kitchen window at the dust bowl of her backyard.  Some plants, those funny smelling ones, would look nice in planters, she thought, she would get some on Wednesday.  She turned to the calendar on the wall beside the fridge, had best write it down or it will never get done, and at that moment the coffee pot burbled that it was ready to be poured, so it never got written down and it never  got done.

Easily distracted from just about anything except her ongoing, ever increasing medical issues, her days were a mess of unfinished chores and barely half finished tasks about the house.  Her long suffering husband did his best and had been lucky to escape with just minor burns last night after she had decided to paint a door.  The door hadn’t been a problem but the fire that started in the kitchen after she left what was to have been dinner to dry out, burn and then burst in flames, had.  Her husband had valiantly beaten the fire into submission while she had gone to get a dress she thought she remembered she liked.  She didn’t like the dress, the door didn’t get painted, and they ate out.  And it was Thursday.

Her new medication wasn’t helping.  Well, it was working wonders with her memory, when she remembered to take it, but it had the strangest side effect and not one listed on the label.  Oh yes she had all the other side effects that were listed .. rash, bloating, headaches, seizures, panic attacks, dizziness and others, but they were nothing to be too worried about.  This one though, well she’d certainly be calling her doctor about this one.

She eyed the pill container warily.  It was time to take her medicine and for once she wasn’t sure she wanted to.  Doctors orders she thought and tipped two small white tablets into her hand.  She took a big gulp of her already cooling coffee to wash the tablets down, and .. wait for it.  Cha-Ching!

Cha-Ching, Cha-Ching, Cha-cha-cha-Ching.  The two tablets cha-chinged their way down her throat, sounding like she had swallowed some pennys.  She doubted even a handful of small change would make the same noise if swallowed.

Give the pills some time to adjust to their new surroundings, or add some food into the equation and there would be a noise from her stomach like a payout on a slot machine in Vegas.  CHA-CHING!  Last night at the restaurant, her husband had disappeared under the table thinking his wallet had spilled its contents … Cha-Ching … and three times the waiter replaced forks he thought had fallen on the floor.  Cha-Ching.  Cha-Ching.  Cha-Ching. The dizziness, bloating and headaches she was already experiencing as side effects from the tablets had worsened and by the time they left the restaurant, her rash resembled a mild case of leprosy.  She had a full blown panic attack in the parking lot, narrowly avoided a seizure, and her worried husband drove home at a reckless speed while her stomach continued to make violent financial transactions.  Cha-Ching!

Finally home and in bed, things quietened down.  With her face covered in cooling Calamine lotion, the rash was subsiding, a bag of frozen peas on her head had soothed her headache and if she lay still she didn’t feel dizzy and the panic attack and bloating passed.

I think you might be allergic to something in those pills her husband suggested the next morning, I don’t think you should take them anymore.  She agreed and didn’t take the pills.  By lunchtime, however,  her memory had deteriorated drastically and she had forgotten where she had left the car, the bath was overflowing upstairs and the iron was gently smoldering its way through a pile of bedsheets.  By that evening, the upstairs of the house had been on fire, twice, thanks to the iron and the sheets but the bathwater had done a good job extinguishing the flames as it flowed along the upstairs landing and made its way downstairs.  After destroying the floorboards in the hallway, the water had made its way down the path to the street, and the Water Authority were presently busy digging up the road trying to trace the source of the water leak.  Her  husband had been stuck in the resulting traffic jam for over 2 hours and was still 10 miles from home and she had been standing talking to the pill container on the kitchen worktop for hours.

She giggled as she watched the container dance and twirl, and blushed like a school girl when it tipped its lid at her as though it was a hat.  Delightful, just delightful she thought, ‘Cha-Ching?’ it asked her.  Why not she thought and reached out her hand.