She comes in every 1/2 hour or so to see if I have any garbage. If I’m napping or sleeping in my underwear, she tells me that there isn’t enough garbage to take. I turn on my bed to ignore her. Can I do the dishes, she asks.
Now I have to wake up and say no. Please don’t do them. I like to do them myself.
Are you sure, she asks.
I’m sure.
Let me soak them at least, she says.
I tell her to squirt some liquid detergent in them first.
That throws her into a tizzy because there are two bottles of soap. One clear, one green.
Oh, oh. She says to herself. Green or clear? Oh you are a good man. You don’t want me to do anything. You very very good man.
I’d like you to leave, I think.
Instead. I say: just use either one. And your shift ends at 4, right?
Yes, my shift ends at 4 pm.
Okay, instead of checking the garbage a million times a day, save yourself some work and check once before you go home, I say, now sitting up in bed.
Oh, you nice man, she repeats. You try and make things easier for me.
The guy in the apartment above me begins yelling ALEXA again. Usually he starts around 5 a.m. and I say to myself: Home sweet home. This is my new home.
When I first arrived here, I asked a few people who still had their marbles, how long does it take to get used to this place?
To a man, I was told about a year. That turns out to be about right.
On Friday, the PT person told me that I shouldn’t go down to the lobby in my socks. I had to wear shoes. I guess management didn’t like the look of me sitting in the lobby in my wheelchair with just socks on.
But there was a reason for the socks. I just forgot what it was, until later in the day when I went to the toilet with my sneakers on, and after I finished my business found that I couldn’t stand up, even tho I had stood from that raised seat 50 times.
Oh. I realized it was the sneakers.
Not the weight, but the height change. By wearing sneakers I had changed the distance between the bottom of my foot and the muscles that raise you up. Maybe just by an inch. But that was enough.
So I bent over, stretching my back to the limit, and kicked off my left sneaker. Then tried to stand up. No problem.
Oh. You nice man.
She uses a dirty rag to do the dishes.
I tell her there is a box of brillo, she can use that.
No, she washes them with the dirty rag.
And as she’s closing the door, I get to the sink, and rewash everything she’s touched.
Home again. ALEXA – HELP!!!
BECK 