Tony Takes A Leak
I sat there on the toilet, minding my own affairs, when the door to the bathroom literally burst open as Tony barged in, announcing his presence to the urinals like an autistic Santa Claus, bellowing "Hello howareya?" to the online guy, who had the misfortune to be at the sink and thus in Tony's line of conversational fire. I unconsciously cowered on the toilet, hoping he wouldn't start banging on the stall door to ask how my day was going. Old people do weird stuff like that.
Tony sauntered (I imagine) over to the stall to let go and let flow, and as he stood there, doing the do, I heard him breathing, almost heavily, this open-mouthed sighing that was like the aural manifestation of depression. It's like it took so much energy to summon every slow breath just for him to stay alive, and that's about as depressing as it gets.
He finished and washed his hands, and I heard him talking while he cleaned up, muttering some unintelligible nonsense and then, as he opened the door to leave, he said "Let's see what we got here!," almost as if he were proclaiming his intentions to seize the day, or at least seize as much as his arthritic paws could grasp.
So that's my challenge to you, constant reader: Greet each day as if you were Garrison Keillor with Alzheimer's, old and defiant and too stubborn to do anything but what you want to do. Talk to yourself in the bathroom. Dream big, kiddos.
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