Disclaimer: I don't know how I did it, but this post won't separate between paragraphs, Arrr!! Please, just overlook it if you're a Grammar Freak like me.
Discarded Inspiration
I was driving home Monday afternoon, and again, temperatures were reaching around 102 degrees--the fourteenth day in a row. I was in a state of driver's oblivion, you know, zombie-land, where you are driving but you don't remember a thing about it. You just hope that bump you hit that brought you back to the land of the living, wasn't a person or a crusted-over, turkey-vulture leftovers, dead dog.
I was rounding the corner about a block from home and I do a roll-through-stop at the sign, which is by the way, totally acceptable in the South--go figure. It happens to be garbage day and as I look to my left, one of my neighbors has obviously been doing some weekend renovations, as there is a toilet sitting out by the road, just waiting for the garbage truck to arrive and take it away.
"That's not a bad-lookin' toilet," I think to myself as I do a roll-through,"I wonder why they replaced it?" It was a nice shade of brown (taupe) and I like natural colors.
Everytime I happen to see a toilet sitting by the edge of the road, the first thing that comes to mind is, "Nnnnasty!" and then immediately, I start to feel sorry for the toilet, just sitting there by its lonesome, excommunicated from the family it has so humbly served for so long, not even a square of t.p. to keep it company, on its way to porcelain heaven...because I'm sure Angels need a place to sit and read, don't you think? Surely, it gets old just flying around all the time.
I think there ought to be a law that you have to cover your toilet when you send it away. I mean, it's a VERY personal item to just set out by the side of the road for every Tom, Sally and Harry to see. Your neighbors don't want to come walkin' out in their bathrobe on Monday morning, mindin' their own business and pickin' up the morning paper, to look over and see their neighbor's toilet lookin' back at 'em with that cold, blank (insert color here) stare.
Toilets are personal items. Yes, everybody uses them (even in Alabama). People have good days on their toilets and bad days on their toilets. I believe some of my worst days have been spent on my toilet. I don't want to go into details about this, people, I think we all know what I mean. We all know how personal a toilet gets the day after a big party; or after a Mexican meal gone awry; should I even mention "Morning Sickness"? Many a man reads the big sports story of the day there and many a woman has found out she's with child there.
See, just too personal. Why set that kind of history by the side of the road, in open display? People start thinking things about you that they don't need to think, and I won't even get started on if you happen to be one of those who doesn't clean your toilet before you set it out. Come On! Have some pride!
So, at this point, you think I'm already weird but, there's more...
I then begin to think about all the personal items that the city just allows people to put out in plain sight, for garbage removal. Can you guess what came to mind next??? You're right if you're thinking, "Mattress".
I find the mattress to be the most personal item. Think about it.
What happens on mattresses? Children are conceived on mattresses (most of the time); people die on mattresses, dark but true, nonetheless; young girls write in their diaries and spill ounces of tears every year over lost loves...on mattresses; I don't think about what young boys do on their mattresses. We recover from our worst illnesses on mattresses and we watch Seinfeld, King of Queens and Leno on mattresses, while eating chips and getting itchy; there are many a bodily fluid excreted on mattresses.
Children jump, spouses snore, babies bond, boys wrestle, girls dream, dads tickle torture, moms comfort, lovers kiss and I, well I snuggle in and read on many a rainy, crisp, fall day and those long, cold, winter nights when the sun sets early and there is nothing else to do. I also dream up many a Blog post on my mattress.
We spend many a dollar to dress our mattresses in 600-thread count Egyptian cotton and, for some, satin and lace, and still for others, sheets embroidered by our Grandmothers for our Wedding Day. We place our favorite pillows on it and even spray it with romantic fragrances. We kneel by the side of our mattresses and voice our desires, needs and fears to our God. Not to forget, our mattresses are present every time we swear after we stub our big toe on the frame. Oh, what a mattress would reveal if it could talk!
The "imaginaries" that are displaced by a tossed mattress are inumerable. Here's the small list:
Monsters, dust bunnies, boogie men, barbie heads, marbles, earrings, coins, cheese puffs and those ever-elusive, cold-and-creepy hands that reach out for your ankles after you turn out the lights; you run and jump as high as you can back into the safety of your plush mattress, so as not to get dragged under and eaten alive.
Ode to The Mattress!
From the old, grungy bachelor pad mattress to the space-age, "I can hold a glass of wine w/o spilling it" mattress; to the techno-savvy "I've got your Number" mattress to the nightmarish hotel mattress that everyone's afraid to touch; from the feather mattress and the old hay and bug-infested mattress to the water mattress, air mattress and the bungalow hammock. Finally, the ever-sexy, vibrating mattress.
These everyday personal items--a part of the family--these are what brought me out of my Blogger stupor and back to writing. There had to be a voice out there saying more than just, "Eewww" when passing by the family toilet on Main Street. There had to be a voice for all the displaced imaginaries. Someone had to cry, "ENOUGH!"
And so, I discovered on Monday, August 20, 2007, around Noon, while DWO (driving while oblivious) that I still have things to say that are important. Things that might make a difference to just one person...or object.
I had to be a voice for the voiceless, the discarded, the un-appreciated.
I had to keep Blogging.
That is my story.
5 comments:
color me amused.
Of course, I guess it was our time in youth ministry, but when I see a toilet on the curb, I think, "Let's take it and put it in somebody else's yard."
great post. You have such a unique perspective on things....i think it's your inner artist. You should explore that more. :)
Ness - consider yourself colored. Wait, that doesn't sound right. Consider yourself amusely-colored.
Tams - Unique is just another way of saying I'm weird. That's okay, I came to terms with my weirdness several weeks ago.
Mark - I know you haven't commented yet but I'm sure it'll have some great plumber logic behind it. I'm waiting in anticipation...
indoor plumbing in the south?
Mark - Uh-huh. Hard to believe that people who put men on the moon also have indoor plumbing.
Oh yeah, they control much of the missile defense of our nation here.
I'll repeat what everyone says here: Huntsville is not like the rest of Alabama. Twenty minutes out of town, the "Deliverance" theme song starts playing in your head, but here in Huntsville, you wouldn't know you were in Alabama except for the suthun' accents, sweet tea, banana pudding and the fact that you can sit through three red lights before someone will finally, yet lightly, tap their horn.
Go figure, Charlie Brown.
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