It's But A Day ©

What a day it has been.
You know every day is different for me except the mayhem, that’s always there.
My life is like some insane dark comedy at times.

I have a friend who has left town for a couple of weeks and has asked me to watch his place.
Hey, he’s a friend what can I say but “yeah man, no problem”.

I have known the man all my life and I know if I’d asked him, he wouldn’t do it for me but he would be telling me the truth so that’s cool.
After I tell him I would do it he tells me that’s great and gives me a beer then tells me to be there the next day so he could show me what’s needed to be done while he is gone.

Huh, what’s to do that needs me to come in for a show and tell, he lives alone with a bunch of plants?
What the hell, the next day I am over at his place and he gets out a piece of paper and starts writing down my duties.

Huh, duties?
What duties?
Plants people, that’s all he has, a bunch of plants, how many duties is that.
Water the plants once a week.
Done, out the door.

Sunday, water the plants.

Well DUH!!!!!!!!
What did I tell you?

Monday morning at 8 am take all the garbage from the back of the building and drag them to the front.

Huh, say what?
Garbage, where, why?
Who me, huh?

I have to take the garbage out at 8 am because they pick it up at 9 am.
Well why not take it out on Sunday after I water the plants and just go to put them away the next day at a decent hour, like 2 pm.

But nooooooo, I can’t do that because the fucken drunks kick them around in the middle of the night.
So he says.

Fine, it’s what, one garbage can and after the first week, he won’t be there to make more garbage after that?
What do you mean 8 garbage cans, how much fucken garbage do you generate in a week?
WHAT!!!!!!
ARE YOU NUTS?!
What do you mean the whole building’s garbage?
I don’t care if they give you a break on the rent to do it.

FINE!!!!!!!

Friday pay the rent.

Ok, give me the money for the rent.

What do you mean you don’t have it.
I’m not paying your rent.
What?
What do you mean take you cheque when it comes in and give it to the landlord; you have to sign it.
Oh no, that’s illegal.
Don’t tell me what I have done, I KNOW what I have done but that was then this is now and I am not getting in trouble again.
No I am not scared to do the time, I hate beets.
They serve you a lot of beets in jail and I’m sick of beets.
In fact that is the deterrent for me, beets.
Walker, you are sentenced to eat beets for a year.
NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So now I am sitting here wondering did I put his name on the back of that cheque or mine?

Nuts.

After I paid the rent I had to get home to go out and do some shopping but as I got in the house the phone starts ringing, it’s my friend K.
She is moving into her new house this weekend and it’s a double move from two cities 400 miles apart and the cut her phone off at home and I am the one she calls to complain to.

I told her I only know people in the mafia, not the Phone Company.
Yeah see I hang out with safe people, messing with the phone company is dangerous, like the post office; you don’t fuck with those people either.

The Phone Police know everything; they hear all the conversations made and know where you are the second you pick up a phone.
Once, I saw this guy I knew smash the receiver of a payphone and the next day he was gone disappeared never to be seen again.
They said he moved to B.C. but I know.
The phone police got him.
But if they have a deal with the Post Office, well that’s it then, put a stamp on your ass and you wake up in Tibet without a cell phone or a quarter.

I calmed her down and told her everything just looked like it was going wrong and it was probably going to be fine.
I hung up and knew she was screwed but I wasn’t going to tell her that.
It was my brother that was going to set up her phone and he is the biggest procrastinator I know.
To be on the safe side I call him to remind him of Ks order and he said he would do it.
Well not in so many words.
I said, “Are you going to Ks place to morrow”?
He said, ”Yeah” but the tone of his voice said, “I don’t really care if I do”.
We will see how that goes.

I jump in the car and head off to our (Sally and mine’s) favourite store, HOME DEPOT.
I know someone there and I get a pretty good deal most times on plants and accessories, I was also returning a plant that wasn’t doing so good, they are good for that there.
I sat around talking for and hour and walked out with a couple of cactus orchids and more pots.
In my quest to cut down on the number of pots I have (I have 52 plants in the house) I am going to put ten plants in two big pots and make some room.

After I left there I went to see a friend who has been bugging me to go to his place for a long time.
It’s been 8 years since I was last there.
He lives in the middle of the city in a beautiful house with a large pool and yard surrounded by tall cedars.
All the houses here are big.

I go in his yard and I stop in my tracks, the whole place is covered in pot plants, 20 to be exact and they are huge.
I ask him if he isn't scared and he said naw, he doesn’t bother anyone he just loves to grow then and his neighbours leave him alone.

You should see these monsters.
He does smoke them and gives some to his friends but he doesn’t do it for the money or the high.
He loves growing the freaking things like a hobby and I got to tell you, I was impressed with what he told me.
In fact I forgot half of it because it was so much; NO I wasn’t stoned, I don’t smoke and drive.
I visited for about an hour and told him I still had some errands to run but as I was walking out he gave me a pot plant that looked like a bonsai tree, I thought that looked cool.
He told me it was something he had been working on and was meant more as a decorative piece than anything but would give me a good buzz for what little it produced.
I thanked him and put it in the back seat with the other plants and headed off to make a payment on my TV before I went home.

When I pull into the yard my parents were waiting for me.
It seems my father’s brother and my favourite uncle had a heart attack on the way to work.
He drove himself to the hospital at 1 am.
I had the car so my father could go to the hospital until I got back so I started unloading the car with the cat food and the stuff from Home Depot.
On my way back the second time to the car my father had come down from the porch and had pulled the plants out of the back seat and was standing at the foot of the steps staring at my little pot plant.

He knew what it was because we have had a few words in the past about me sticking one in among his tomatoes once in awhile.
He looks up at me and asks, “Do they sell these at Home Depot now”?

Errr um, “yeah, they sell grass at Home Depot all the time”.
I take the pot out of his hands and quickly pack everything away and head off to the hospital with my father.

As soon as we found my uncle’s room we went in and asked him how he was.
He had a clogged artery, which they opened with that balloon thingy and told him he would be ok but he would have to make a lifestyle change.

I told him that I thought he was there because he might have seen his wife naked and the next thing I know the nurses were running in then I was told to stop making his heart rate go up or I would have to leave.

We stayed with my uncle for an hour before we came back home and as soon as I walked in K was on the phone again telling me she still had no phone.
You could have fooled me.

That was Friday August 31 2007 signing off.

Have a nice weekend

Walker