It Was Shakespeare, You Pineapples!

That is one of my all-time favorite movie-quotes, from Alan Alda’s romantic comedy about families and learning to go with the flow, Betsy’s Wedding. I’m thinking the exact line is “Shakespeare said it, you pineapples!” but I always quote it in the above way. I think it makes me laugh more, or whatever.

Since yesterday’s story was a somewhat grim one, let’s today make with the funny. Just a short anecdote for you ladies, and why not gentlemen, too, from my morning, which I titled in the wee small hours, the Tiresome Number Eight.

I was up all night, tossing and turning, and finally making some kind of pretend plans for the upcoming summer holiday. I got up when my man did, a very unusual situation for us, and let him do his rounds in the kitchen and the bathroom, while I reveled in bed in my new-found beauty of having gotten rid of some extra from my body as well as face, since quitting the damn sleeping pills.

It was only yesterday, at work, where I, having been on my several days off, returned for the first time since the insomnia got bad again. “You look really gorgeous”, my ladies, Roberts and Adams, said in unison. I showed them my pretty bra with the hearts, and we all concluded that when tired, accessorize. Even if it’s only for private joy.

It had been days since I had last seen my friend, Hanks, since he, too, had been on his days off, and it was a sheer sensation to have him respond, when I asked him how his days went: “Man, it sucked ass. I had food poisoning for three days, not being able to eat a thing. I think I’ve lost ten pounds.”

“That’s great!” I replied, “Now we can both be thin! It won’t be like last winter, when you lost weight and I was directly under, on the receiving end. If the total weight of our workplace is a constant, like we discussed, I wonder who got our combined twenty pounds this week. And in case you are wondering why I’m looking this good, it’s because I haven’t slept in a week.”

“All right, then”, he said. “So, to improve one’s beauty, just quit sleeping.”

“Yes you got it exactly!”

“Okay let’s continue this in a little while, I have to take this, my kid is having an emergency, he was trying to open the fridge, and the handle fell off.”

After my man left for work this morning, I was left to my lonesome, and took charge of the kitchen. The pretend plans for our holiday were starting to form into real plans, and I was feeling giddy, and needed to share my tired fun with someone. So I called Roberts, my girl from work, just to exchange some words.

“So, you feeling good or what?” I asked, continuing a discussion from last night in the locker room. “No fever?”

“Just a sore throat, is all. I am coming to work, anyway.”

“Okay well, since yesterday all I pretty much did all day was sit on my ass, I can do stuff today, and you can take it easy. Okay? So I’ll see you soon. And by the way, I’m making breakfast as we speak here, and I’ve got two burners on, with eggs scrambling on one, and my menstruation cup boiling on the other.”

“Just be sure to eat the eggs, yeah?”

I guess the moral of these tiny stories is, that just when one thinks one is at the very end of one’s rope, and the sun can just shove it up his ass, pep can be discovered in the most unusual places, in one’s very workplace, for one.