It can’t get any worse….
You maybe have had this happen. Your spouse goes tweety on you and nothing will settle him or her down. Not the usual pharmacology, not the soothing words, not a few days of rest. Nothing. And the time finally comes when you throw up your hands, throw in the towel and toss her or him into the truck and drop them off at the emergency room of the nearest pain motel and let the psychiatrists have a Go. Sedate em, give em a chance to sleep soundly, see what things look like when the meds wear off.
My neighbor Phil had just taken Sheila to the Skagit Hospital. Put her — in his words — in the rubber room. He had his two year old son with him and he was in a sad frame of mind. He’d come down for a little comfort, maybe some advice, and plenty of beer, three of which I had in abundance. We started with the beer, then got around to the comfort and finally reached the advice as we were walking down the road, his boy in hand and his dog Kona running to and fro. These were the days we had virtually NO traffic, but still … you needed to pay attention.
I had just finished saying, “Keep a good attitude, man, it can’t get any worse,” or some banal horseshit platitude to cheer him up when we hear the car zooming around the curve behind us and Phil, without thinking, calls to Kona roaming the woods across the highway. I say No! but it’s too late. Kona comes running and the car comes hurtling and we watch, as if in slow motion, the car hit Kona at 50 mph and send him flying down the road and hit the pavement dead as a doornail. Phil’s boy claps his hands and laughs because he’s never seen Kona do any flying before. The woman driving the car is crying and I’m telling her it’s not her fault, just drive away. We’re sorry, just drive on, we’ll take care of this.
I buried Kona while Phil dropped his son with his wife’s parents for the night. Then we headed into town for some serious drinking. Forgetting, as always, it not only can get worse, there’s a likelihood it will….
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