All the Other Mondays

“This has been some week,” I begin.  “You know how Mondays are.  This has been a week of Mondays.  And this is the weekend.  It’s supposed to be a reprieve from the other Mondays.” 

I stare at the ceiling while I try to find a comfortable position on the sofa.  

“I feel like a groundhog who stuck his head out of the ground, or log—whatever they burrow into where shadows and viruses can’t follow—and I discovered this crazy mayhem of police and politicians and people, all colors, slinging words and rocks and rubber bullets on either side of me.  My first thought is to duck back underground because this has nothing to do with me.  But it has everything to do with me.”  I pause.  “Let me know if I need to slow down or repeat any of this.”

There is a scratching sound as someone listens.

“You don’t have to be personally sick with Covid, unemployed, and have a knee in your neck to feel what is going on.  Telly says it has seeped into the water and the air.  He’s right.  It has changed my coffee and tied my stomach in Gordian knots.  It has changed the people I speak with every day and the conversations I have with them.  I know of eight people who have started taking an antidepressant in the past three months.”

I hear a yawn, but I let it go.

“I walked a piece of mail across the street to the Waddels, whose power bill was delivered to me by mistake.  The door opened half-way, and two Waddels, foreheads and eyes, moved out from behind the door.  What do you want? they practically shrieked.  I told them, ‘I think this bill belongs to you.’  They looked at me and they looked at the envelope in my suspect hand.  It’s open, they cried in horror.  I told them I thought it was mine, until I saw the amount due.  They must run every appliance 24/7 and hot and cold air at the same time.  I was going to say something funny to that effect, when I saw a tear in one of their eyes.  They made no move to open the door.  So I told them I would just leave the bill on the front stoop.  The second I set it down, one of them started shaking this can with pennies or rocks in it.  I think that’s a negative reinforcement technique used in training dogs.

“Fine, I thought, and left. 

“And who do I run into but Ed, who, I must say, was surprising nice.  I told him about the Waddels’ pennies in the can.  Ed said he uses dried beans.  Our conversation was nice.  Maybe too nice.  Having an audience, he had a few things he wanted to express.  Things—I know now—that would be difficult to bring up casually in a conversation going that nice.  So he started talking in a loud voice with lots of hard punctuation.  He transitioned a little further from nice by using short sentences with all the constructive accommodations a four-letter word likes.  Without the four-letter words.  I thought maybe he was getting emotional about the dog he returned because it didn’t understand the beans in the can, or maybe he was trying not to choke on a chia seed.  I’ve done that.

“But Ed found Ed—the same Ed our friend Telly loves to dislike—and began bleeping a mounting monstrosity of four-letter words with words of unemployment opportunities, conspiracy viruses and tribal identity.  Very impressive and totally unnerving.     

“There was no one else around.  I worried how to walk away without the offensive babble following me back across the street.  So I held up my phone and pretended to make a call.  I said ‘Telly’ so that Ed could hear me above himself.  ‘You were right.’

I laugh at the memory of invoking a ninety-two-year old power.

“Ed clammed up like a Waddel and backed slowly up his driveway and into his luxury garage.” 

My attentive listener is still with me.  Still scratching away.

“On a more positive note, a woman reached out to me online.  She said she liked my profile.  She asked me if I own a hair brush.  We set up a Skype date.  I should be happy.  Right?

“Well, then I get this long text message from Teri Lin.  You remember, the woman who’s not my type.  At first I thought it was a butt-text.  She never sends a text that long.  Turns out she’s doing the same thing I am.  She set up a profile online, and within two hours she had messages from ten guys with intentions ranging from Skyping and Zooming to meeting at a restaurant or taking a day trip to the mountains.

“I called her and got a message that her voice mailbox is full.  Well, of course it’s full if that many men are convinced she has a hair brush.

“That’s why I had to open that bottle of wine, the one that has been sitting uncorked for six months because I don’t drink.”

Lots of scratching now.

“Because that’s what you do when the beloved country over your burrow is flooding in turmoil and the pain is seeping into everything you touch and think.  You call the woman who walks with rainbows, and when her mailbox is full, you open a bottle of the next best thing.

“Maybe if I had a dog.”

The scratching stops.

“If I had a dog, he could rest his chin on my leg and give me sad dopey dog-eyes and tell me to cheer up.  If he was a big dog.  That wouldn’t work with a little dog.  If you have to pick up the dog, it changes the dynamics.  You’re helping them to help you, when, realistically, you’re probably just freaking them out by taking away their right to choose. 

“I don’t know why I’m talking about picking up dogs.  I don’t have a dog.  I have a cat.  Now, if I pick up the cat, any consolation for me is going to come from outside that two-party relationship when someone sees my fresh wounds. 

“Other people can pick up their cats, rub them behind the ears and chuck them under the chin.  If I pick up my cat, there are consequences.  You know, I feed him, shelter him, buy him any toy he wants…I even play with the toy until he gets tired of watching me. 

“I’m sorry.  It’s just been one of those weeks, one of those days, and this sofa…!!!”

I feel myself tearing up for absolutely no good reason.  My head is right up against one arm of the sofa, my feet extend about a foot over the far end. 

“This sofa is just like any other Monday!”

That does it for my therapist.  He hits the floor, putting all his weight behind it.  He approaches with fur and fury. 

Then he hops. 

Up. 

Onto my chest, where he proceeds to knead my sternum. 

Left-paw.  Right-paw.  Switch. 

He does this over and over, ad infinitum.  Finally, satisfied, he lays down and curls into a tight ball.  And purrs.  The purring radiates into my chest, loosening things I hadn’t suspected until they loosened up.  My breathing becomes less labored.  The fourteen pounds on my chest is suddenly just right.  Just what I need. 

The turmoil is still there.  It is still about everyone, burrowed or above-ground.  But this is nice.

Toby lifts his head and looks at me to make certain I understand that this is one thing no big dog, divided neighbor, or type who walks with rainbows could do half as well.

When I leave, he suggests, I can show my appreciation by dropping a few treats in the payment bowl.

The cat will see you now.