Of course, I can explain — it’s all in the note
Burton W. Cole, Editor
Should I leave a note?
What if somebody found me this way and I was too incapacitated to explain how this predicament made sense at one time? Again.
My life is a series of “I should have left a note” moments.
Like the time I wanted to surprise my wife by scrubbing the bathtub sparkling clean. I rummaged under the sink and found two super duper deluxe cleaners, each guaranteed to eat through grease, grime and soapy residue. (If it’s soap, shouldn’t it already be clean?)
Follow me closely here. Guy logic dictates that if one industrial strength cleaner is great, then two would be doubly awesome. More power, ar, ar, ar!
You know how if you mix up the baking soda and baking powder, your kitchen turns into one giant exploding volcano experiment?
(I should have left a note that time, too, and disappeared for a couple of days. Staying to face the music wasn’t the best choice. A lot of sour notes.)
That volcano thing is kind of what happened in the bathtub, only on a toxic cloud scale.
I remember my wife dragging me out of the bathroom by my shirt collar with one hand while clamping her other hand over her nose.
“What we’re you thinking?” she demanded.
I was thinking that I should have left a note. It was well-reasoned reasoning, but she often was unreasonable about my reasoning. Weird.
Since my sweet and long-suffering wife passed away seven months ago, there’s no one around to rescue me from well-reasoned reasoning anymore. Which is why I need to leave notes to explain that yes, I was thinking.
That thought flashed through my mind the other night as I fought with the fitted sheet that held me captive in its elastic clutches.
It was frigid when I crawled beneath a mound of covers hoping for heat. The shivering didn’t stop.
A passing penguin warbled something about the flannel sheets stashed in the closet. I darted out of bed, snagged the top sheet, slapped flannel overtop the cool cotton bottom sheet and nestled back under the covers.
Lying on flannel helped. What would be even better if I was covered with flannel as well.
A passing polar bear snuffled something about the flannel fitted sheet still in the closet.
I made a dash for the closet. The elastic snapped over my shoulders in a wonderful fit. The bottom clamped onto my feet like an oversized sock. It was almost as sweet as being cocooned in a half-open sleeping bag.
As I burrowed under the rest of the covers, getting tangled and trapped inside the bottom sheet that I wore, I wondered what the reaction would be if paramedics had to be called to extricate me:
“Hey, Ralphie, look at the sheets. No wonder the idiot passed out. He sandwiched himself inside out.”
“He probably was just trying to get warm.”
“Then how come he didn’t turn up the thermostat? Wouldn’t that have made more sense?”
That’s why I should leave notes. The note would have explained that the thermostat was two rooms away while the closet was right there, and I wasn’t exposing myself to the chill any more seconds longer than necessary.
Plus, I forgot about the thermostat. It’s difficult to think when one’s brain is frozen like a Popsicle. I was hallucinating about penguins and polar bears, for crying out loud.
Maybe if I’d conjured up a walrus too, he would have hissed something about the thermostat.
At the very least he could have left a note.
Warm up with Burt at burton.w.cole@gmail.com or on the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook.