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BEDRIDDEN LIFE
Yelling Out the Window, Being an Interloper, Whistling & Humming, Etc.
Or Tweets, let’s be honest
Five years after moving into our current house, my German wife, always adhering to her cultural norm of being extraordinarily self-sufficient and doing everything on her own, including mowing the lawn, finally broke down and got us a lawn-cutting service.
My parents, upon hearing the news, undoubtedly breathed a collective sigh of relief.
I was thinking that I’ve been a whistler and a finger snapper for most of my life, though I very seldom hum.
Countless times, however, I’ve been told to “shut the hell up” by loved ones who can’t tolerate the sound of my whistling or finger snapping for any length of time.
Even my five-year-old gets annoyed. So what if I took up humming instead? Could I find joy in that and at the same time avoid pissing off my whole family?
It seems that whistlers and finger snappers don’t get the same respect that hummers do. Even babies like humming.
I would like to tell someone to leave as they’re about to leave. I don’t think I’ve done this before. “Why don’t you leave,” I’ll say. I even suggested my wife do this to our old nanny one day rather than say goodbye.
“Tell her to leave as she’s about to leave,” I texted her. “See her reaction.” My wife just ignored me, though.
Growing up, my parents had an unhealthy obsession with Telly Savalas and I still don’t know why.
Sometimes I am an interloper. I didn’t set out to be one. Nor am I proud of it. When I was a kid, I didn’t say to my parents: “Ma and Dad, I want to be an interloper when I grow up.” It just sort of happened. I have opinions, you know.
I’ve come to wonder why my brother and I, growing up and maturing in the 1990s, were always coughing up phlegm. My sister sure as hell wasn’t doing that.
Meaningless memory from my youth: I remember that when I was a young kid, I had a strange, irrational fear that when I grew up, I would not know how to get to places in my car.
