| Essay Non-Fiction posted July 6, 2023 | Chapters: |
...25 26 -27- 
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Should you count?
A chapter in the book A Fly on the Wall
Multiples of Three
by Rachelle Allen
| Background This book is a compilation of things I have noticed throughout my life and the assessments I have made accordingly. They are not presented in chronological order |
July 6, 2023
My mother was not an easy woman to be around. She had a cruel streak and wielded her command of the English language like a spiked concrete bat. But, still, I feel I have to give her credit where it's due, and today it comes in the form of acknowledging that she had an uncanny knack for accurately assessing truisms. Like the one that goes: Bad things happen in three's. My mother's take on it was: "It's not that bad things happen in three's. It's that, after three, people stop counting."
I should have heeded that advice.
My mother was not an easy woman to be around. She had a cruel streak and wielded her command of the English language like a spiked concrete bat. But, still, I feel I have to give her credit where it's due, and today it comes in the form of acknowledging that she had an uncanny knack for accurately assessing truisms. Like the one that goes: Bad things happen in three's. My mother's take on it was: "It's not that bad things happen in three's. It's that, after three, people stop counting."
I should have heeded that advice.
#1
I'm at a busy intersection at rush hour, waiting to turn left. I know it won't happen until the light turns red. It turns red. I turn. The car's driver in the opposing lane decides that, if he speeds up, he will still have time to make it through the intersection. I am struck so hard by his accelerating vehicle that my Camry skitters south an entire block.
#2
All my airbags deploy. (Did you know they hiss and smoke when that happens?)
#3
I literally have to be cut from the wreckage.
#4
I have a hematoma the size of France on the outside of my right calf (from, of all things, the hissing, smoking airbag under the steering column.)
#5
I am a frou-frou Barbie fashion plate of a girl, so this means that I have to wear (Shoot. Me. Now.) pants and flat freaking shoes [which I have to buy because I do not own any such commodity!] for four consecutive weeks until my leg becomes presentable again.
#6 [otherwise known as:
Three: The Sequel]
My car is totaled, and I have just thirty days' worth of insurance-paid rental car time to find a replacement. On my mark, get set, GO!
#7
While I'm searching for said replacement (and when I say "I," I mean "my husband, Bobby, a/k/a Mr. Consumer Reports"), our beautiful eighteen-year-old cat, Flurry Allen, dies.
#8
We (see previous 'I' reference, then pluralize it) manage to find a gorgeous 2020 Camry at a reasonable price, with only 10,000 miles on it. She's the favorite car of my entire life because her paint job contains chips of blazing golden mica. I name her "Sparkle," and I feel so Barbie-happy...until three weeks later, when I'm stopped for a boarding school bus at 6:45 a.m. and am rammed from behind by another school bus. My poor Sparkle needs $10,000's worth of repairs. (Miraculously, this time, I am unscathed.)
#9 [that would be three, cubed...]
I use garden therapy to work through the back-to-back traumas of my life. Three days later, my back is covered in poison ivy. My BACK. I guarantee I was fully clothed in my heavy-duty denim auto mechanic's coverall, accessorized with gladiator-length canvas garden gloves and Laurence-of-Arabia headgear...i.e. the kind that sports an ear-to-ear backflap! Not for one SECOND was I lying prone in the damn grass. HOW did I get fifty fuchsia-colored pus-filled bubbles of non-stop itchiness on my freaking BACK?!
#10
My doctor is scheduling into July (it is June 5th), and the first available Physician's Assistant is the one I despise (this, after the appointment when it turned out I had Bronchitis, yet she dismissed me with, "You're the least sick patient I've seen all day. I'm NOT prescribing you an antibiotic!"), and that appointment is eight days away.
#11
Urgent Care is so busy, there are no empty parking spots. Defeated, I leave and go home, deciding I'm just going to be a martyr and hope it heals with no help. After all, I'm Jewish. A day without suffering means I simply did not try hard enough.
My husband contributes to my martyrdom as I attempt to sit next to him to watch television. He shouts, "EWWWW! NO!! Stay! Over! There! Do NOT come onto this side!"
#12 [this would be three bad things, four times in a
row...because now I'm binge-counting.]
Sparkle will not be ready for at least another four weeks, and the latest insurance-underwritten loaner is at the end of its thirty-day allowance. The collision shop is kind enough to supply a loaner, but it is a 2004 Honda Civic with crank windows and has the shop's logo on it, emblazoned in enormous red letters, on both sides. I have become Clown-Car Barbie.
#13
My husband takes pity on me and suggests we get another cat, even though we'd agreed, when Flurry Allen passed, that we were done owning pets forever. Too much anguish.
We find a beautiful calico with a half-black/half-orange face and name her "Eclipse." But, unlike Flurry Allen, who was my lap buddy extraordinaire, the only time we ever see Eclipse is when we review the wee-hours footage from our Ring camera. Otherwise, she's hiding somewhere deep in the recesses of The Man Cave.
When I call the administrator at the shelter where we adopted this cat, I am told that Eclipse is a 'spirit cat.' "She is with you in spirit," the administrator tells me.
"So is Sparkle," I grouse to Bobby after I relay the phone conversation.
***
But today marks exactly three months since Incident #1. Ironically -symbolically?- I picked Sparkle up from the collision shop at 3:00 p.m. (She is still my favorite car ever. Barbie-perfect once again in every way.)
Also, we bought cat pheromones last night, on the urging of the shelter's "Behavioral Specialist," so maybe -hopefully- that means the beautiful Eclipse Allen will also soon be with us in more than just spirit.
And, as long as I'm counting to three, my poison ivy is now totally gone.
My only concern is that next Wednesday, I'm due to leave on a trip to the Thousand Islands with my friend, Sheila, and I can't help but realize that one thousand, divided by three, is three hundred, thirty-three...and a third.
I swear my mother is somewhere in the hereafter, eating that up.
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Post Number 200 A Milestone Post |
 Recognized |
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