Ginger Snapped

"I need to go to the bathroom." Innocuous words, unless spoken, say, on a full elevator, or in the middle of rush-hour traffic, or especially on the subway, as they were that day. The subway car rumbled to a stop, but not their stop. "Can you hold it?" she asked. "Yes." But the brown eyes looking up at her seemed just a wee bit desperate. The train started up again. Two more stops. Hopefully there would be some place with a public toilet aboveground, some building that had a big neon sign flashing "TOILET! TOILET!" The train lurched to a stop, and they jumped up out of their seats to make their way out of the train, out of the station. Stairs up and up and up to a street in Brooklyn, just like any other street in Brooklyn. There were no flashing neon signs. "I really need to go," he said. There was a furniture shop, a bakery, and a small grocery. The grocery looked the most promising. They stepped in, "Do you have a restroom?"...

Every Sunday night, she makes a list. Two lists, actually. One: groceries. Two: menu. She didn't do that this week, and now she has a refrigerator full of food needing attention, and a freezer full of food uselessly frozen. Note: thaw sirloin. Make beef and mushroom soup. What's the plan, Stan? She has a double batch of applesauce out on the porch awaiting attention, because she forgot about it yesterday. It wasn't on her list of things to do. Note: can applesauce Why is it that she is so dependent upon her lists? Note: mail packages. Buy stamps. Pick up box at post office. Pick up letters with insufficient postage. Why can't she remember even the most rudimentary tasks? Laundry. Laundry. Laundry. Oh, and dishes, too. Are they not important? Why is it that she has to schedule in things like exercise? Emails to send? Volunteering? She was lucky that her brain came through yesterday because she forgot she was supposed to be in her son's classroom. Of course, the brai...

Since it is the beginning of the cold season, she decides that she will name her colds, just like the National Weather Service names tropical storms and hurricanes. It seems appropriate, does it not? Virus #1 should be named Adam--Adam being the first man and all--but she's partial to Abel. Virus Adam. Hm. Virus Abel. 'B' comes before 'D', so if we're going strictly alphabetical, we'll have to stick with Virus Abel. Next year she can start with Adam. She offered to name virus #2 after her sister, Beth. Her sister suggested that she name the virus Bertram. She said it had a much more nasally sound to it than Beth. Truly, though, she suspects that her sister never got over being named after the March sister who dies in Little Women. The problem with Bertram, of course, is that it's a boy name. Abel's a boy name, and the pattern is boy-girl-boy-girl, isn't it? So she needs a girl name. Bathsheba. That's a good one. Sneeze-sounding, if ever a n...