Neither my wife Sally
nor I had slept well. This was not uncommon as many, if not most, senior
citizens suffer from insomnia. Sally took a prescription sleep aid and I took
something called Valerian root. They didnt work all the time. In this
case, one reason was that we were expecting a phone call; again, like many
senior citizens, test results from our health provider. Sally had gone for a
mammogram a month ago, usually a routine procedure, but this time theyd
seen some suspicious spots so had done a biopsy. Biopsy results were
usually available in a week or less. But Sallys were so unclear that we
were still waiting.
After wed started
our day with the usual pill-taking, we had our breakfasts, cereal with lots of
fruit, which wed been told were good for us, and I took the daily
newspaper puzzle and my coffee to my spot on our patio, enclosed. Sally and I
lived in a retirement community just outside Sacramento, the capital of
California. Outside, it was a gloomy March day, typical of the weather in the
Sacramento Valley at that time. I was engrossed in the puzzle when the phone
rung. No, it wasnt about the test results. It was one of those nuisance
calls, annoying enough at any time but even more so when expecting, or hoping
to get, an important call.
After finishing my
coffee, and the puzzle, I got dressed and went to my computer. I wrote two
columns, Favorite Restaurants and Observations for the
monthly paper that went to everyone in our community. I was working on
Favorite Restaurants when suddenly the screen changed and showed a
message that my computer had spyware or malware or something like that in it
and I should call Windows at a certain number or disaster would ensue. I
suspected that this was another one of those many scams involving computers
where the scammers were on a fisching expedition to get your
personal information. I tried Xng out the screen but it remained
stubbornly there. I certainly wasnt going to call the number given;
instead, I called a friend who was knowledgeable about computers. I got his
voice mail and left a message. Well, I couldnt go any further with my
column so I did some reading until lunch, still hoping wed get that call
about Sallys biopsy results.
After lunch, Sally and
I discussed the situation and agreed that if we heard nothing today wed
call first thing in the morning. Around two, the phone rang. It wasnt our
health provider; it was my computer knowledgeable friend. I explained my
situation and he told me to try hitting control/alt/delete. I did and the
threatening message disappeared. I was able to finish my Favorute
Restaurants column. I now had to think of some things to write for my
Observations column. One thing was that computer scam. It was scary
that some scammer could take over your computer just like that. Then there were
the scam phone calls, like the IRS supposedly calling and telling you to send
money or go to jail or somebody saying he was your grandson telling you he was
in jail and to send money right away. It was as if you were under siege with
crooks coming at you from all sides. Maybe I could do an entire column on this.
Id include porch thieves and mailbox break-ins.
It was around three so
I turned on the TV news. This did nothing to brighten up a gloomy day. On the
international front, the President and the nutty dictator of North Korea were
trading insults and the pundits were all but predicting that World War III was
on the way. Domestically, the Democrats, or the Resistance, as they styled
themselves, were still opposing everything the Republicans did and hoping that
they could impeach Trump. The Republicans were so inept they probably
couldnt pass anything even without the Dems solid opposition and
the Democrats were bankrupt of ideas. And Trump was still tweeting away. The
politicians were fond of saying that the American people wanted to know this or
deserved to know that. I wondered if most Americans were like myself, sick and
tired of the whole Washington circus.
As often happened, I
dozed off during the news broadcasts and was awakened by the phone ringing. I
heard Sally talking and went into the living room. When I looked at her she
nodded and I went to my desk and picked up the phone there. It was the nurse,
or medical technician, wed spoken to before about the biopsy. Did they
have the results, finally? No, it turned out she was calling to let us know
that the biopsy had been sent to the lab at Stanford University. She assured us
the likelihood was that the spots were either benign or a low grade of cancer
and so we shouldnt worry. I asked if she knew when the Stanford lab would
have any results. She said it would take about a week and shed call as
soon as she had any information. She assured us that the spots were
either benign of, if not, a low grade of cancer and that we shouldnt
worry too much. Needless to say, that didnt stop us from worrying. So
that was that. Well, at least we wouldnt have to call the next
day.
I think
itll turn out to be okay, I said.
Id just
like to know, said Sally. Oh, dont forget. This
is garbage day.
As it happened, I had
forgotten. Already? I said. I thought Id just done
it.
Its been a
week.
Huh! Did
Hemingway have to take out the garbage?
You may be a
writer but youre not Hemingway.
I had nothing to say to
that. Taking out the garbage was a weekly routine which, when I was
younger, say, in my sixties and seventies, I did without much thought. Now,
like other things such as getting dressed and putting on my shoes, it had
become an irksome chore. I first took out the kitchen garbage, then our two
wastepaper baskets, then I took a break while I gathered up the weeks
accumulation of papers, put them in a paper basket, then dumped these into the
large trash can. then a basket of the newspapers and magazines that had
accumulated. All of this went into a large trash can, which I then wheeled down
to the curb. After all this, I had to sit down and rest. While I rested, I
thought, no matter if we were waiting for test results, no matter if my
computer was being attacked, no matter if we were on the verge of a nuclear
war, no matter what else was going on, you had to take out the garbage. Maybe
even Hemingway had had to do it. There was a moral in there somewhere, probably
some deep truth about life. Id think about that when I was
less tired.