Keepin' It Real For You, Folks

That's what Mr. Moon and I picked last night. I already had half a dozen cucumbers in the refrigerator.
And today would be a fine day to make pickles but I have no water.

Sigh. It's one of those days.

You move to the country so you can grow cucumbers and then your well breaks so you sign up for the community water and then you wake up and there's no water flowing from your taps and you check the place outside where the community water hooks up to your meter to see perfectly good water boiling into the street so you go down to the water office and there's no emergency number and you know darn well that the entire county has one man to go around and fix things and who knows when that guy'll get here after you leave a note on the door?

And besides that, Mr. Moon has already asked you how you could spend all the money in the bank account that he put in there on FRIDAY and all you can say is...Target.

And he gives you the speech about buying what you NEED versus buying what you WANT and so then you ask him what he needs and wants for supper and he says he probably doesn't need anything and he doesn't know what he wants and so you say, "I knew you'd say that," because you've been asking him the same question for 26 years and he's been giving the same answer.
And then he says, "Cucumbers," and you're tempted to give him a bowl of cucumbers for supper, unpeeled and undressed and say, "Here you are."
And then he says, "Clam spaghetti," and again, you knew he was going to say that too.
It's almost like you're psychic or something. Haha!

So. You can't do laundry, and the dirty overalls from Sunday are in the basket, mouldering like John Brown's body in the grave and you can't make pickles because pickles require a hell of a lot of water to process and you can't even boil pinto beans because you have no water to boil them in and let's not talk about flushing the toilet and you'd take a walk but it already looks like hell out there, the sky gray and ominous and by god you'll not be caught out in a forest in one of the thunder storms we've been having lately.
Certain death, for sure.

And you can't go to town because you'd just end up buying a lot of things you don't need but suddenly decide you want.

Perhaps you should just go back to bed which requires no water and no storm protection and no money whatsoever. Sleeping is about the cheapest thing you can do. Did you realize that? If you already own the bed and the sheets, it's free.

Grumble, grumble, grumble. As if I didn't need a bathing suit and some t-shirts and I damn well needed a new trash can because the whole bottom of the old one rusted off and stayed on the floor when I went to pick it up to sweep under it and okay, I did not need a new begonia, I admit that but it only cost $4.99 and it's one I've never seen before, much less owned, okay?


Sigh and sigh again.

But before he goes to work you both giggle a little because you've had this discussion so many times in your life together and you kiss and say I love you, and that's life, that's marriage, and you hand him his lunch and he goes out the door to go to work to earn the money for you to buy things you want as well as need and you, well, you get another cup of coffee and decide to write about it all because this, this is marriage, this is life, this is the way it is some days in Lloyd and probably in every house and hut (did you NEED a new pot to boil cassava in? really? my mother's pot, god rest her soul, wasn't good enough anymore?) in the world.

Keepin' it real, folks. That's my job.

Did you go read what my son wrote about the Stonewall Riots? If not, please do. You NEED to.

No running water required.