piece of shit!
I laid my forehead on the steering wheel, cursing this damn car. It had been nothing but a pain in my ass since I got her. My dumb ass didn’t call Lee either. I was such an idiot. Jo refused to pick up the phone. Great! I guess I was going to need to bite the bullet and go inside.
I grabbed my bag from my passenger seat and cranked open the door slightly. With one swift kick of my purple Converse, I freed myself from my captive. Somehow Jo had talked me into jeans, University of Kentucky sweatshirt and Chuck Taylor’s. Usually this would be my Sunday afternoon grocery store outfit, but what the hell.
Time to Carpe the fuck out of this Diem.
Walking into the church, I was immediately bombarded by the scent of residual candles. Vanilla, a scent I loathed. Turning to a giant bulletin board, a handwritten poster read “ALS Support Group, Sunday School Room 8.”
Awesome. Nothing like shedding mortal tears in the house of children disciples.
The door to the room was conveniently open as everyone corralled around a table of light refreshments, stale cookies and canisters of hot coffee. Anxiety started to take over my mind and body as the entire room froze once I entered.
Diverting my eyes, I did a one-eighty; taking a seat in the back of the room. Slowly everyone began to take his or her seats. The room was filled with people in all stages of the disease including family, friends and caregivers. I hadn’t realized I could bring a mini support group for my support. Had I remembered, I would have brought JoJo in a heartbeat.
Some communication!
As much as I would love a few stale cookies to settle my angry stomach, I really wished there were some hot cocoa. I may just need to bring my own next time. That’s horrible !
I hadn’t heard anything regarding the topic for the evening so I settled into my uncomfortable folding chair at the back of the room, begging to be invisible. To be perfectly honest, I wanted nothing more than to listen and observe. The “Hi, my name is” bullshit was not my bag, and especially not concerning ALS.
I sat in my seat allowing my eyes to vaguely roam when they landed on a giant projector screen at the front of the room. Reflecting off the screen was a countdown clock till the beginning of the meeting. Never before had a clock seemed so morbid and yet comical. Our lives lived by the second hand while this was a clear reflection of the magnitude of our own mortality.
Shaking my head, I gave a silent chuckle.
The chuckles were a revelation that life fucking sucked sometimes. As much as I hated to sit there in my painfully uncomfortable chair and laugh, I couldn’t suppress the hilarity of the situation. One by one people began to look at me as if I was bat-shit crazy, and conceivably I was at this point.
Squeezing the bridge of my nose, I tucked my head to suppress the tears. I hadn’t been this wrapped up in laughter since the third grade when Ms. Pritchard kicked me out of class because I couldn’t conduct myself as a proper young lady. I couldn’t tell you what the butt of the joke was at the time, however the laughter came from the gut and wouldn’t subside. The type of laughter that reminded me of a can of worms; as much as I tried to hold it back, it was inevitable I would double over and pop.
As I laughed myself to tears, the speaker of the support group tried desperately to get my attention.
“Excuse me, ma’am. What’s so funny?” he asked as I refused to look up from my stupor.
“I just think it’s hilarious how you have a room packed with ALS cases and you have a countdown clock; as if time isn’t always on our minds twenty –four –seven already. I’m sure everyone in this room is astutely aware of when a simple meeting begins, the clock is just a morbid reminder that the clock is always ticking away.”
Quietly at first, you could hear the room begin to chuckle as the humor started to set in. Something told me, this happened very few and far
I laid my forehead on the steering wheel, cursing this damn car. It had been nothing but a pain in my ass since I got her. My dumb ass didn’t call Lee either. I was such an idiot. Jo refused to pick up the phone. Great! I guess I was going to need to bite the bullet and go inside.
I grabbed my bag from my passenger seat and cranked open the door slightly. With one swift kick of my purple Converse, I freed myself from my captive. Somehow Jo had talked me into jeans, University of Kentucky sweatshirt and Chuck Taylor’s. Usually this would be my Sunday afternoon grocery store outfit, but what the hell.
Time to Carpe the fuck out of this Diem.
Walking into the church, I was immediately bombarded by the scent of residual candles. Vanilla, a scent I loathed. Turning to a giant bulletin board, a handwritten poster read “ALS Support Group, Sunday School Room 8.”
Awesome. Nothing like shedding mortal tears in the house of children disciples.
The door to the room was conveniently open as everyone corralled around a table of light refreshments, stale cookies and canisters of hot coffee. Anxiety started to take over my mind and body as the entire room froze once I entered.
Diverting my eyes, I did a one-eighty; taking a seat in the back of the room. Slowly everyone began to take his or her seats. The room was filled with people in all stages of the disease including family, friends and caregivers. I hadn’t realized I could bring a mini support group for my support. Had I remembered, I would have brought JoJo in a heartbeat.
Some communication!
As much as I would love a few stale cookies to settle my angry stomach, I really wished there were some hot cocoa. I may just need to bring my own next time. That’s horrible !
I hadn’t heard anything regarding the topic for the evening so I settled into my uncomfortable folding chair at the back of the room, begging to be invisible. To be perfectly honest, I wanted nothing more than to listen and observe. The “Hi, my name is” bullshit was not my bag, and especially not concerning ALS.
I sat in my seat allowing my eyes to vaguely roam when they landed on a giant projector screen at the front of the room. Reflecting off the screen was a countdown clock till the beginning of the meeting. Never before had a clock seemed so morbid and yet comical. Our lives lived by the second hand while this was a clear reflection of the magnitude of our own mortality.
Shaking my head, I gave a silent chuckle.
The chuckles were a revelation that life fucking sucked sometimes. As much as I hated to sit there in my painfully uncomfortable chair and laugh, I couldn’t suppress the hilarity of the situation. One by one people began to look at me as if I was bat-shit crazy, and conceivably I was at this point.
Squeezing the bridge of my nose, I tucked my head to suppress the tears. I hadn’t been this wrapped up in laughter since the third grade when Ms. Pritchard kicked me out of class because I couldn’t conduct myself as a proper young lady. I couldn’t tell you what the butt of the joke was at the time, however the laughter came from the gut and wouldn’t subside. The type of laughter that reminded me of a can of worms; as much as I tried to hold it back, it was inevitable I would double over and pop.
As I laughed myself to tears, the speaker of the support group tried desperately to get my attention.
“Excuse me, ma’am. What’s so funny?” he asked as I refused to look up from my stupor.
“I just think it’s hilarious how you have a room packed with ALS cases and you have a countdown clock; as if time isn’t always on our minds twenty –four –seven already. I’m sure everyone in this room is astutely aware of when a simple meeting begins, the clock is just a morbid reminder that the clock is always ticking away.”
Quietly at first, you could hear the room begin to chuckle as the humor started to set in. Something told me, this happened very few and far
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