Day 63
The famous 25-cent fight.
In my experience, people
put on a good front of politeness and civility.
Over time, this façade gradually dissolves into a person’s real
personality. When the real fireworks
between Rose and Jan began, it wasn’t merely seeing the flaws in their
relationship, but the speed and depth of their depravity that is truly
shocking.
I was sitting at the
kitchen table, directly between Jan and Rose, eating the turkey pot pie they
had prepared from the turkey they had roasted last night. Lured in by tasty
free food, I fail to notice the brewing storm between Jan and Rose until the
two were in full flight. The topic was the couple's online Ebay business, which
they've been operating to earn a little extra dough. Earlier that day, they'd
sold a board game for $8.50, including shipping. Rose's plan was to send the
game media mail for about $2, netting a tidy $6 profit. Nothing to get too
excited about, but still a little gain.
Jan, however, had reservations on this plan. He felt media mail was too dangerous, claiming that the package would be crushed beneath "pallets of books." Jan wanted to ship it priority, which he instantly calculated to be $8.25. Thus, the crux of the argument was whether they should (a) ship media, risk the box being crushed, and make $6, or (b) ship it priority and lose $6.
Many of you are bored merely by reading the description, for good reason: The stakes of this game are so low that I found it difficult to type them out without drowsing off. Had you or I run into either argument, the normal response is to say (a) whatever, it's only a board game, or (b) whatever, it's only $6. In other words, no one gives a shit enough to fight about this, much less two people.
Rose got us halfway there though. She wouldn't budge from the idea of pocketing her six smackers, and bemoaned how priority would basically be making them give the game away for free. I got the impression the argument had been going a long while before I got in. I wondered how long the battle had raged. Two hours? Three? What was the per hour earnings, even if media mail prevailed? What was the cost per histrionic?
Still, it takes two to tango. Under Rose's protests, it apparently fell to Jan to be the adult, or at least to knuckle under and be apathetic. But Jan is not a normal guy. He’s a man who takes energy output readings from the house’s solar panels four times a day for no apparent reason. Like the honey badger, Jan does whatever the fuck he wants. And he’s stubborn: The previous evening, Jan defended his belief that Alexander the Great was French, even after definitive proof to the contrary was located. He’s also resisted his wife’s naggings for him to get a job for well over a decade, he sure as shit wasn't going to abandon his position on shipping a box over something as trivial as a $6 profit or an all-out screaming match with his wife of 38-years in front of a near-total stranger.
Which brings us back to the present: me, shoveling turkey into my mouth as two rotund adults screamed it out. While I had initially thought Rose's bitchiness on the issue would prevail, it was Jan's steadfast remonstrations of the USPS that finally wore her down to the point of capitulation. I won't go through the argument blow-by-blow, but I will give you the climactic line. Rose, accepting defeat, takes a final dig at her hubby. In a voice I found highly reminiscent of the mother from the movie "The Goonies" she shrilly pronounced "We only made 25 CENTS!!!" This line... I can't do it justice with the written word.
Then Rose stormed off to eat the better part of an Entemann's danish and Jan got drunk on red wine. I had seconds of pot pie.
Jan, however, had reservations on this plan. He felt media mail was too dangerous, claiming that the package would be crushed beneath "pallets of books." Jan wanted to ship it priority, which he instantly calculated to be $8.25. Thus, the crux of the argument was whether they should (a) ship media, risk the box being crushed, and make $6, or (b) ship it priority and lose $6.
Many of you are bored merely by reading the description, for good reason: The stakes of this game are so low that I found it difficult to type them out without drowsing off. Had you or I run into either argument, the normal response is to say (a) whatever, it's only a board game, or (b) whatever, it's only $6. In other words, no one gives a shit enough to fight about this, much less two people.
Rose got us halfway there though. She wouldn't budge from the idea of pocketing her six smackers, and bemoaned how priority would basically be making them give the game away for free. I got the impression the argument had been going a long while before I got in. I wondered how long the battle had raged. Two hours? Three? What was the per hour earnings, even if media mail prevailed? What was the cost per histrionic?
Still, it takes two to tango. Under Rose's protests, it apparently fell to Jan to be the adult, or at least to knuckle under and be apathetic. But Jan is not a normal guy. He’s a man who takes energy output readings from the house’s solar panels four times a day for no apparent reason. Like the honey badger, Jan does whatever the fuck he wants. And he’s stubborn: The previous evening, Jan defended his belief that Alexander the Great was French, even after definitive proof to the contrary was located. He’s also resisted his wife’s naggings for him to get a job for well over a decade, he sure as shit wasn't going to abandon his position on shipping a box over something as trivial as a $6 profit or an all-out screaming match with his wife of 38-years in front of a near-total stranger.
Which brings us back to the present: me, shoveling turkey into my mouth as two rotund adults screamed it out. While I had initially thought Rose's bitchiness on the issue would prevail, it was Jan's steadfast remonstrations of the USPS that finally wore her down to the point of capitulation. I won't go through the argument blow-by-blow, but I will give you the climactic line. Rose, accepting defeat, takes a final dig at her hubby. In a voice I found highly reminiscent of the mother from the movie "The Goonies" she shrilly pronounced "We only made 25 CENTS!!!" This line... I can't do it justice with the written word.
Then Rose stormed off to eat the better part of an Entemann's danish and Jan got drunk on red wine. I had seconds of pot pie.
Day 67
Events at home have taken
the course of a medical drama. Both Jan
and Rose seem to be suffering from any number of health problems, ranging from
the spectacular to mundane. Rose has taken the lead in this, having been sick
on no less than four occasions in the four weeks I've lived with this family.
Seriously, I suspected she had lupus, and am still figuring out how to get some
biological samples with which to run diagnostics. The other, equally likely,
explanation is that carrying around 250 extra pounds is starting to take its
toll.
There's no nice way to say that Rose gets bitchy when she's sick. The best example of this occurred as she laid on the couch, not looking too good. I was worried she was going to up and die in front of me, when she weakly beckons Jan over. "Jan," she whispered, "I need to check my blood..." she trailed off weakly into something unintelligible.
"Your blood pressure?" asked Jan.
"NO!" Rose exploded. "My blood SUGAR! We already checked my blood pressure. Find my meter!"
Perhaps the most entertaining (for me, anyway) illness afflicting Rose happened last week, when Rose got an ear infection. "Swimmer's ear," she confided in me, "from my workouts."
There's no nice way to say that Rose gets bitchy when she's sick. The best example of this occurred as she laid on the couch, not looking too good. I was worried she was going to up and die in front of me, when she weakly beckons Jan over. "Jan," she whispered, "I need to check my blood..." she trailed off weakly into something unintelligible.
"Your blood pressure?" asked Jan.
"NO!" Rose exploded. "My blood SUGAR! We already checked my blood pressure. Find my meter!"
Perhaps the most entertaining (for me, anyway) illness afflicting Rose happened last week, when Rose got an ear infection. "Swimmer's ear," she confided in me, "from my workouts."
I suppose I haven’t mention
that Rose is a jock. She swims twice a
week, although she hasn't made it to the pool once or twice, on account of
being "too busy.” I should mention
she drives to the pool, which is at a YMCA located all of 300 yards from our
house. From this brutal regimen, Rose has developed a persistent ear infection
that is curtailing her training to be the next Dara Torres. "I can't get
ANY water in this ear," Rose announced darkly during dinner, "so no
swimming for me for a while." Oddly, she seemed less troubled about her
ailing eustacean canal than the lost opportunities to lord her exercise program
over me and the completely sedentary Jan.
Jan's health problems are more subtle, but no less significant. Shortly before I entered their lives, Jan had emergency surgery for an anal fistula, possibly the grossest medical condition in existence. An anal fistula, for those of you fortunate enough to never have encountered one, is a secondary passage that forms between the anal canal and the perianal skin. This means, in short, that you've grown a second asshole, one that copiously weeps pus and other delectables. If this is not mental rape enough, I should mention that it is occasionally possible for the afflicted individual to poo out of this second asshole.
When I moved in, I noticed Jan sat on a cushion. Knowing why now makes me queasy. Also, just what has to happen for you to require emergency surgery for that type of problem? I won't examine the scenarios, as I'm writing this before lunchtime, but they aren't particularly pleasant.
Apparently, the surgery has left Jan rather sensitive; he sneezes like a total pussy - rather than taking a good rip at things, we hear this delicate, high-pitched "aHHH-cHHOOOOooo!" come out of his room. When this happens, everyone looks nervous, as though he will somehow shit out his guts from the pressure of the sneeze. Each time this happens, I feel the overwhelming urge to say "Well I'm not stuffing 'em back in!"
Jan also suffers from diagnosed and (in my opinion) undiagnosed mental disorders. Lest you think me an ogre for spilling the beans on this, allow me to assure you that I am not speculating on many of these issues. Rose regularly briefs me on the medical dramas of the family, from the childhood maladies of her brood to the current stock of antidepressants Jan is on. Anyway, a fool could see it: Jan takes long naps every day, drinks at least a bottle of wine a night, and has a certain lack of emotional response enjoyed by mild psychotics everywhere.
Still, there's a certain indefinable mental wrasslin' match going on in this man's head that defies categorization. While the medical establishment can't put a discernable diagnosis on it, language exists to describe the condition. In the veterinary world, ADR (ain't doin' right) is notated on the chart. In human medicine, SAR (somethin' ain't right) is used.
Let's elaborate. Jan will tell stories that, clearly, no one is interested in. Rose will literally tell him to shut his goddamn mouth, to which Jan will press on, unperturbed in his description of how he made a flanged manifold keyboard for an out-of-business tech company in 1983. Perhaps you can understand why I thought he had early-onset Alzheimer's, especially when he ran out of stories and went into re-runs after the first several weeks of living there. Eventually, though, I realized the issues in Jan's dome go far beyond a simple debilitating disease of recall. I'll give you an example: last night, I asked him what his favorite food was, and (after a period of soul-searching) he told me he didn't have one. How fucked up is that?
Jan's health problems are more subtle, but no less significant. Shortly before I entered their lives, Jan had emergency surgery for an anal fistula, possibly the grossest medical condition in existence. An anal fistula, for those of you fortunate enough to never have encountered one, is a secondary passage that forms between the anal canal and the perianal skin. This means, in short, that you've grown a second asshole, one that copiously weeps pus and other delectables. If this is not mental rape enough, I should mention that it is occasionally possible for the afflicted individual to poo out of this second asshole.
When I moved in, I noticed Jan sat on a cushion. Knowing why now makes me queasy. Also, just what has to happen for you to require emergency surgery for that type of problem? I won't examine the scenarios, as I'm writing this before lunchtime, but they aren't particularly pleasant.
Apparently, the surgery has left Jan rather sensitive; he sneezes like a total pussy - rather than taking a good rip at things, we hear this delicate, high-pitched "aHHH-cHHOOOOooo!" come out of his room. When this happens, everyone looks nervous, as though he will somehow shit out his guts from the pressure of the sneeze. Each time this happens, I feel the overwhelming urge to say "Well I'm not stuffing 'em back in!"
Jan also suffers from diagnosed and (in my opinion) undiagnosed mental disorders. Lest you think me an ogre for spilling the beans on this, allow me to assure you that I am not speculating on many of these issues. Rose regularly briefs me on the medical dramas of the family, from the childhood maladies of her brood to the current stock of antidepressants Jan is on. Anyway, a fool could see it: Jan takes long naps every day, drinks at least a bottle of wine a night, and has a certain lack of emotional response enjoyed by mild psychotics everywhere.
Still, there's a certain indefinable mental wrasslin' match going on in this man's head that defies categorization. While the medical establishment can't put a discernable diagnosis on it, language exists to describe the condition. In the veterinary world, ADR (ain't doin' right) is notated on the chart. In human medicine, SAR (somethin' ain't right) is used.
Let's elaborate. Jan will tell stories that, clearly, no one is interested in. Rose will literally tell him to shut his goddamn mouth, to which Jan will press on, unperturbed in his description of how he made a flanged manifold keyboard for an out-of-business tech company in 1983. Perhaps you can understand why I thought he had early-onset Alzheimer's, especially when he ran out of stories and went into re-runs after the first several weeks of living there. Eventually, though, I realized the issues in Jan's dome go far beyond a simple debilitating disease of recall. I'll give you an example: last night, I asked him what his favorite food was, and (after a period of soul-searching) he told me he didn't have one. How fucked up is that?
Next Time: Jan breaks a
meat grinder.
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