Three days now I've been hemming, equivocating, obfuscating - well, hell- just flat out lying.
"No, of course not. Not HT. No way."
(recall HT is what she calls HD)
And I'm back in the box, being sweated by Pembleton and Bayliss. The questions come fast, they are demanding, they circle back on themselves:
"Is it HT?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"It's just not."
"What is?"
"Well. You can't self diagnose it. The only real diagnosis would be to get tested."
"So there is no way to tell if you have HT?"
"Right. Without testing."
"My mother couldn't walk a straight line. That's how they tested her. If I can't walk a straight line, does that mean I have HT?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because there are many other reasons you might not walk a straight line. Not paying attention, you know. Whatever. Lots of people don't walk straight all the time. I don't walk straight all the time."
"But you don't fall either. Your knees don't buckle."
"My knees buckle all the time. I'm old. It happens."
"It never happened to me."
"Well, you're older too."
"So having your knee buckle isn't a sign of HT?"
"Of course not."
"You're saying there are no signs of HT?"
"Right. Not without, you know, testing. Everybody stumbles some times. Not everybody has HT."
"So what would be a sign of HT?"
"I.... nothing. There are no signs of HT. It can't be self-diagnosed."
On and on and on. Three days straight. And while I'm being grilled like a murderer, I have a flash of sickening insight: I could stop this. I could end all of this confusion and chaos. Just a few words from me and it would all be over.
And MW would be absolutely destroyed. Irredeemably, irreparably destroyed.
One person should not have that power over another. Certainly not I.
***
Here's one for the drunks - a little slapstick the alcys will appreciated.
Set up: I drink a lot, but on the sly. Also, because of MW's - call them peculiarities - about cleanliness, I'm only allowed to drink out of one cup - a tall, grey plastic tumbler. At night it is usually full with some gutter booze concoction of my own creation, but during the day it will be water (the only thing MW allows in the house to drink). What happens is, when I come home from work, I guzzle whatever water is left in the cup to make room for the booze that I'm going to sneak from the upstairs closet.
Yesterday I came home, found my cup nearly full of water, gulped it down with two, maybe three breathless swallows and run upstairs for the good stuff.
Then MW hollered for me to come down. A bunch of chores to do before I can even change: wash dishes, put dog out, get food ready, talk some more about why a knee would just buckle like that.... By the time I make it back to the closet, I notice my cup is near full of (I think) water. Two fast gulps and -
Ho Shit! I'd actually already poured vodka in there before getting called away.
Damn near blew the top of my head off.
It was a fun night.
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