Will you be ready at the end of the world?

So I'm a writer. I'm sitting in the office with the door shut writing. I'm 'working'.
I have gotten mom up and dressed and feed. I have given my grandson his seizure medication and breakfast. I have reminded John for the third time to take his heart pills.
Okay, now I can do the thing. Mom strolls in on her walker. She says, "The dog pooped under my bed."

I don't have a dog. The girls have dogs, but they aren't available to clean the shit our of moms room. I remove the poop, gagging, running outside to the can on the curb, gagging, and gagging. I close the lid and lean down with my hands on my knees trying to regain my dignity. I walk back in the house and mom is waiting there to greet me and says, "I'm cold." I turn up her heat.
So, I'm writing. I'm focused. My grandsweet walks in. Poop, running all the way down his legs.

Has your child ever pooped to such a level it would be easier just to get another child? It would be easier to just move? My second run in with poop this morning. I take him in the backyard and hose him down. It's not abuse, we live in Phoenix. It's 75 degrees. Then I put him in a bath. Crisis handled.


I'm back in the office. The door bell rings. I feel completely irritated and walk to the door. I open it and a virginal twenty something is standing there smiling like he just got released from the fucking loony bin. Jesus. It's the Mormon boys. He smiles and says, "Good morning! We were in your neighborhood..." I stop him and say, "Nice of you but not today." He asks if he can leave some literature. I say yes, because that's what I have time for. He hands me the thing and I shut the door. The front reads, "Will you be ready at the end of the world?" I'm thinking, 'Ready for the end of the world? I can't even find my socks.'


I walk back to the office. The phone rings. I answer and the lady says, "I am so and so and I am calling about a debt. Is Dina Kucera in?" I say, "She is... deceased." Complete silence at the other end. I say, "Can you take her off your call list." I hang up.
Mom is ringing her bell. I walk into her room and she says, "I'm hot." I turn her heat down.
It's lunch time so I feed everybody Froot Loops. I go back in the office and I am still in my pajamas. I sit, staring at the little line on the page blink on and off. I have some Hershey kisses for desert. The thing is still blinking and I'm starting to feel like it's mocking me.


I stare aimlessly out the window and I see the dog, shitting on the grass. Now, my third shit experience today. I wonder why dogs don't care about the fact that they are straight out taking a shit right in front of you. They don't care who's watching. They just crouch down, and, there you go. They shit. Number two for those of you who don't have the strength for the word shit. Numbero, dos.
I walk in the kitchen to get a Coke because the kisses made me thirsty and I see John's pill box, where his pills are still in place. I take them out and physically hand them to him and watch him swallow them. By the time I get back to the office, mom is standing there again, "I'm cold." I think in my head, 'You are fucking killing me'. I turn up her heat.
The Froot Loops didn't quite get us to dinner, so I go to the drive through at MacDonald's. I say my order and I say, and a Coke.

He repeats my order and says, "And a diet Coke." I say, "No, a regular coke. Not diet." The guy actually says, "Whatever. Diet, regular." I get up to the window and say, "This is regular Coke?" He says, "Yeah. Or diet. I'm not sure." I taste it, it's diet. I say I want a regular Coke and he says, "So... you want me to... exchange this one, for..." I say, "Call your manager." He says, "I am the shift leader." A half an hour later I drove off with a regular Coke. Whatever.
I get home and I am really planning on making some headway on my writing. Mom has had an accident and I won't go into detail because I won't humiliate my mom even though she'll never read this. But, my day has a theme. I took her in the backyard... okay no I didn't, but that would be funny. I get her back to her chair and she says, "I'm hot." I pretend to turn down the heat but I don't. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me four times, shame on me.
It's night and everyone has gone to bed and I know everyone in the house has had a bowl movement. It's been a successful day in terms of the colon. I write and write like these people aren't in the next room. I'm alone, still in the same pajamas, my music is playing, it's a beautiful thing.
I go to bed and look up at the ceiling and think, "I wonder if I will be ready for the end of the world?" I think I will. I mean, when is it? And what do I have to bring? What do you do to 'get ready'.


I guess as long as I shower each morning that will at least give me a head start when they sound the bullhorn. Which leads me to another question. Are they going to sound a bullhorn?