Cranky!
I’m pretty cranky these days, for no apparent reason. My normal jovial demeanor replaced with impatience.
“No, you get the milk.” I snap.
One thousand five hundred and thirty-four days. That’s the reason. Since late the night I walked the dog around the block staring Nate Cohen’s dial, whose famous needle had spent a final week dropping like oil pressure does in a failing gas combustion engine sputtering to a stop. Soon, like so many others, I’d be stuck on the side of the road with nothing but my thumb to get me home.
“Elbows off the table!” I cry to incredulous looks. “Because I said so.” Even the dog gives berth.
Tomorrow, we will cross a threshold that I’ve been patiently waiting for since the thing I didn’t think could possibly happen did. I also didn’t think Tom Brady had a chance of winning in Tampa Bay, that Bill Belichick held the keys to that castle. Look whose taking snaps and marching up and down the field now? Don’t give me your money to invest in the stock market. You’ll go broke.
Cranky’s not my normal state. Impatient, certainly. Determined. Willful. Sure. But not cranky.
“I got your voice-mail message” a friend told me the other day. “Man, you sound so serious. What’s it like living with you? Lucky I know you’re a warm friendly dude.”
“Ha! Imagine what the kids think,” I say, agreeing and laughing it off at the same time. No, really. Cranky!
“When was the last time the dog went out?” I shout. A rhetorical question, because the dog doesn’t get walked out of habit. The occasional liquid deposit reminding us so.
No one can promise me a thing, but I can still hope, that tomorrow the fog that’s been covering the entrance to the harbor will finally lift, and that we, the lobster boats, can once again come and go as they please without the constant risk of running aground. Sure, there’s plenty to still worry about, like inequality, rising debt, a raging virus. And when was the last time any of us felt like the conversation was about the existential threat to our very existence? But tomorrow… pinch me!
Until then, I may not even to turn my camera on for meetings. Cranky!
“Smile.” My mom would urge me. “Make an effort.”
Nah. Steve’s just fine lurking here on mute, thank you very much. Who says we have to be nice all the time?
We can’t control how we’re going to feel when we wake-up in the morning. All we can control is what time we go to bed, or what we eat, and if we exercise or not. We can control the books we read, the music we listen to, the films we watch. And yes, we can control the life we choose to live. But we can’t control how we’ll feel.
“Time for dinner!” I scream up the stairs, still cranky! “The fish is on the table.” Tomorrow can’t come soon enough. Nobody likes cold fish.
