Geezer Report

I arrive in Florida for year four handicapped by a number of painful geezer conditions.

1

I have a cut on the bottom of my left foot. This is the kind of thing that causes diabetics to lose limbs (Ella Fitzgerald). We have nerve damage from bad circulation so we don’t feel the pain of cuts so we don’t do anything about them so we get gangrene so then our leg starts to rot off and then we’re all like, o shit.

My cut hurts like hell so I guess I’ll feel the gangrene, but in the meantime I cannot walk very well. I can bike okay.

2

Long, long, before the cut foot came the fractured shoulder. I fainted and fell, tripping over the litter box belonging to two feral kittens I was fostering, into the closet across the hall where my shoulder apparently slammed into a jug of kitty litter.

Three months later it is half-way to healed and continues to be a nice excuse for telling people to back off. There is no cast for an avulsion fracture of the greater tuberosity; doctors do not want you to wear a sling because then you might develop a frozen shoulder, which I take it is worse than a throbbing deep ass pain that is not very responsive to over-the-counter pain relievers because they all use a certain tone of terror when they mention frozen shoulder. Without a cast or sling it is an invisible injury. A while ago I bumped into Steph and Kev on Gottingen Street. They were all happy and laughy — it might have been their anniversary or just good eats at EDNA, I forget, but as soon as they stopped to chat and began to lean towards me, I bellowed, “don’t touch me!” like I was yelling at a deaf old dog heading for rabbit shit, and so then I had to scrinch my eyes up apologetically and point to my shoulder, croaking, “fracture.”

3

The day before I leave for Florida I cause the head of HR at the new local IKEA to almost cry. Seriously, almost cry. Maybe he does cry. His eyes are all misty and full. He sure as fuck cries as soon as he’s alone in the bathroom.

The last person to touch my shoulder is Joe, the wal-mart greeter at IKEA. This is last Saturday, about 12 hours before I leave for Tampa. I understand there may be questions about why I would go to IKEA on my way to the airport (twelve hours before my flight) but if we could just let that go for now?

Joe had touched my shoulder on a previous visit, and heard in no uncertain terms that he was not to do it again. So last Saturday, I am leaving the washroom downstairs, near the entrance, and Joe is standing in that small hall, talking to another man and they are in the fucking way, and I am going around them and Joe pivots, says, “sorry, dear” and reaches out towards my shoulder.

“DON’T TOUCH MY SHOULDER,” I bellow at Joe. “I TOLD YOU BEFORE.” Joe says sorry. “AND DON”T TOUCH WOMEN AT ALL!” Joe looks confused and his conversation partner wants to step in for Joe. So that guy makes excuses for Joe, how he doesn’t mean anything, it’s all innocent, and for some reason wants to tell me how he’s not an employee, just a friend. He tells me he gets it. I tell him that if he gets it he should try to explain it to Joe.

I walk away towards the exit, and get an ice cream cone. I decide fuck this, I am going to talk to somebody about Joe. I am going to find a manager. I walk to the exit, and then beyond, where’s there a pick-up point and returns. I look around and in front of me are two employees looking at a thick binder and a cash register. I walk up to them and wait. One looks up at me, and I ask how I can find a manager to talk to. He says that he is the duty manager, and I’m all happy to have found the guy so quickly. I tell him I’ll wait over there, by the couch.

I lean up against the couch with my ice cream, and as the minutes tick by and the cone is gone I become… energized. I wait as long as I can, and when I feel a spontaneous combustion coming on I boost myself up from the couch and re-approach, from down wind.

Same thing is going on: the guy, the other employee, the binder, the cash register. When he looks up at me this time there is hell-to-pay on my face, and a sadness on his, that I cannot stop to take into consideration. He is in his early thirties, tall, dark hair, glasses.

“Are you ignoring a customer to spend time helping a co-worker?”

“No, I’m helping a customer.”

“That’s a customer?” (JK points at employee)

“No, behind you, they are.” (points)

“Can you give me the name and number of someone to call on Monday to discuss an issue? (JK is handed post-it note) What’s this number?”

“IKEA administration.”

“What’s this extension?”

“That’s my extension.”

“But I don’t want to talk to you, Charlie.”

It is by this point Charlie (his name is also printed on the post-it note) (Charlie is not his real name) has tears in his eyes. He says something, I’m not sure what, but I reply, “Having a bad day, Charlie?” As I turn to leave, he says, trembling, “Having a good day.”

I walk out the door and go to Tampa, where it is Sunday morning, and sunny and warm. I put on shorts and go to Trader Joe’s to load up on essentials, and then to Publix to get the Sunday New York Times and 4% large curd cottage cheese. This is a fucked-up place but they do cottage cheese really well — many brands, many varieties within each brand.

On Monday I think of Charlie but I do not call him. On Tuesday I do. He picks up.

I tell him my name and explain I’m the bitch with the ice cream cone from Saturday. “Oh, I wouldn’t call you that,” he says, which I find charming, because I imagine the unsaid part is about calling me a C U Next Tuesday kind of a gal. I ask if he has a few minutes to talk and he says yes and I tell him about Joe and he says it is good to hear because he’s the HR guy and all employees are going through a two-hour orientation about what not to do and he will get Joe into one of the sessions pronto and by the way he also hates strangers touching him for no good reason. I tell him too bad I’m in Florida because I would love to come and role-play hellish customers. He laughs.

“Take care, Charlie” I say as we hang up. “You have a good time in Tampa,” Charlie says.

4

Plus I strained a ligament or something on the back of a knee. The same leg as the cut.