T to J: Do I have a drug problem?

I was so angry and annoyed and just ready to s-n-a-p snap, not for big reasons, just smallish. Like, because they laundered my curtains instead of dry-cleaning them. So my lovely floor-length curtains I hemmed so they’re be truly floor-length are now six inches off the ground – five inches in spots, it varies. Oh, and as I was hanging them up, before I realized what was so wrong, I was annoyed at how the Dry Clean Only tags always stick out so I cut each one off. Then Dave came in and we gradually realized that what was wrong was that they’d been laundered instead of dry cleaned. And they’d charged me forty bucks.

Fifty-six originally, but I’d gasped, spontaneously, when he said, “Fifty-six dollars.” I said, “Huh?” And he said, “How about forty?” and I said, “That sounds better, thanks,” feeling rather proud to be my mother’s daughter. But my mother wouldn’t have said, “huh,” when she thought the fabric looked kind of puckery. Me, I just thought “oh they must have pressed pleats into them” or something vague, not dealing with what was right in front of me. So when we realized the curtains were ruined and we’d have to take them back down and at least bring them back to the dry cleaners – not because they could undo the damage, but because we had to do something for gosh sake and we might as well try to get the forty bucks back -- I thought, this would never happen to Mom.

Then I remembered that I’d just cut out the Dry Clean Only tags. The tags were vital, because if she tried to go with the “You didn’t specify dry cleaning” defense I could avoid the blustery “Why would I bring them here to pay for having them thrown in the washer when I could do that at home?” which she’d reply to with “I don’t ask why people do things, I just expect them to specify” and simply point derisively to the tags, each of which says in two places “Dry Clean Only.” End of discussion. Except that I couldn’t. Because I’d cut them out.

So I sewed them back on with invisible thread and I didn’t do a very good job. But it was still hard, and then I ate some leftover Thai food while Dave made pumpkin bread, so I didn’t really feel like I ate but I wasn’t hungry, that weird timeless feeling that Dave says he has after every Thanksgiving, that longing for structure without really wanting it enough to achieve it, and hating your lazy self a little for that. And knowing I needed a shower and not wanting to get in there. Reluctant to step into the cold of the tub, just not knowing what I wanted to do, when suddenly I thought, “I’d like to get high.” For the first time in years, it seemed like the only reasonable next thing.

So I started hunting for the little embroidered change purse of Amy’s with the tiny one-hitter, that I’d taken for her once when she had to ride the ferry and didn’t want to get searched. I couldn’t find it anywhere. I thought of every little spot where someone like me might hide a little embroidered purse containing a miniscule amount of a controlled substance. My house-shaped wooden purse, my package of Kotex, my jewelry box, my old train case that I always take to Watervale to serve as the medicine cabinet. I became sure that I had left it somewhere or thrown it out, and this made me more annoyed. So I finally gave up, after checking Grandma’s toolbox, my sock drawer, my letters box, and my wizards can, and I got out the glass pipe Tracy made me long ago, and my Trader Joe’s Green Food jar, which contains some weed from a million years ago, and then I double-checked in the white cabinet, and under the sink, and even in the kitchen junk drawer, which is way too public but I was stumped.

So I came downstairs and smoked in the bathroom. I knew I was high when I asked Dave, “Didja ever notice how cold the shower is?” And he laughed and said I must be high because I’d said, “Didja ever notice.” And he nervously looked at the bathroom exhaust fan and said, “A state trooper is probably out there smelling that and going ‘Hm’” (because of them living across the hall to guard the governor). And I said he was probably out there going “Hm, how do I get some of that?” Then I sat on Dave’s lap and we talked about how disordered his Mac’s desktop was. And he said, “Look at this document that’s been on my desktop for years,” and as he opened it he said, “This is a list of…” and I thought he was going to say, “A list of everyone I’ve crossed off my list,” and started to laugh, but he said, “A list of concerts going back to—“ but then he realized the list was woefully incomplete and useless anyway, so he might as well delete it. Then I mispronounced widgets (hard g), which was good for some laughs.

Then I told him about my dream with the very nice doctor who’d said, “And now let’s talk about your drug problem,” and he said I should write it down. And I said, “Why, it doesn’t mean anything. Nothing happened. I told the doctor, I never tried heroine, and sure maybe very, very occasionally pot but that wasn’t a problem. And he said, “How about morphine?” And pointed to the morphine drip he’d put me on. And I said, “But I’ve never had that before, you put it on me.” And he said, “Yeah, but your body responds to it just like an addict’s.” And that was it. So what’s the meaning in that? And Dave said, “Well, tomorrow you should write it all down and say I told you to.”

But what for??

And why tomorrow?????