Dear Kay,

The social worker and public health nurse were here this week for my semi-annual reassessment required to maintain services. That is always a joyful experience. The social worker is slower than molasses in January and the public health nurse is new. I don't know if she is new to the job but she is new to me. She doesn't take things as seriously as the previous one, which in my case, is a good thing but she did obsess about the fleas and her recommended treatment.

She suggested I get shots for the cats which last a life time????? at $30.00 a head. That comes to $240.00 even though I told her the cats are strictly indoor cats and I have ordered the flea treatment and gotten the spray for the house. I felt like she wasn't hearing me when I told her how impoverished I am. (My EBT went up $3.00 per month. I now get $56.00 a month for groceries)

Most of my focus was on Chore Man and his lack of responsibility. It just happened that I had asked him to go to the store just an hour before the service providers got here at 1:40 PM and hadn't returned by the time they left at 4:00 PM. The social worker tried to get Chore Man off the hook by saying, "Something must have happened". I told him this was typical Chore Man behavior.

Well, back to the service providers. We did our usual back and forth dance, they making suggestions and me rejecting them. One such suggestions was to get on a more stable sleep schedule. My response to that was, "And that is going to benefit me how?" These people come with their own agenda but they forget to read my diagnosis. I HAVE SLEEP APNEA you jerks! I never get down into delta sleep which is the restorative level of sleep. And what difference does it make when I sleep. Do I have a job? Do I have any time commitments? I fail to see the point! Any way, that was my entertainment on Monday.

Thursday brought more free entertainment. I heard this CLANG, CLANG, outside the house, then shudder, shudder in the basement, just as I was going to sleep. So I threw off the covers and flat footed it to the kitchen from whence the nose came, mumbling explicatives as I walked, looked outside and saw only a backhoe digging up the alley. Fine. They can sell the alley to Japan if they want. It is a lousy alley anyway. In the spring there are ruts big enough to misplace an infant elephant. More CLANG, GLANG, shudder, shudder.

So I climbed down the three steps to the landing, opened the back door and stepped out on the cement stoop in my jammers and bare feet in 34 degree temperatures to see a left leg and a left arm at the corner of the house.

"Hey, what are you doing?", I asked the leg and the arm. "I'm working on the gas meter", replied the leg and the arm. "Yes" I said, "but what are you doing?" A head joined the leg and the arm from around the corner of the house and said, "I'm replacing parts". The head vanished around the corner of the house again. "Oh," I replied. "I didn't know it was broken." "It's not", said the leg and the arm, "Then what are you doing" I asked again. "I'm working on the gas meter," replied the leg and the arm.

At this point I was freezing. I turned, closed the door, climbed the three steps back up from the landing to the kitchen vowing never to ask a service provider a direct question again, flat footed my way back to bed, pulled up the covers, promising myself to call the gas company to find out how much replacing parts on my gas meter that weren't broken is going to increase my gas bill this year.

Well, gotta go. Time for a nap, which is what we retired peopel do.

Your friend,