giving up getting on

I almost made it. All the way through. But I didn't. Last forkfull of breakfast beans nears my gob and one lonely little stray bean leaps off landing right on my shirt. Now, I'm a dropper, spiller, loser, I do all those things. But today I kinda wanted to travel home looking like a successful lecturer rather than an inmate from a home who forgot his bib whilst having breakfast. But that's not the life I live.

Joe, who used to fuss over my little accidents, now just looks up, shakes his head and moves on. He's given up trying to tame the little disasters and just rides with them. "Damn, I dropped a bean." I said to him while picking it up to send it on it's way. Then I brightly said, "Almost made it through breakfast this time." Joe was tired and said, "Well, now that you mention it, the beans trail kind of matches the jam trail on the other side."

"Oh."

Two days ago we were in Liverpool, we stopped at ASDA for tea and to pick up a few groceries. There was a guy there with cerebral palsy having lunch with his care provider. They had chicken and ribs and he got it all over himself. He didn't even notice. Jerky movements ... jerk sauce on your shirt ... it matches. He, like me, had given up. Some wear jewelery, others wear food. He doesn't care, and really, I don't much either.

The flight home was 8 hours of drearyness - of all the movies in the world, "My Super Ex Girlfriend" wasn't one that was on my list of must sees ... so I simply read, spilled water, dropped the newspaper, lost my glasses - found them again, discovered a hitherto unnoticed stray bean in the fold of my shirt - ate said bean, smudged my glasses and tried to find a clean area of my shirt to wipe them. I was just having a Dave Hingsburger day.

We landed. Got the luggage. Got the car. Got tense with each other ... Joe is a real handful some times ... then headed home.

Joe tried three times to tell me about listening to one of his favourite caroles on the airplane, he was so tired that his mouth couldn't get the words out ... "blick ... blick ... you know blick ..."

"Bleak midwinter?" I asked. He nodded and then we both started to laugh so hard that I spilled my green tea all over the armrest.

Here's to the neat ones ... and here's to the messy rest of us.