Bacon Scrapins are the little bits of meat left in the greasy fry pan. They’re tasty, but the ‘nutrition’ needs searching for. This tale is a bacon scrapin.
When you arrive at my stage of life one of the dilemmas is keeping track of the days of the week.
At a previous life stage, my weeks were regulated by 5 ‘going-out-to-work’ days and 2 ‘holidays-from-work’ days. Days vary for different folks, but ‘going-to-work’ days, until Covid first struck and we hadn’t yet developed some degree of herd immunity, usually meant going out of the house someplace. A shop, a factory, a warehouse, an office, a field, a barn, a driver’s seat – somewhere ‘else’ than home.
When you live in a place like my ‘nine-stop-signs-sized’ community, most of the neighbours are retired from ‘going-out-to-work’ and every day can become the same. The work is mostly ‘around-the-house’ work. Washing windows or the car, vacuuming, setting the table for dinner, changing bulbs, emptying the dishwasher, digging weeds, painting, cutting the lawn, shuffling the patio furniture around, digging more weeds, chasing ants back to where they should be, scrubbing the BBQ rack, ‘playing’ with the grandkids. All of it really important stuff when you’re at this life stage.
It’s easy to get into a pattern where all days seem the same, and that compels some folks into defining their days. They have a need to know which one is which. One way to do that, it seems, is to ask all the neighbours to abide by a traditional identifier day. Set one day aside as a ‘rest-from-noise’ day. To be specific, no noise from lawnmowers. Let’s call this ‘no lawnmowers day’, Sunday. Seems like a simple request on the surface? One day of silence.
One of my everyday work duties, if the season is right, requires me to sit in my zero-gravity chair in the backyard, in the shade of the huge pine tree. My ‘work’ consists of pondering and musing.
I lie back and ponder the ‘whys’ of life. Why do some people push when they could slide through gently? Of two entry doors, why is the door I first try to pull open, always the one that’s locked? Why do some people, who use the internet to express their concerns, use words of vehemence and escalating outrage? Why do mosquitoes prefer the back of my right ear? Why do all the small pine needles always land on my bald spot? You know, the existential concepts of life.
I lie back and sometimes muse about the ‘what ifs’ of life. What if drivers all got in line, waited our turn and merged together with the zipper technique? What if an email could not be sent if it contained false character assassinations, or used “alternative facts” to misdirect others’ thoughts? What if our mouths seized shut before we could deceive or tell a lie? You know, the stuff that would take the challenge out of life.
I’m sure that my zero-gravity chair-based ponderings and musings must be cause of much consternation to some neighbours because they can create a lot of noise. Ideas can create waves of internal emotions, stomp loudly around my cranium cavity, and reverberate behind my closed eyeballs.
This idea tinkles a memory, it’s ‘piano’, passively quiet in the head. That memory rings a bell, it’s ‘mezzo-piano’, moderately quiet. Those ideas spread out into tightly wound strings that are ‘mezzo-forte’, moderately loud. That cumulative string of concepts ‘bows’ to the imagination and whine and shriek and then amplify into harmonic tides.
Each idea drums up another, it becomes ‘forte’, louder. Each escalates in volume and beats a previous one into overpowered submission. Racing thoughts get to a point where they are so rhythmic in their sweep and flow that they become ‘fortissimo’, very loud and trumpet themselves toward chaotic conclusions. Once my head gets into the full flow of ponderings and musings it’s like an orchestra at ‘fortississimo’. Full volume with the conductor’s arms flailing, ideas flying everywhere.
The Sunday noise from my zero-gravity chair must be worse than the loudest lawn mower! Most disturbing to the neighbours?
An ominous shadow forced my eyes open. My wife, with hands on hips, peered down over me and said, “You were snoring to beat the band!”
NOTE: Except for the first person singular, any characters and names in the Bacon Scrapins tales are fictional.
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