Fate

Added to my regrettable poetry, this humble offering. My mother would have been 71 today, I sometimes find myself thinking on her birthday, that it isn’t fair she’s dead. I know, just look in a cemetery at all the young folks who croaked, but one can’t help how you feel sometimes.

Whoever said life’s not fair is right.

Trying to stay above water,

not give up the fight.

But the water is murky,

Try as we might,

some of us slip out of sight.

Left to our fate,

no one sees our plight.

Is That a Wal-Mart on the Way to Hell?

Kinda sorta maybe wondering if I’m going to die like my mother did. I got a cold in early October and only got  over it after two weeks. But did I get over it? I was hoarse and sometimes still coughed. Now I’m coughing a lot more and feel a little bad. Maybe I just have another cold. Or AIDS. Or lung cancer. Or pneumonia waiting to poison my blood.

Someone once said I’d die by 48 if I kept eating the way I do. I’d write it off, but he did predict my mother’s death. He knew she was dying. He said to me as I visited him, “Are you and your mother OK? Have either of you been to the doctor?” “My mother has a cold is all,” I said. I’m sure he sensed a death imminent. I caught my mother’s cold. My mother, however, was dead within a couple of weeks of sepsis from pneumonia. Coincidence maybe, but he had predicted things to me several times before. I’m only 35 now, heading fast for 36.

I did something bad the other day, and maybe karma is about to bitch slap me for it. I was at Wal-Mart with my friend one night and after dark is when things at Wal-Mart get all peopleofwalmart.com. As I looked for cans of Friskies and cat litter, a couple came up to me. They reeked of cigarette smoke, even the woman who appeared pregnant ( but hey, my mother smoked while I was in the oven and look how great I turned out!).

“Oh we hate to  ask you this, it’s soooo embarrassing but we’re stuck here and we’re out of gas. All we have is a Wal-Mart gift card for $100.00 that my mom gave us to come visit her, but the Wal-Mart gas station is closed. We’ll sell you our gift card for $60.00 and prove it’s got  a 100.00 balance on our phone,” said the distressed damsel. Then she reiterated how embarrassing it all was.

I knew they wanted drugs. I knew the Murphy gas station was wide open at 9 pm and were it not, the gift card might be usable there anyway at the pump. I also knew that the balance on the gift card really was $100.00 because they let me hear the balance on their phone. I looked through my purse, had $49.00 in cash and bought it for that amount. Maybe they really needed help. Or maybe I just  helped a mom  make her kid a crack baby. I’d probably still buy that gift card if they approached me again since I don’t really know, which makes me scared I’ve become a terrible human being deserving death.

Other than me possibly dying and ending up on a permanent vacation in a much hotter climate, I’m OK. How are you?