TheBanyanTree: Magic Formula DryUp

[tobie at shpilchas.net]

It’s Sunday and I heard that it’s Valentine’s Day, 14th February, 2021


Hello all you masked heroes,

	About Valentine’s Day:  All I can say is, "Well wooo hooo".  Never been a fan. I do not hate love, nor lovers, nor sentiment, nor even maudlin sentimentality when it’s called for (it sneaks up on you, doesn’t it!).  But designating one day a year to go all soft on the knee about getting your sweetheart flowers and candy, and one day a year going all misled in the head about expecting your sweetheart to give you flowers and candy (okay preferably chocolate, darker the better), doesn’t really say how much you love someone or how much someone loves you.

	It’s like the difference between:

	"I love you."

	and

Q:	"Do you love me?"

A:	"Yes."  (?)  (or worse: "I guess so.")

	But this is besides the point.  That was just the overture to what I really came here to tell you.  And what I wanted to tell you was about how Meyshe and I have designated chores for certain days of the week, so we can keep track of how this sameness of time is passing.  We’re trying to keep on schedule.  The schedule we designed for ourselves ordered us to change Meyshe’s bedsheets.  This hadn’t been done in quite a while. And with things like that, the longer you put it off, the more reason there is to put it off.  We weren’t looking forward to it. So we skirted it until yesterday.  I’d say that’s remarkable for righteous avoidance.  Today I look back on our monumental accomplishment. And I am happy to tell you what I wrote about the experience. This is straight from the pages of my journal, unexpurgated. It’s a sorry thing the way my brain works.  I mean when it works. Lissen here:


	The unenviable task Meyshe and I undertook yesterday took a bit longer than we thought. All we needed to do was make the bed — change his sheets. That shouldn’t be so hard, even if the sheets hadn’t been changed since …………….. oh dear.  It hadn’t occurred to me until I thought about it, then asked myself.  How long has it been since Meyshe’s bedsheets were changed? The last time they were changed, Susan must have changed them. And that means some time before Governor Newson ordered us all to shelter in place.  As I said yesterday, Meyshe doesn’t get into his bed. He sleeps on top of the covers, so it couldn’t be that bad. But that was not true. It was bad. The sheets were bad. They were worse than bad. They were stiff with habit or disuse or rigor mortis or what I feared most:
	spews of bodily fluids that just leapt ecstatically from their source to soak the sheets nearly a year ago. And would that have been a reason Meyshe stopped sleeping under the covers? Perhaps his ecstatic celebration had not dried yet?

	I recall the awkward wordless negotiations between myself and my lovers——who was going to sleep on the wet spot? Well, someone was going to. Either that or change the sheets, fetch a towel that will ball up under your thigh, cut a hole in the sheets, move to another city, purchase a set of those self drying fitted sheets. But there are problems with those sheets as we all know.  Yes, they successfully and efficiently dry the wet spot, wick it away into a second layer of the sheet that quickly biodegrades leaving no trace. Clever, patented formula that is also used in diapers, sports wear, table cloths — many uses. But the problem with the self drying sheets is not that they are faulty but that they are too enthusiastic. The wet spot disappears within seconds, but the material also sucks the moisture out of your naked flesh.

	WARNING! DO NOT FALL ASLEEP ON THESE SHEETS!

	The design flaw was discovered when a newlywed couple on their honeymoon in a luxurious hotel hide-away in beautiful Hawaii did not check out as scheduled. The DO NOT DISTURB (wink wink) sign was still hanging on the doorknob so they’d been left alone to swoon and spoon in the June lagoon. But when the staff got no answer from repeated vigorous knocking, the manager was summoned and when they broke into the room the couple was found mummified in the bedsheets.

	What?! A suicide pact? Had they taken their vows and then feasted on the dozens of tiny packets of desiccants thrown into pill bottles, bulk salt bins, cleaning powders? Autopsies disproved that theory. How had this happened? The place swarmed with police, investigators, pathologists, then the FBI. The grizzly incident was kept secret. At least they tried, but of course the news leaked out. Every news outlet from the National Enquirer to Buzz Feed to The New York Times sent reporters. Mostly they were interested in the visuals, and exciting the rumor mill. When the biochemists were called in and the culprit discovered, the official and very public denials were issued.

	Naturally, the families of the happy young couple sued the hotel. The hotel sued the manufacturer of Magic Formula DryUp, who sued the brilliant inventor who disappeared into his clothes hamper without a trace.  Parents who’d prided themselves in having thought they’d potty trained their babies at eight months realized how close they’d come to tragedy and switched to good old fashioned 100% cotton untreated diapers and felt grateful to be knee deep in shit. A famous sports shoe manufacturer who had spent millions on a new ad campaign touting their shoes that kept the whole Olympic marathon team’s feet so dry after 26 miles that they guaranteed eliminating that dirty gym sock smell forever, had to swallow billions of dollars worth of magic shoes with their "Just Don’t Do It" recall campaign.

	And I was going to tell you about how Meyshe and I conquered the changing of the bedsheets ordeal. All I have the time and energy for tonight is to whet your appetite for the story by telling you that to change the sheets on Meyshe’s bed, we had to get to his bed first. To do that we had to implement an assault on the overgrowth and undergrowth choosing a scorched earth approach. His room put up a valiant struggle, but we prevailed.


	And that’s what’s going on in our house.  How are you all doing?



Love,


Tobie


















"Pica: a bad cook’s dream guest" THS, 2021





Tobie Helene Shapiro
tobie at shpilchas.net