No Time to Hate (Cigar Smoke 9-17-08)

I don’t quite know what it is, but I relate to insects and inanimate objects pretty well. I wish I had that skill with people. But I guess people don’t have enough legs or they move around too much for me. Give me a bug or something made out of metal any day. All in all, they’re pretty good companions. And, I think I have a better vocabulary than most of them.

I know I’ve written about spiders and ants and ladybugs and crickets and those balling-up sow bugs before, but this is kind of different. Let me ’splain what I mean. Every morning just before I get into the shower, it seems I have to rescue some creepy crawly or lowly creature. And, to be honest, as wonderfully humane as I am, these acts of kindness are kind of driving me a little nutso.

This morning was a perfect example. I strip down naked, look at myself in the mirror, wink like Errol Flynn, and start to get into the shower. But my eye catches this little moving object. It’s so small I don’t even think you could classify it as a bug. It was just some little creature trying to get out of the tub. The walls were too steep and too slippery, and he just kept falling back.

So I got a piece of toilet paper, and bent down and made this escape ramp. I put one end of the toilet paper right in front of the place where he should have had eyes, and I nudged his mini-butt onto the paper and guided him up the toilet paper of life.

He scurried his little ass off and disappeared into my bathroom rug. And dammit, I did feel a little better. But I don’t know why. Hey, let’s face it; this guy probably had a life expectancy of, maybe, 16 hours. They say flies only live for 24 hours, so I’m just extrapolating a little. I saved something that was going to buy the farm by the end of the day anyway.

I save five or six of these itty-bitty characters every week. I have never been thanked once. They don’t even know they’ve been saved. They truly are dumber than doornails, which, by the way, I have a relationship with, too. I often wonder what it feels like to be hammered into something. Just waiting there for the, well, for the hammer to drop, and then it does.

Sorry, I got distracted from my bug friends. Why do I save something that doesn’t know it’s being saved and will die within hours even if I do save it? I do not know the answer. Please, will some philosopher help me out? Come on, Aristotle, enlighten me. Plato, ask me a probing question. Immanuel, help me, I Kant figure it out.

And it’s not just bathtubs. The other death venue for spiders and their buddies is the sink. I go to wash my hands, and damned if there isn’t some spider trying to walk up the side of the sink. He can’t do it. He just keeps slipping. Tries again. Slips again. I thought spiders were supposed to spin webs and walk out, proud and loud. But no. They’re even dumber than the scurriers in my shower, who as we’ve learned, are dumber than doornails. (By the way, are doornails dumber than posts? I’d pay to see that fight.)

So, does spider dumbness stop me. No, Mr. Insect Rescue Man jumps right in to help them. Yes, I get another piece of toilet paper, and lead the spider to his freedom. I put him gently down on the floor, lean down even closer to him, and listen closely, hoping for a sign of recognition. Just some kind of salute of gratitude. I know they don’t speak English. Just thank me in Spiderese. Just grunt. Or spit. Would it kill you to weave a little web thank you?

Oh, I kid the insect world. But my relationship with inanimate objects is also starting to worry me a bit. I now talk to objects almost every day. Like, I am now using my iPhone all the time, and my poor little Palm Pilot is just sitting there on the counter in its little metal case and leather jacket. It literally is gathering dust. Some no-good family member wrote “Wash Me” on it the other day.

I’m putting everything on my iPhone now. I have a calendar and an address book and a bunch of other utilities and applications that I used to use my Palm for. All of them are now on the iPhone. Hell, I even have my Scrabble dictionaries on there. And I can just tell my loyal Palm TX is hurt. I can feel it every time I walk by. Maybe, it’s just me, but I think I hear this little metallic cough sometimes, and I look down, and the Palm Pilot is just a fraction of an inch from where I left it, and I think I see a little teardrop there, too. And I don’t know if I can say this without choking up, the teardrop is, well, it’s rusty. Oh, God!

It’s starting to get to me. Now, before I go to bed, I apologize to my Palm Pilot. I say stuff like, “You know, Palm Face, it’s not really you. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s me. I’ve changed.”

And Palm Face just lies there on the kitchen counter, and I feel this pain, this guilt, and then she says, “You don’t even charge me anymore.”

Oh, God, it just hurts so much. Maybe I’ll reconsider having relationships with people again. No, I can’t do that. I think I’ll just dump inanimate objects, and stick with spiders. They don’t hold a grudge. They die before they remember to hate you.