Living with Winnie the Pooh
Of course, I didn’t think it would be easy living with Garrick
What choice did I have?
When his aunt threw me out of the downstairs apartment for not paying rent for six months, I had to scramble.
I don’t blame the woman. She was a nice lady for putting up with my excuses month after month, when she knew I didn’t have a job and didn’t have any way to pay her.
It’s Garrick I’m complaining about.
He acts as if he did me a huge favor taking me in the way he did, as if I didn’t have other options. Hell, I did spend three days at my parents’ house and only left when my father insisted I get a job.
And I could still go back if I wanted to.
Garrick, of course, put me up in the attic like an unwelcome guest and yells up at me every time he passes the door for me to get off my duff.
I’m telling you. He’s as bad as my father – maybe worse. I would go back to my father if I could get some privacy there. But with five sisters – well, you know.
But you have to understand Garrick’s habits would drive anybody crazy.
I see less of him than I saw of my father, but signs of his passing are all over the apartment, haunting me even when he’s working one of his three – sometimes more – jobs.
Sometimes I think he deliberately booby traps the place against me, leaving his tools around for me to trip over. I nearly killed myself the other day when a hammer fell out of the refrigerator when I opened it to get a beer.
I haven’t a clue as to why he needed a hammer in the refrigerator and frankly I’m afraid to ask.
Lately, he’s decided to get into health food.
By health food, he means mostly honey. He uses it on everything. And everything I touch is coated with the stuff. So my hands and feet are constantly sticky, and I keep waiting for a swarm of bees to invade to get their treasure back.
The bran and oats have made his bathroom habits unbearable.
Before the health food craze, he spent hours on the toilet, making the kind of sounds I might expect to hear from a delivery room.
I thought at least his new diet would leave more time for me to use the facilities. Not so. While he groans less, he flushes more, and I need to make an appointment to take a pee.
I’ve tried to talk to him about it. But that’s a mine field. After all I don’t pay rent, and his aunt knows I’m here and would put me out again in a minute if he didn’t vouch for me.
How do you tell him he’s a slob gracefully?
Not that he hears much of what I say and is not someone who picks up easily on subtle hints.
Which is why I’m asking to come over to your place for lunch and a shower. I just want to spend the afternoon in a place that isn’t sticky.