Day 24

Day 24, self quarantine: Today’s post should be titled Who is this alien sitting at my dining room table and what has he done with Gary?

You know, Gary, the rebel without a cause  who calls my iPhone “that fancy thinking box”?

So I snapped a pic in case I was hallucinating.

That’s Gary alright.  Hell has apparently  frozen over.

Somehow, his office, which has remained open during the apocalypse because they’re a life sustaining business, decided to entice Gary with an offer to come over to the dark side - which is, ironically, the white collar side of the plumbing business.

I’m laughing my ass off because the poor dude just wants to retire and instead they delivered him a shiny new laptop with his company’s entire customer history downloaded on its desktop.

Even funnier was, I had to be his IT guy.  You have no idea just how hilarious the idea of me being the Casa Slick techie is.

And I was doing fine, until I hit a wall trying to connect all his weird VPN or VNP or VAPING or whatever that stuff is called.

Quick call to Queen Techie Julie in Seattle.  Whoops, they’re three hours behind.  I stopped and texted instead.

“Are you awake?  Call me!”

As soon as I sent it, I realized I probably scared her to death. Who talks on a regular phone anymore?  And who wants a hysterical text from their senior citizen parent in the middle of a senior citizen parent eating plague?

Julie, however, is used to me. She merely texted back “One sec bathroom.”

Julie was indeed Queen Techie because she was able to help me overcome the biggest hurdle, which was what the hell was my internet password?

Once that was established, Gary got on the phone with his office and I swear to God, he managed to hook himself up remotely.  Even with absolutely no knowledge as to how to use the delete or backspace keys on a laptop.

“Rob, how do I get my name out of here?”

“Wut?”

“My name!  I typed it wrong.”

Oh god.  I tried so hard not to laugh, I really did.  Fail.  

“Is that funny to you, Poindexter?”

Ooh, ouch, he called me Poindexter.  I grabbed a handful of pretzels and went back upstairs to my own home office purgatory.

I came down an hour or two later to check up on him and he was sitting crosslegged on the floor, smoking.

“All good?”

“This sucks,” he said.

Haha, welcome to my world.

“You know you don’t have to do it, Gar...”

“I know.  It’s cool.  I’m finished for the day.  I get done at 3:00, remember?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s 1:00.”

He shrugged.  “Who’s going to know?”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I’ll tell him, don’t worry.

So this is very interesting to me.  Gary always complains he hates his job and we’ve discussed his upcoming retirement this summer so many times I was sure it was a given.  The apocalypse is affording him the unexpected opportunity of a fully paid early exit.

So why isn’t he taking it?

You know I had to ask.

“Because I live one day at a time,” he replied.

Oh.

“And a pandemic probably isn’t the best time to make a life decision,” he added.

That, too.

Holy hell.  I’m thinking maybe he’s a grownup after all.

(Cue my kids, who are likely stealth reading: 

“Okay, boomer 😂😂😂”)

Day 23

Day 23, self quarantine:  Day 23, really?

Yesterday was challenging.  I kept getting booted off the office remote system every five minutes while I was working on something important.  I am not going to go into it any further except to say I repeatedly banged my head on the desk until Gary, who must have had ESP, came upstairs for a visit with Jake the paralegal dog and an offer of warm almond biscuits and a fresh pot of coffee.

Warm biscuits make everything better.  At least in my world.

I’m pretty happy.

Others, it would seem, not so much.

I can’t help but notice that after almost a month of quarantine, you can gauge a lot of relationships by how anguished their Facebook posts are.  It’s pretty obvious that a lot of couples are spending their first real alone time together and there are surprises, not all good.

Hey, after a hundred years of marriage, we’ve gotten some surprises here, too...or should I say some new information...about each other as well.  It’s kind of cool, actually.

After our first week home, I learned my husband is a juvenile delinquent.  It turns out I can’t make calls to clients with Gary in the room. Don’t even ask. Somehow I didn’t break up laughing in the middle of asking Ms. H about her cervical fusion or advising an elderly brain injured gentleman to make sure he wore his helmet even while riding an indoor

stationary bike while Gary...Gary...never mind.  I didn’t realize he was still ten years old.

Oh, sure I did.  We both are.

And of course Gary is now asking me for medical advice every chance he gets  “since I didn’t realize  you’re a doctor.”

But yeah, he does give me weird looks while I’m working. He’s used to a very different person at home, Robbie, his wacky partner in music, food, and crime.  He’s never really met the adult me, which I think is most excellent since I’m not really crazy about her, either, and only trot her out at work.

Anyway, another thing that’s insane is after all this time together, there’s still secrets and stories we haven’t told each other.

Or, um, inadvertently discovered or blabbed during a wasted late night confessional.

Damn, we’re talking a lot these days.

When I came downstairs to have my biscuits, Gary was listening to the radio and watching television with the sound off.  Some old guy wearing a fancy sweatsuit, was standing next to a race car and being interviewed.

“What the hell are you watching?” I asked.

“You don’t recognize him?  That’s my buddy, Mario.”

“Mario Andretti?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, he’s your buddy now?”

“Hey, I did have breakfast with him.”

Wut?

“Sure you did, dude.”

“I did!   He gave me that special screwdriver I have on my keychain!”

Wut?

“Seriously, Gary?  Mario Andretti gave you a special screwdriver?”  I was laughing so hard I was almost peeing myself.  Gary got all indignant.

“Why would I make that up?”

He had a point.  But still.

“How do I not know this?  Let me see it!”

“My keys are on the table.  Go look if you don’t believe me, Dr. Rob.”

Damn, there it was.

“So you had breakfast with Mario Andretti?  How did that happen? And how am I just hearing about it now?”

Oh my lord, I had to ask.

He then commenced to tell me an Alice’s Restaurant type epic tale spanning six years, beginning with Gary as a wide-eyed little boy who idolized his racist, bigoted, staunch Republican father, and their yearly epic, drunken 15 hour marathon drives to the Indianapolis 500, beginning in 1963, just months before Kennedy’s assassination, to their final trip in 1969 just months before Woodstock, when militant liberal hippie Gary brought along an ounce of pot tucked in his overnight bag, walked 25 feet behind his dad at all times, stayed stoned 24/7, and dreamed of running away from home to live on a commune.

Of course I had heard abridged variations of that story before - I was around back then, too, but I was a self absorbed young teenager person  and up until yesterday, Gary never talked about it in such historical detail and how did I miss the screwdriver on his keychain for 50 years?

It turns out meeting Mário Andretti was the least interesting part of Gary’s story.  At least to me, anyway.

(The breakfast was really a banquet a couple days before the race, similar to what we now call meet and greets, and the screwdriver was a promotional gift to all paying attendees.)

I was writing the novel the whole time Gary was talking.  There’s some real meaty, beefy bouncy stuff there 😎

Who knew?

Not me, apparently.

These are interesting times, huh.