05. same difference - Sick Sacraments

05. same difference

    Still staring, delving deeper into her apathy, Dee went through her 

daily ritual. No certain time to get up. She would leave her bed when 

she could not sleep anymore, make a cup of freeze-dried coffee, feed 

the cat, read the Fresno Bee, attempt to solve the Wee Jumble 

cryptogram puzzle, and contemplate doing her morning exercises while 

playing solitaire and waiting for the mail to arrive.

After the day’s climax, there was lunch, an excuse to drive the 

automobile somewhere, buy something needed for the household, pick up 

Martin’s suits from the cleaners or stop off at the nursery, the 

garden, the trash, the neighbors, then dinner. Local and national 

news at six, a glass of wine, prime-time television, evening snacks, 

another red wine, robe, late night snacks, late night talk show, late 

night in bed.

Dee sat and shat, wondering if the noise she was hearing meant that 

some intergalactic vibration was causing the cat to dart around the 

house.

She leaned forward, reached around with her right arm, and wiped 

her rosette from front to back. Grab, tear, wad, reach and wipe, a new 

wad of 4-ply toilet paper necessary for each swipe. Without bothering 

to glance at the final soiled wad of Charmon, she stood up, closed 

the toilet and flushed. Over the years her morning beauty ritual had 

increased in duration and complexity in converse relationship to the 

number of people who would care about the final result. Today she 

chose to shower.

Dee’s objective was to thoroughly purge herself of any and all 

bacteria, grit and scum that had collected on her body since her last 

cleansing. It was a leftover phobia from her farm days when dirt had 

been a constant menace.

She turned on the shower and got naked, singing a melody that she 

never quite managed to remember. When the water had reached just the 

right temperature, she entered the cabin. With the random flow from 

the designer 4-speed AquaBrush shower nozzle cascading down her body, 

she rocked back and forth humming the mangled tune. After 

considerable deliberation, she chose the Pretty Maid body emulsifier 

from the collection of bath gels, scrubs, conditioners, and rinses 

that lined the cabin’s rim.

Dee had inherited from her father the trait of sweating profusely 

from the scalp. So she was forced to wash her hair daily otherwise it 

would hang like a wet mop. Only a few drops of Dr. Bonner’s miraculous 

All-for-One Shampoo sufficed. After gently combing Lorial Pearl Drops 

conditioner through the ends, she did her weekly Booty Shoppe 

raspberry douche, despite the evidence against them. That overall 

feeling of freshness could only come from inside.

There was zero degree visibility in the bathroom when she exited the 

cabin. She patted herself dry with a fluffy oversized towel, sat on 

the vanity stool, slathered generous amounts of Mary Kate extra-rich 

moisturizing cream on her arms, legs and creped décolletage, and 

plugged the sweat glands under her arms with Lady Kate deodorant. Her 

body’s natural odors masked, she wiped the bathroom mirror free of 

fog with her towel and peered at her face.

A stretch of her face muscles indicated where B.Loader anti-wrinkle 

cream was required. Then came the sunblock, the foundation specially 

concocted for her skin type by the cosmetologists at Nestlé, and a 

dusting with anti-aging powder. Her facial palette changed according 

to the seasons. As it was spring, she painted her eyes with blue 

shadow, her lips in glossy red, and her cheeks for a rosy glow. Her 

professionally colored and straightened hair was bobbed for casual 

spring activities, allowing for a simple fluff-brushing. From the 

bottles of perfume crowded on a mirrored tray next to the bathroom 

sink, she selected her standard MeMe by Lovan.

Finished with her toilette, she stood staring into the mirror and was 

suddenly overcome with a more than usual feeling of unattractiveness. 

She picked up the can of Lysol Room Deodorizer kept next to the 

toilet for just such moments of self-loathing, and proceeded naked 

out of the bathroom, continuing to spray disinfectant to camouflage 

her insecurity.

On her way through the house, she discovered the vomited remains 

of Sisi’s last meal on her beautiful oriental area rug. Repulsed, she 

sprayed the vomit with Lysol, and went back to the bathroom for a wad 

of quilted-4-ply. While there, she applied an extra dab of MeMe under 

her nose to help mute the stench of what she would soon be cleaning. 

Dee had experience ridding her carpet of disgusting animal bile, and 

knew just what to do to bring it back to its pristine just-purchased 

state.

“I don’t care because I don’t have to”, she reminded herself as she 

knelt next to Sisi’s half-digested Kitty Chow Down and dabbed at it 

with the crumpled paper product. She chose to contemplate instead the 

activities that would fill her day. Coffee, cards, medication, mail, 

internet, Sally on TV and afterwards Let’s Make It Happen. It would 

then be three, at which time she would have to make decisions about 

which friends to visit, which mall to pop into, and what kind of 

dinner to throw together.

She discarded the vomit-soiled wad in the toilet, flushed, and went 

back to spraying her favorite household disinfectant. Going into the 

pantry, she opened a cupboard and surveyed the array of new, improved 

and fresh-smelling household chemicals displayed. They were all 

neatly lined up in alphabetical order: starting with the understated 

mushroom-shaped Airsick Solid Room Deodorizer and ending with the 

Zuff Heavy Duty Stain Remover. The latter was a powerful laundry 

detergent that Dee had found to also be effective in removing the bug 

stains from her concrete walkway. She had written to Mother Steward 

about her miraculous discovery and received a whopping $25 of on-line 

credit.

Armed with a can of Totally Loyal rug shampoo and the free 

sample of Let It Be Fresh rug powder she had received in the mail, 

she got down on her knees and applied generous amounts of the shampoo, 

which foamed over the stain. The directions said to wait ten minutes to 

allow the active chemical ingredients do their work. This would give 

Dee enough time to get dressed.

She left the cleaning products on the rug, and went into the walk-in 

closet in the master bedroom. She picked out a Victoria Crossheart 

bra from the pile of lingerie overflowing from the top drawer of her 

dresser. She strapped it on and adjusted, and slipped into the 

matching white panties found buried in another drawer. With ennui, 

she put on a pair of blue Bermuda culottes and a rosebud-patterned 

tunic.

Wearing pink rubber gloves and carrying a roll of paper towels and a 

plastic Tubberware bucket from under the kitchen sink, she returned 

to the stain for the third time. Nearly half the roll of paper towels 

was necessary to expunge the cat’s bile from the fibers. After 

sprinkling the wet mark with Let It Be Fresh, she rose, confident 

that she had caught the stain early enough for it to be completely 

eradicated.

With one last punch to the Lysol spray nozzle, she returned her 

cleaning supplies to their proper places, and emptied the bucket in 

the garage. She then pulled the vacuum cleaner out of the hall closet 

and rolled it into the middle of the living room and started 

vacuuming. The ever so slightly pulsating drone of the motor and the 

repetitive manual movements got her thinking about her carpet of many 

years, the one thing that she had never dared to replace.

In the days when marriage with small children had settled into a 

routine, Dee was one day seized by the notion that every house needed 

an oriental carpet. Soon after, a door-to-door salesman 

coincidentally happened by selling carpets made from Woolyon, the 

remarkably stain-resistant miracle fiber by Lepont. She remembered 

being amazed when the visiting carpet salesman had broken off a piece 

of the blueberry fruit pie snack he was eating and ground it into the 

carpet sample that he had brought along. He had then removed the blue 

stain from the sample with a paper towel. “The stain has been wicked 

away!” the salesman had exclaimed.

After numerous consultations, she picked a familiar oriental design 

from the hundreds of patterns available. She chose to have it made in 

avocado, beige and burnt orange after he complemented her on her 

outfit. It was the first time they kissed. It took six months to 

arrive from asia, and he regularly came by to update her on its 

progress. He came for the last time on the day the carpet was 

installed. They both recognized that it was just one of those things.

Martin was content with the carpet until he got the bill a few weeks 

later. The very next day, Martin hit a small child while driving to 

attend the state fair in sacramento. The child’s leg was multiply 

fractured. Martin remained in a coma for three days, waking up only 

sporadically to request the wand to return to the magic forest. Since 

then, Martin had not referred to the carpet and she had not mentioned 

its replacement. She turned off the vacuum cleaner and stood in the 

middle of the living room. Calmed by the surrounding avocado, she 

caressed the soles of her feet on the wool-like surface, and felt the 

carpet talking to her, telling her the stories of its life, how it  

had survived Bianca and Denver growing up and leaving home, and 

remained unstained.

Dee was proud of Bianca, a former sect member, deprogrammed and 

turned top-notch Mary Kate sales rep with a catering business on the 

side. Though divorced and childless, she had recently been awarded a 

pink Cadillac for her excellent sales figures.

Denver, her younger child, had disgraced the family by becoming a 

homosexual artist and communist. Poor, and with terrible sleeping 

habits, he loved to talk about his bowel movements and his use of 

illegal drugs, particularly during family outings.

Dee did not understand the importance of these issues, and had no 

qualms about showing her ignorance and disrespect for his alternative 

lifestyle. She could not understand how she could have raised a 

sidewalk poet and no-goodnik who freely admitted that he enjoyed 

sponging off of society.

Leaving the vacuum cleaner in the living room, she spontaneously 

decided to call her favored child. Dee used the telephone as an 

extension of her thoughts. Today, although she had nothing in 

particular to impart, except that she had just seen that her Glamette 

Body Lotion was running low, she nonetheless continued to chat 

nonsense with her daughter until she remembered the unfinished 

household chore. She pulled the receiver away from her face as if in 

a rush, saying she was in the middle of vacuuming, and ended the 

connection.

In the kitchen, Dee dumped two heaping teaspoons of freeze-dried 

gourmet coffee and some low-calorie sugar-substitute tablets into a 

mug, filled it with water from the cooler, and placed it in the 

microwave. Before returning the vacuum cleaner to its home, she 

glanced at the spot where the kitty vomit had been and confirmed its 

removal. The microwave peeped as she closed the hall closet door. 

Household chores were completed. Her coffee was ready. It was the 

perfect time to move onto her next activity.

Sitting at the breakfast nook, Dee shuffled the deck of cards and 

even gave an extra shuffle knowing it would make it harder to win. 

After lighting her first Virginia Svelte and taking a sip of coffee, 

she cut the deck, tapped it three times with her left index finger, 

and dealt a hand of klondike.

She gave a little yelp of surprise as one card after another was 

quickly played, and within minutes Dee had assembled the suits and 

won. This sudden victory, a rare occurrence, left Dee wondering for a 

long time what she should do next.