And so it's come to this. So desperate am I for things to write about, I'm back to last June in my ideas queue.
My mentally ill sister was staying here, yapping my ear off. She's missing whatever gene allows a speaker to notice that the listener is standing on the roof, contemplating whether the two-story fall would kill him or just maim him and make him even more of a captive audience.
Watching TV, talking on the phone, pretending I'd fallen asleep—none of these tactics worked. I came to think of her as The Claw. Desperate, I finally I pretended I had food poisoning and could not leave the bathroom. I was prepared to stay in there for days. I thought this plan bulletproof, but it didn't so much as slow the munitions. She stood outside the door and loudly yammered away about all the familial and governmental conspiracies allied against her. I silently vowed to join them.
I reminded her that I was really sick and could use some privacy, which bought me no more than five minutes before she thought of something so dire that it trumped even diarrhea. I resorted to moaning and plopping wet wads of toilet paper into the toilet. No effect.
$1000 and everlasting gratitude to anyone who can prove I was adopted.