Journal of a Living Lady #149

 

Nancy White Kelly

 

Humor me while I humor you. The thing with cancer treatment is that you do a lot of waiting. Waiting for doctors, for tests, for prescriptions. I am not a good waitress. I like to read, but my eyes get blurry from the medications now. There is television, of course, but it isn’t entertaining anymore. Not that I watch much of it. I don’t, except for the morning and evening news and occasionally a documentary.

I did enjoy the current-event talk shows, but the narrators have gotten unbelievable rude. Didn’t their mothers teach them that it isn’t polite to interrupt?  Discussions that turn into marathon half-sentence shouting matches are non-productive. Someone in the programming department needs a token for the Clue Bus. Hire some debate coaches.

Those in the commercial planning division could use some help too. Come on. Spray paint for balding heads? Would anybody seriously use such stuff?

Surely there is a trial in the making unworthy of 24/7 reporting. News coverage is either too much or too little these days. Weeks ago the subject of Anthrax was everywhere. Now we hardly hear the word. Did the powder and its related stories just blow away?

I am clicking the remote control channel button now. Great. Just what I want to make for supper. Rutabaga escargot salad. Skip the gourmet food. Buddy grew up in rural Mississippi during the depression. He would be happy for TV’s Chef Great to teach me how to make fluffy biscuits that don’t look like vanilla wafers.

I’ll pass on the television Award shows. You would think such high-priced talent could improvise genuine, heart-warming acceptance speeches instead of,  “I want to thank my writer, my producer,” ad infinitum to the cab driver.

Neither do I care about, “Whose baby?” Some stories need to stay in the back alley and off the TV screen.

I do like survivor shows. Not the ones where diverse, half-dressed, strangely fed, obviously odd folks try to make a million bucks. I prefer inspiring stories about determined survivors of everyday life.

I’ll take good comedy when I can find it. Bob Hope, Milton Berle, Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett. Where did all the good comics go? Chris, Jim, and Roxanne don’t do one thing for my funny bone except annoy it.

Humor is the cushion that makes life more palatable. Thanks for humoring me while I wait on Buddy to bring the walker to escort me to the car so I can go the doctor and wait on her to read my x-ray films while she is waiting on the radiologist to call back while he is waiting for the next patient who is waiting in the waiting room. Who was it that said, “Good things come to those who wait.” I am waiting

nancyk@alltel.net        https://www.angelfire.com/bc/nancykelly