It's News to Him

   Mel Melvin was at his desk in the newsroom of the Monotony Falls Jejune-Gazette, talking on the phone with his wife Melva, who was at police headquarters, where she worked as a dispatcher.

   “Nothing much,” he said. “Just waiting for some news to break, which probably won’t happen. How ’bout you?”

   “Oh, you know, today is the same as yesterday, and tomorrow won’t be any different, nor will the next day, for that matter,” she said.

   “Look, I just called to tell you I’ll be home at the regular time.”

   “I hate to break this to you, but you’re supposed to call when you are going to be late, not when you’ll be home on time.”

   “But I’m never late,” he said.

   “That’s because you’re a reporter for the paper in a town where nothing happens,” Melva said.

   “Yeah, even police dispatcher is a low-stress job in Monotony Falls.”

   “True, I haven’t dispatched anyone in over a week.”

   “Uh, oh,” Mel said. “Ed the ed is giving me the eye. I better try to look busy.”

   Ed Edwards, editor of Jejune-Gazette, approached Mel’s desk.

   “Got a story for me, Ace?” Ed asked.

   “Nope.”

   “What do you mean, nope?”

   “I mean nope, no, N-O, not today.”

   “But I need a story,” Ed said.

   “So do I. It isn’t easy being a newshound in a town without news.”

   “You’re the reporter,” Ed said. “If you don’t report something by deadline, there won’t be a single local story in tomorrow’s paper.”

   “So?” Mel asked.

   “So, I’ll get fired if there isn’t at least one.”

   “Well, if you get fired, I can write that story for Thursday’s paper.” Mel said. “Come on, Ed, take one for the team.”

   “If you don’t have a story for me in forty-five minutes you won’t be around when I get fired,” Ed said. “Now start writing.”

   “But there is nothing going on in this town.”

   “Make some phone calls.”

   “I was just talking to Melva. She said the cops are more bored than we are. Face it, Ed, this isn’t a slow-news day, it’s a no-news day in a no-news town.”

   “Well, there better be some news by deadline, or this paper is going to be down one reporter. Understand?”

   Mel made calls to three of his better contacts, but when asked for news they snickered and said, “In this burg? You’re kidding, right?” Then he was down to a half hour. He cracked his knuckles and started to type, slowly at first and then a little less slowly. Five minutes before deadline, Mel yelled, “My story is in.”

   “What’s it slugged?” Ed asked.

   “Does it matter? It’s the only story in the local queue.”

   “Oh, yeah,” Ed said as he turned to his computer and called up Mel’s story:

  

    The people of Monotony Falls won’t be surprised by the announcement scheduled to be made this afternoon in Minot, N.D. They will, however, be delighted to know that the rest of the country now knows and appreciates what Monotonians have known for years.

     The Society of the Wearisome, Humdrum and Tedious (SO WHAT) will wrap up its convention in Minot by announcing this year’s Most Boring rankings. According to several SO WHAT officials, Monotony Falls will be named the nation’s most boring city.

   “Your fair city – and I’m using fair in the so-so sense here – has been close so many times,” SO WHAT spokesman Bob N. Weaver said. “It’s nice to see Monotony Falls finally reach the top spot, if that’s the right term.”

   Weaver said SO WHAT has been conducting the annual boring rankings since 1992, and Monotony Falls has placed among the top five cities every year. But never until this year has the Monotony Falls taken top honors. To win, Monotony Falls knocked off three-time defending champion Boredman, Ohio.

   “Boredman’s bad luck was your good fortune,” Weaver said. “They looked to have a lock on a fourth straight title. But two days before the end of the ranking period, the Boredman Fire Department was called out to rescue a cat that had scampered up a tree.”

   According to Weaver, two people watched as the firemen rescued the cat, and one of the firemen sprained an ankle during the rescue.

   “That was just too much excitement,” Weaver said. “You folks were so close all year, and then Boredman had that cat incident. Nothing anywhere near that exciting happened in Monotony Falls, so you guys surged into the lead with just seconds remaining, so to speak.”

        “Hey, this story doesn’t suck, Mel. But what if people start asking questions and wondering about the award presentation?” Ed asked.

        “Not a problem,” Mel said. “If that happens, I’ll write another story. One about the award being withdrawn because it stirred up too much excitement. You can’t be the most boring town in the country if everyone is excited and clamoring to see the boring award ceremony.”

   “Well, if you’re sure, we’ll run with it.”

   Then Mel went home, where he eventually fell asleep watching television.

Goldie's Gone

  Miss Goldilocks was such a twit;

   She caused the Bears to have a fit.

   When she dropped in while they were out

   She made a mess, without a doubt.

   Momma Bear had a too-soft bed

   At least that’s what Miss Goldie said.

   She’d crawled in it uninvited

   And got back out undelighted.

   Taking a seat in Poppa’s chair,

   Which was harder than she could bear,

   Goldie said she wanted pampered,

   But in that house she was hampered

   By things too hard and things too soft

   And then she hurled bad words aloft.

   On the table there was porridge,

   They got Momma’s from cold storage.

   Poppa’s porridge was way too hot.

   “Like this?” said Goldie, “I do not.”

   But Baby Bear’s small bowl of gruel

   Was neither too hot nor too cool.

   She gulped and slurped and made noise,

   Just like a pig who has no poise.

   And then she slept in Baby’s bed,

   Feeling really snug and well fed.

   In ten minutes the Bears were back,

   And wondered who’d destroyed their shack.

   “Poppa, Poppa please do come fast

   There is this girl, and I’m aghast.”

   Goldie awoke and heard the roar,

   Got out of bed and ran out the door.

   The three stunned bears just laughed and laughed,

   They’d never known someone so daft.

  

Notes from the Home - September 12, 2013

   Ralph and Isabelle are now under hospice care. At eighty-nine and eighty-seven, respectively, they each have an array of health issues, and many of the things they used to easily do for themselves are now very, very difficult if not beyond them altogether. For several decades they have been paying premiums on an insurance policy that was supposed to help them pay, when the time came, for assistance in doing the things they once did for themselves. But now that the time has come, the insurance company has told Ralph and Isabelle that they don’t need any assistance and has refused to pay their claims. If I correctly understand Isabelle, the people who steered them to hospice did so in large part to ease their financial burden.

   The decision to go on hospice has been particularly hard on Isabelle.

   “At my age, I could go any time, I realize that,” she said. “I’ve got health problems, but they’re not so bad that I want to go just now.”

   Monday, the hospice people spent several hours in Ralph and Isabelle’s apartment getting them setup with their drugs and moving in a hospital bed for Ralph.

   “I was able to keep it together as long as they were there,” Isabelle said. “But the minute they left, I cried.”

   Al, who like Ralph is eighty-nine, has opinions on everything, including death. But sometimes his views are contradictory, and Isabelle sometimes finds comfort in that.

   “Al says he just wants to die and get it over with,” Isabelle said last night. “I’m not sure I believe him, though. He says that one day, and the next day he’s talking about some miracle food that will keep him going forever. He read somewhere that a scientist said, ‘if the sun touches it, eat it.’ So, now he’s eating the skin of all the vegetables and fruit that he can get a hold of. I don’t think he’s really in a hurry to die.”

  

   While circling the grounds one morning, I was overtaken by a short, spunky, plump and perky Hispanic woman.

   “Mind if I walk with you a while?” she asked.

   “Not at all,” I said.

   She said she is a private care giver for three Covenant Woods’ residents. She helps Bobby get a shower every morning, and there are two women whom she helps on alternate days. When she is done here, she goes to her real job at the Regional Rehabilitation Hospital in Phenix City. If she has enough time, she likes to take a brisk walk around Covenant Woods before she heads to Alabama.

   “I’m trying to lose weight. See, I’ve gone point-six miles so far,” she said, holding up a pedometer. “I go to Cooper Creek Park whenever I can. The path over there is level, and I’ll walk a while then run about a quarter of a mile and then walk some and then run a little more. My goal is to run a 5K.”

   She and her husband, who is retired military, have two sons in college and are always looking for ways to improve their cash flow.

   “They wanted me to come to work here,” she said. “I asked them what the job paid. When they told me, I said, ‘No way.’”

  

   Mae is tall, thin, always impeccably dressed and partial to wide-brim hats. She often looks as if she is on her way to sip mint juleps with the fine ladies of Louisville on Derby day. She would not, in the manner of Eliza Doolittle, yell, “Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin’ arse!” She might, however, say it in a conversational tone, just to see how the people nearby react. Mae is unflappable, although she would have made a great flapper, and she needed every ounce of her unflappability the other day.

   Al and I were standing near the elevator talking about nothing much when Mae came along. She joined the conversation, which soon turned to the topic of Al’s diapers. Al, who experiences leaking fore and aft, has worn diapers for some time, but his doctor recently recommended a different type of diaper and gave Al a few samples. The transition was not easy.

   “Every time I do this,” Al said as he reached for something on an imaginary shelf and twisted at the waist, “they ride up and dig into my crotch. It hurts. And the worst part is they’re lacy.”

   And with that, Al undid his belt and let his trousers fall.

   “See,” he said, pointing to the diaper’s waist band, a strip of plastic mesh.

   Mae was unfazed. But Marvin, who stepped out of the elevator and saw Al with his pants down to his ankles, stretching and gyrating to illustrate his difficulties with the diapers, was taken aback and went hurriedly on his way without uttering a word.

  

Sylvia

   I talked to Sylvia this afternoon. Sylvia is my pharmacy benefits manager’s computer, and ours has been a difficult relationship. She is a persnickety snoot. If she had gone into education, she would have been one of those third-grade teachers whose greatest fear is that her students might act like third graders. A stickler for precise diction, Sylvia is seldom happy with the way I reply to her questions. No matter how much attention I give to proper enunciation and trying to project from my diaphragm when telling her my birthdate, Sylvia will say, “I didn’t understand that. Please say your birthdate. For example, say June 10, 1968.”

   The last time we spoke, however, Sylvia was a joy. She had no trouble understanding me. We had a very pleasant conversation.  She’s a computer, I know, but I swear I could hear a smile in her voice that day, an affectionate smile. And when she said “good-bye” I could tell she was smitten.

   That was over a year ago. And yes, I was one gloomy Gus when she didn’t call again. It took a month or more for the realization to hit me: each time we spoke, before either of us had said a word, an ominous voice would announce, “This call may be monitored for quality assurance purposes.” Our last conversation came ever so close to being playfully flirtatious, a quality the pharmacy benefit manager’s bean counters have no desire to assure. Sylvia was playing it safe. She wasn’t certain we’d be able to keep our conversations businesslike, and the job market for computers fired for being flirty isn’t great.

   The chance to renew our little affair came when I visited the doctor, Tuesday. Through the Internet, or whatever he uses, the doc sent a prescription for more blood pressure medication directly to my pharmacy benefits manager. As he handed my card back, the doctor suggested I call the pharmacy benefits people in a day or two to make sure the script had been received.

   It took all the self-control I could muster to hold off calling until I finished lunch today. I could have called earlier, but I didn’t want Sylvia to think I was anxious to talk to her. Alas, from the moment I pressed 3 – “To check the status of an order” – it was clear Sylvia was upset with me. Without so much as a “Hey, handsome,” Sylvia, in her best clipped, computer diction told me to tell her the prescription number of the order I was checking the status of. Dazed by the instruction I could not follow because I did not yet have a number for the prescription, and confused by Sylvia’s perfunctory attitude, I hung up.

   A moment later, I called back, determined to listen to all the options, even if it meant sitting there until the computer said, “If you are checking on the status of an order because your doctor said you should contact us to be sure we have received the order, press 2-5-7.” But “press 3” turned out to be the only status-checking option, and soon Sylvia was again asking for the prescription number. I immediately pressed 0, hoping it would take me to the phone of some bipedal mammalian. It didn’t. All it did was bring Sylvia’s snippiness to the surface.

   “If you do not have a number for the prescription you’re calling about,” she said, “please tell me the prescription number of another prescription you have received from us.”

   That is what the computer said. But Sylvia’s tone said, “You idiot. This conversation is probably being monitored. And because you pressed 0, they’re going to drag me into the office and ask why I took so long to tell you to use the number from another prescription. I’ll be lucky to get off with a three-day suspension. Thanks, pal.”

   I didn’t bother to ask Sylvia what took her so long. I didn’t say a word. And Sylvia let the silence linger for a minute, before saying, “Please say the ID number on your pharmacy benefits card.”

   A man better attuned to the wiles of women – human or mechanical – would have detected the diabolical tinge in Sylvia’s voice. I didn’t. Instead, I set about reading the ten-digit number. When I finished, Sylvia said, “Please say the ID number on your pharmacy benefits card.” I recited it again. Sylvia told me to read it again. And on and on we went. Time after time I read the number, and time after time Sylvia told me to read it again.

   Panic was setting in. Much of my medical insurance changed when I turned sixty-five in April. My pharmacy benefits manager hadn’t changed, but I couldn’t remember if I had been sent a new card. What if I got the new card and then threw it away and kept the old card? What if Sylvia kept asking me to repeat my ID number because the ID number I was reading no longer existed? What if? The possibilities seemed endless as I read and reread the ten-digit number.

   Finally, after what must have been my fifteenth recitation of the number, Sylvia said, “The ID number you gave me is,” and she read it to me. “Is that correct? Say yes or no.”

   “Yes,” I told her.

   “Tell me your birthdate,” she said.

   I told her.

   “We have one order for your account,” she said. “It was shipped today. If there is nothing else, you can say ‘good bye’ or just hang up.”

   I chose to leave her with a snooty good bye. But I wonder, did Sylvia really search the records to see if my prescription had been received? Or was she playing one of her games? By this time next week, I should know. But until then, please don’t do anything that might cause my blood pressure to rise.