THE RABBIT, THE DWARF, AND THE UNDERWEAR

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

I met Holly right after I had the most amazing lunch of salmon eggs Benedict. I just had to photograph it for you because it was so charming.

I had driven around Holly’s neighborhood a little bit before lunch, and it’s quite cute. It’s an area of older homes adjacent to a very pleasant shopping area. I could see myself getting a latte across the street and dropping off the dry cleaning and then zipping to work. I was excited to meet Holly and see what she was like.

Holly invited me into a living room that could have used Susana’s talents for a good week (see earlier post: the obsessive compulsive cleaner). There was clothing, toys, and various household items, just everywhere. I’m not sure where they sit.

In one corner was a cage with a giant white rabbit. Ricky. Ricky looked at me with his red eyes as if to say, really, are you sure about this? Because I’m not, I just have no choice, being a bunny and all.

Holly is on disability because her epilepsy medication makes her sleep constantly. Sometimes she works in a chiropractic office and sometimes she works at Von’s (a grocery store). But mostly, she has to sleep.

This explains why Holly is a tad behind in her and her son's laundry. She sorted boy’s underwear on the table where we talked. (OK while she talked. I was for some reason not in a sharing mood.)

Some of the conversation:

• You’re moving from Chicago? My neighbor is from Chicago. Maybe you guys know each other!
• My sister has three kids and she never does the dishes. It gets so bad at her house that she sometimes has to throw away her dishes and get new ones.
• My other sister has 2 disabled kids and whenever I stay there, I never get any sleep because they bang on the piano and they can’t be quiet when someone’s sleeping on the sofa.
• I was working real steady for awhile, but I had to stop for awhile because of an infected tattoo and then they wouldn’t let me come back.
• I got my son a mouse as a pet when he was 3 and a half and he kept that thing alive for two years. We’re not sure where the mouse actually went.

Honestly, it was like viewing a train wreck… you know you should move on but there’s just a morbid sense of wondering what’s next.

Then she took me upstairs to show me the room. Also no furniture, and there were cat carriers and litter boxes absolutely everywhere, in addition to the continuation of the mess from the living room. She told me they had 4 cats and 1 visiting cat. (What could this mean?)

I didn’t really have the stomach to look at the bathroom.

Then we went downstairs for more fun chit-chat. At this point, her friend had arrived. Gina (pronounced jy-na… yes, like hip-hop anatomy speak), is a dwarf. My mother tells me we should be referring to Gina as a “little person,” but medically and technically, she’s a dwarf. She was drinking Coke from a 2-liter container. And she is a bus driver. It all seemed so disproportionate. She sat at the table while Holly resumed sorting the underwear. The conversation continued:

• No drugs. I don’t want to see you shooting up in the hallway [this was necessary to say, I’m sure, because I had on my low-rise jeans and I look sort of menacing in them]
• The street parking is usually real good. As long as you make sure you lock your doors and don’t park too close to anyone, nothing ever happens.
• My son is really smart. Like, when he was 3, he was eating a McDonalds, and he looked sort of green and asked me if hamburgers were made out of hamsters. It really scared him. I told him, no! Silly. They’re made out of hamburger.

There was a story about Spaghetti-O’s and hand-washing, but really, it’s not fit even for the Internet.

I would have stayed to see what would happen next, but I was starting to feel itchy. Ricky looked at me like, please send an SOS to Rabbit Rescue for me…