THE NEW BATTERY SHOULD COME TOMORROW
Got up this morning thinking about going to see my daughter.
Which led to thinking about the remote for the garage door opener
which had stopped working when I replaced the battery.
Which led to searching online for garage door repairmen. Which led to
wanting to check the remote again before I called a repairman.
Which led to getting dressed so I could go outside. Which led to
remembering to brush my teeth. Which led to discovering my Waterpik
wasn’t working. Which led to researching online to find out
what the problem could be. Which led to
scrabbling around to find the extra tips that came with the Waterpik
and figuring out which was which and how to replace the tip.
So with Waterpik repaired I went outside and tried again
to make the garage door opener work. Which led to
my discovering that the little red light in the remote wasn’t on.
Which led me to fiddle with the batteries again. Which led to
my discovering I had ordered the wrong battery for it. Which led to
a protracted Amazon session looking for the proper battery
and figuring out which were in stock and would come soon
and didn’t come only in a pack of fifty.
So now I’m exhausted and I’m not going anywhere.
—from Rattle #83, Spring 2024
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Ruth Bavetta: “I write at a messy desk overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Once, it was important to me to make sense of life. Now, I’m convinced that there is no sense-making. There is only what is and what has been. I am human, separate and mortal, and that’s where the poetry comes from. This poem is pretty much an accurate report of an actual morning a couple of years ago. This kind of thing happens with increasing frequency as we age. What can we do but laugh about it?” (web)
