Thankful for an Awl and All

HOW often do you thank Allah (blessed and exalted is He) for the most mundane things?  I even thank Him for toilet paper.  Raised as a hillbilly, I used corncobs till I was nearly grown.  I am also delighted to have indoor plumbing.  I think it’s nice to be able to go to the bathroom without having to cross the cornfield –especially in three feet of snow. 

Each day of mine is either hilarious or tragic.  Sometimes it’s hilariously tragic or tragically hilarious.  Today was no different. 

With three or four cats sleeping on top of me or crammed so tightly against me that I cannot even roll over, it’s always a struggle for me to get out of bed in the morning.  Once I wrestle my way out from under the covers, Munchkin latches onto my nightgown with her paws and her teeth.  She tries her best to keep me in bed so we can all snuggle.

I finally made it up the hall, and then all the cats were begging for fish food.  The animals here are a bit strange, I suppose.  The cats love the fish’s food.  The dog likes the cats’ food.  The raccoons and possums eat the dog’s food, and the squirrels eat the chickens’ food.  The chickens like macaroni and cheese, and the ducks’ favorite food is fried chicken.

I had to feed the cats before they would let me feed the fish.  The fish struggled to get some pieces sucked into his mouth.  He has been having a hard time eating since a few weeks ago after he got a flake of food stuck sideways in his throat.  That was the first time I ever saw a fish do the shimmy-shimmy shakes!

I grabbed a little grub myself as I loaded a box of tools to take to my sister’s house to do some repairs, including installing new floors for her.  I finally got everything together and put the box into the back seat of a car so small that the back seat is almost in the same place as the front seat.  I got into the car and pulled the seatbelt from above and behind me.  I felt resistance, so I just yanked on it till it was free.  I buckled it, and then the belt lay limp across my lap.  I picked it up and saw that it was ripped apart.  I looked behind me and saw my hacksaw sticking up out of the box.  It was grinning at me with pieces of seatbelt stuck in its teeth.  Some people would have been upset, but not me.  I was thankful.  I have a car –with a seatbelt.  I have a hacksaw.  And, most importantly, I have an awl and thread with which to repair the seatbelt.  I’m grateful for all those things.

By the time I neared my sister’s house, my breakfast of Slim-Fast and M & M’s was wearing thin.  I stopped at a greasy food joint for a bowl of watered-down chili.  Another customer began a conversation with me as she waited for her grease-burger.  She was complaining about the bitter wind and clouds. 

“I thought it was going to be a nice day,” she said.

“It is a nice day,” I insisted.  “We aren’t having a tsunami or a flood or an earthquake or a tornado.  With all the crazy weather around the world, I’m just thankful to wake up and find that my bed is still in my house and that my house is still not in the creek.”

I finally got to work on my sister’s floor.  My sister Toy reminded me, “When you get my age, you won’t feel like crawling around on the floor and up ladders and stuff like that.”  I’m already older than she was when she first started telling me that. 

I worked for several hours and then stretched my aching neck and shoulders.  “Ohhhh, puss and spit,” I softly moaned.

Toy was in her bedroom while I was in the kitchen.  Toy, who couldn’t hear an avalanche falling on a landmine, said, “Linda, you sound tired.”

I yelled back to her, “How can you hear me moaning when you can’t hear a word I say when I’m talking straight at you?”

She said, “What?”

I muttered, “Huh?  What did you say?  Is somebody talking?  What?  Are you saying something?”

Toy came out of her bedroom.  “Are you talking to me?”

I said, “No, I’m just making fun of you.”

She said, “What?”

I came to a stopping point and loaded everything back into the car.  I got home just in time to see the crazy raccoons fighting over the last piece of cherry pie somebody had left me.  I chased away the raccoons and then stared longingly at the miserable remains of what I could only imagine to have been a scrumptious pie.  I went into the house and stared out the window at what was left of the pie.  That was the first time in my life that somebody, besides Mama, had ever baked me a cherry pie, and I missed it!  Smoke was coming out of my ears.  Suddenly a raccoon ran out of the woods, snatched up the remnant of pie –pan and all— and dashed back into the woods.

I am still trying to be thankful about that cherry pie.  Right now, only the raccoons are thankful.  They’re grinning with pieces of cherries stuck in their teeth.  I suppose I should just be thankful that somebody loved me enough to bake me a cherry pie, but I wanted to have my pie and eat it too. 

Of course, I didn’t need a cherry pie; I just wanted it.  Prophet Muhammed (peace and blessings upon him) told a funny story about Job (peace upon him) and how he wanted all the little blessings he could get.  “When Prophet Job was taking a bath, golden locusts started falling on him.  Job collected them [to eat] and wrapped them in his clothes [that he had laid aside for his bath].  The Lord asked Job, ‘O Job, haven’t I given you enough stuff that you don’t need locusts?’  Job answered, “Yes, by Your power!  Still I cannot forego any of Your blessings’” (Bukhari, Book 5, Hadith 277).

By the way, my brother Ron promised to bake me another cherry pie.  I told him what had happened to the pie he had left me on the picnic table, and he said, “Well, raccoons gotta eat too.”  But, Ron, I feed them plenty of dog food!