Postaday for January 30th: Burnt. Remember this prompt, when your home was on fire and you got to save five items? That means you left a lot of stuff behind. What are the things you wish you could have taken, but had to leave behind?
Oh for fuck’s sake.
You want to know the truth? None of that stuff I recovered was all that necessary. Most of my computer stuff is saved in the cloud. Those books I grabbed aren’t all that good anyway. My engraved watch is nice, but I hardly ever wear it anymore, and the marathon it commemorates wasn’t that fast. The bottle of rum is so easily replaceable as to make me laugh, and I totally made up the part about my wife’s potato salad. It’s my mom’s recipe, and she’ll make it any time I want.
And as for that wedding album— I just needed a punch line. We have all the pictures on the computer, and like I said, that stuff’s all backed up in the cloud.
Don’t get me wrong, it was real fun running back into that fire. Nevermind the fact that if I hadn’t woken up when I did, I’d have died in it. Or that my wife seemed to be perfectly okay— she, apparently, made it out with plenty of time to spare, while I was left to snore away in the heat and smoke on our living room couch.
I’m being sarcastic, by the way. It wasn’t fun at all.
Nor was it fun dealing with the insurance people. Act of God, my ass. We finally got a check, for my half of what everything was worth. My wife keeps saying its my fault, that I didn’t demonstrate enough regret at all the things I left behind, all the things I didn’t save.
Well, sue me for not having an emotional attachment to crap. It’s all replaceable. Okay, maybe I like the way my ‘500 Mile Award’ Nike shirt felt after years of wash and wearing. I can buy a new one, but it’ll be new-shirt stiff, you know what I mean. But how am I supposed to use THAT to get a better settlement out of the insurance company?
What, I’m supposed to feel bad about the TV and the bed and the refrigerator full of fat-free Greek yogurt? Sorry, but not sorry.
The day before I that damned fire, I’d gone for a nice long run. Never synched my GPS watch, though. Now I’ll never know what my average speed on that run was. So, there. That’s the one thing I regret. Not.