“Yer too loud!”

“You mean to tell me you printed that tiny credit-receipt, maybe three square inches, on that gigantic 8&1/2-by-11 inch sheet of printer paper?”
“Timber!” I shouted; “another tree falls in the forest.”
I was at Urology Associates of Rochester, followup for my prostate removal last August.
I had a $15 copay, and they couldn’t do cash.
So I used my credit-card.
When I was finally discharged from the nursing-home, where I’d done physical-therapy for my recent knee-replacement, I suggested they were throwing me out, tired of my snide remarks, wisecracks and sick jokes.
“He’s a character,” they told whoever was picking me up.
My brother and I were in a pizza-restaurant in Altoona (PA) after a day of chasing trains.
I was looking at their menu.
“Pineapple pizza?” I shouted. “I wouldn’t touch that with a 10-foot pole!”
“Shhhh-shhhh,” my brother said. “Ya got the whole place lookin’ at us.”
I was at my outpatient physical-therapy in Canandaigua.
I made a snide remark.
Fear-and-loathing throughout the physical-therapy.
“Don’t worry. I know you,” said my incredibly cute physical-therapist, who was working with someone else.
She greeted me in the lobby a couple days later. “Here I am,” I said; “totally devoid of social graces.”
It seems I’ve become more vocal since my wife died.
I used to pretty much keep to myself.
Maybe it’s my age, that I’ve attained geezerdom at age-72.
I can say whatever I want. People just give me strange looks or are horrified.
I don’t hafta care any more. I’m retired; no longer enslaved to “the man.”
So I get worse and worse. Snide remarks and wisecracks; pointing out madness where I observe it.
In May my college will hold a 50-year reunion for my class. I graduated in 1966.
My bereavement-counselor suggested I attend, that I need socialization.
My college is Houghton College (“HO-tin;” as in “hoe,” not “how” or “who”), an evangelical religious school about 75 miles south of Rochester (NY).
My father, a Bible-beating Baptist, wanted me to attend a Christian college, supposedly to “straighten me out” — it didn’t.
As an unbeliever I never fit in, and some classmates were judgmental.
I used to get this from adults in my parents’ church, and even my parents. I was disgusting and of-the-Devil.
So I attend this reunion. I’m afraid I’ll make potshots and snide remarks.
I’ll get classmates all bent outta shape.
I’ll note I’m missing three things since my last reunion: -a) my left knee, which was replaced, -b) my prostate gland, which was found to be cancerous, so was removed, and -c) my wife of 44+ years, who also graduated in our class.
“You’ll see her again some day,” some classmate is sure to say.
50 years ago I would have held back.
Diplomacy and tact.
But now I’ll just blurt it out. “Thanks for caring, but I never believed that stuff, and my wife didn’t either.”
Classmates will gasp.
Diplomacy and tact are for wusses.
“And according to you guys, my wife is roasting in Hell, where I’ll meet her, if at all.”
I been on this planet 72 years, and my beloved wife is gone.
If you can’t handle what I say, that’s your problem.

• RE: “after a day of chasing trains........” —My brother and I are railfans, and we photograph trains in Altoona PA.
• My wife died of cancer April 17th, 2012. I miss her immensely. She was the best friend I ever had; and after my childhood I sure needed one.