IT STARTS WITH THE TOILET PAPER  

Every day it’s the first gripe
as I swipe my waste away,
the audacity, the sinful corporate
practices of making our sheets
thinner, narrower, shorter
and the rolls fatter.  The shame!  

Then it’s the underwear that ruffles
my muff for the 2nd time of the morning.
What rude awakenings.  I consider commando,
but then wonder where the expensive
bladder control pads I need, would adhere.
So, I shrug, take a deep breath,
figure out which is front and back,
because I am so fat both seem almost the same,
pull them on and pray they do not rip or tear,
or worse, the elastic band unravels away,
dreading the consequences of another
pair disintegrating.   

The thought of going shopping sends
me into a mental spin, instead I head
out for an early morning walk and pray
I make it through the next 10 hours
without another assault to my common,
moral and ethical senses.   

Alas, I am not so lucky.  The new masseuse
massages me into a $140 trance that leaves
the leg she said won’t straighten, straight,
swollen and a knee in need of a brace,
ice, heat and NSAIDS for the next two weeks.  

The dryer repairman charges me $150
to look, yes look, at my equipment
and declare replacements are the only fix
as parts and labor will be more expensive.
He didn’t even turn them on.   

In a snit by ten AM, I reach into my drawers,
pull out the Pug Rescue T-shirt from 1989,
thank my mother for leaving behind clothes
of quality made to last, for me to inherit.