Spoiled Morning

This will probably be a short post.  The adrenaline is still pumping, so I'm not concentrating so well.  Blood pressure is up.  Not what I want.  

The construction across the street continues.  I was just getting ready to write this when I heard s truck revving it's engine over and over.  I looked out the window and saw a big white pickup backing a trailer into the new driveway across the street, only it kept going over the curb and into my yard to do it.  I opened the door a walked out.  He kept doing it, so I yelled, "Hey," hands out as if asking a question.  The driver didn't respond and came over the curb again, so I said, "What are you doing?" 

"I'm trying to back. . . "

"You're driving into my yard."

Just then, the contractor appeared, the guy I know from the gym.  We get along fine.  He tried to play intermediary.  

"I've got sprinkler heads all along there," I said.  

"If we damaged anything," he said, "we'll fix them."  

"It's ok, but I've had a guy back a trailer into my palm tree."

The guy in the truck seemed amused.  He got out.  He was a big guy, 6'4", maybe 260, early to mid thirties.  He started talking to me in a passive aggressive tone with a shit looking grin on his face.  

"It's going to be fine," he said.  

That tweaked me. 

"Don't talk to me in a therapist voice," I said.  

He got hot. 

"I'm not the guy you want to fuck with," he said.  

Yea, I already knew that, but I was in balls deep by now.  

"You're a bad guy, eh?"

He stepped up to my curb aggressively.  I was standing on my front stoop.  The distance was short.  But fuck it.  I didn't stand a chance, but. . . 

"You want to do this?" I said standing what I hoped was confidently.  

"I'm right here," he said, hands at his side.  

"And I'm right here," I said.  I didn't move, just stared.  

The builder was jabbering nervously now and the big guy got back into his truck.  I was pissed.  I wanted to pound him, but I can't now.  I'm a fucking cripple. I don't look like one, but I am.  None of the structures on the left side of my body are good, ribs, shoulder, scapula, lung.  I do believe he could have killed me.  

But I didn't shake or quake or shit my pants.  I was just angry and somehow wanted to fuck that shithead up.  

It's a violent world now.  Every moron with an 80 IQ wants to be a badass.  That's what they got.  That and Trump. 

It was the "I'm not the guy you want to fuck with" statement that pissed me off.  Before I got run over to death, I would have pushed his buttons a lot more.  But there is nothing I can do now.  

Most days, I wish I'd died in that accident.  Not hyperbole.  I lost a lot that day.  

Now, here is what I was about to write before the thing.  Yesterday, I bought my mother a new blood pressure machine.  Her old one wasn't working anymore.  We were sitting in her garage, so I unboxed it and put it together and put the cuff on my arm to see if it worked.  It didn't.  I read the instructions again and tried once more.  Nope.  I read them again, took the connector of the cuff into the machine out and put it back in.  This time, it worked.  I read my BP--170/95.  WTF?!?!?  I took it again.  Much the same.  I was freaking.  I put it on my mother and took her pressure.  It was good.  

Holy shit.  I'm on two BP meds right now.  My BP is never where they want it, but this. . . . if I went for my upcoming physical with this, my doc would have me at the cardiologist and they'd run every kind of test.  

"Take your blood pressure when you go to the grocery store," my mother said.  I was headed there to get things for dinner.  My head was spinning.  Fuck.  I'd need to quit drinking.  But what else?  Like life wasn't already tedious enough.  

I did my shopping--carrots, celery, onion, potato, garbanzo beans, crushed tomatoes, and some spicy cooked pork from the deli.  I was making a garbanzo bean soup.  

That done, with great dread, I sat down at the blood pressure machine.  I could feel my blood pressure rising, of course.  The cuff tightened.  I tried to breathe deeply.  It felt as if I was making it worse.  The pressure of the cuff went down, and I looked a the screen--134/74.  Fuck yea--no worse than ever!!!!  

I felt light headed.  I felt like a man who had just escaped a fire.  Life was good.  Things were fine again.  I felt true glee.  

When I got home, I made a Negroni and sat on the deck.  I felt guilty about the Negroni, but not too much.  Then I made the soup.  Holy smokes, my friends, it was good.  

But now. . . yea.  That guy has kind of spoiled my day.  I can't get rid of it.  It is hard to be pissed and sad at the same time, but somehow, I'm managing to do that.  

I'll take a walk now and hope to let it go.  But I know I am going to see that fuckhead again, and I am sure I'm planning on what to do and say.  I don't plan on being the little spoon.