After Neal's dive trip to Honduras [which can be seen HERE],
I returned to Yuma on 4 May, still undecided whether
to keep and remodel the house, or to clear it out and sell it.
I would give myself a few more weeks of living in it to decide.
When I arrived at the Phoenix Airport,
I called the taxi service in Yuma I'd used before
to alert to a pickup in an hour. No answer.
Tried again when I arrived at the Yuma Airport. No answer again.
At that point, I should've known this entire trip had been a bad idea . . . .
I perused the board at Yuma Airport that lists motels and taxis.
I called the ONLY taxi service listed (actually, it wasn't listed;
someone had stuck a business card in the frame of the board).
I called the number; one of their drivers had JUST dropped off
someone and was waiting outside the airport door.
I silently said a THANK DOG and
walked into the 100-degree heat to return to our house.
(Difficult to think of it as OUR house yet;
I still considered it MY PARENTS's house.)
The house was still there, still full of stuff to be gone through
and discaded, given to charity, or kept.
I went inside, deposited my luggage in the third bedroom
and went to use the small bathroom.
In the movie, MEN IN BLACK II. there's a scene
in which Kay (Tommy Lee Jones) leaves Jeebs (Tony Shaloub)'s
pawn shop after being deneuralized.
Kay is about to step on a cockroach, then hesitates . . .
upon which the cockroach, in a veddy upperclass British accent,
says . . .
(because, in MIB's world, cockroaches are actually aliens.)
That scene came to my mind immediately after lifting the toilet lid;
two humongous (to me) cockroaches looked up at me as if to say,
"Close the lid, please; we're trying to raise our kids here."
I didn't; I flushed and scrubbed, scrubbed and flushed,
saying to myself: "Self, This is another sign.
Every time I walk into this bathroom, I'll see those
damned cockroaches in my mind's eye.
I should go home right now."
