The Roar of Agony

Luckily, I've only heard it twice since we've moved into this house 3+ years ago. It's a guttural sound that James makes when he wants me to believe that I have mortally wounded him. It's not necessarily loud, but I call it a roar because it's powerful. He gets his message across.

The first roar of agony was prompted by a horrific odor that greeted James once as he entered the house through the garage. Even though I had opened the sliding glass door and turned on the fans, I could not get rid of the smell of burnt garage door remote control that I had accidentally melted in the microwave. (I can explain! But I won't right now.) Before the door shut behind him, he roared, "WHAT'S THAT SMELL?!!" and the real fun ensued as I tried to answer amidst his expressions of excruciating revulsion, disgust, and disbelief.

So recently we were having our ongoing love/hate discussion about This American Life as it came on the radio. James has this uncanny timing such that he invariably misses the hysterically funny episodes and tunes in attentively when something dark and tragic is broadcast. Consequently, we always argue about listening to this show. Two weekends ago, I insisted and James acquiesced. A moment later, someone on the radio related a story about watching his mother struggle to breathe after she had been removed from a respirator used during her bladder cancer surgery.

In a fit of a PTSD flashback from a similar experience of our own, James screamed, "LIIIIISSAAAAAAAH!" - a Ricky Ricardo-type verbal explosion that nearly blasted me out of my power chair.

"Ok, Okay! I won't ask you again to have your fingernails pulled out one by one, but I happen to like that show."

"...all piety and no sense."

Isn't that the perfect description of Sarah Palin? It's part of one of my favorite passages from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. The passage goes on to describe how an irrational woman causes unnecessary and cruel terror in children with her inflammatory remarks as they prepare to be separated from their parents. The heroine of the novel responds like this:

"...she got a look on her that would turn the devil to stone, and then she slapped Adelaide right across the face - nice and sharp, so her head wobbled on her shoulders - and hauled her over to the door, shoved her out, and locked it."

Amen.