NoLo E-hub isn’t feeling well –I look at him and he is sweating and he looks awful. So we hail a cab to take us back to the apartment. On the taxi’s radio, the announcer tells about a Roberta Flack concert and I think about how much I love her song “Killing Me Softly.†I picture a small intimate Parisian venue where we could practically touch her as she sang. It would be fantastic. But then like many ambitious ideas, I realize that I really didn’t want to stay up late to listen to Roberta Flack, I’d rather be reading a book back in the apartment.
Roberta
At the apartment, NoLo E-hub curls up in a ball on the bed and before joining him I load the disherwasher. As I reach under the sink for dishwasher soap, I have an idea.
We’ve been sleeping with the windows open at night and it keeps the apartment very cool but tiny little mosquitos or gnats have been feasting on me (They haven’t touched him—must sense germs.) Here under the sink is an aerosole can of bug spray with a picture of a fly, beatle and other flying insects. What the heck, maybe this will solve the gnat problem. I march into the bedroom and spray around the outside of the bedroom window similar to the way we spray the entrance to our tent to discourage mosquitoes from entering.
After our busy day, a relaxing bath is in order so I draw a bath, adding Crabtree and Evelyn Rose bubble bath to the water but wait a minute, there’s a funny smell and it’s not Crabtree and Evelyn,–it’s some God awful chemical smell seeping underneath the bathroom door. When I open the door, I nearly gag, Ken is on the bed still in fetal position, now with a pillow covering his head, moaning and I run to the windows to open them wider and allow fresh air inside. I have sprayed poisonous chemicals—not something like Off!, probably something like Raid!–strong enough to kill ancient cockroaches or poisonous spiders. It was the rankest, dankest smell that seeped into every corner of the apartment and no matter how many candles I light, how many windows I open, it still smells like we are sleeping in recently fumigated barracks. Fortunately, Ken only moans, and I tell him I am very sorry (can you imagine having the flu and breathing poisonous fumes?) but then after I say I’m sorry, I can’t help it, I start laughing so hard that I can’t speak. I feel like Lucille Ball.
