More Bumfuzzled Than Usual

The next day saw Fred all bumfuzzled with one thing and another. He awoke tired and his neck, which had been feeling better, was all stiff and achy again. After shaving he wondered if he should have bothered, since it only made the fresh blue bruise on his jaw show up all the more, and of course, shaving hadn’t exactly been a joyful sensation, especially after cutting himself when he accidentally grabbed his mother’s razor instead of his own. He stood gazing at the huge thing, wondering how he could have made that mistake, until he noticed the blood dribbling into the sink and decided he should try to save himself.

Moreover, he was still in a cold sweat, terrified of all the turns his life was taking, seemingly all at once. It hadn't exactly been a restful weekend. Still, the previous night, he thought he’d feel better in the morning, but a bad nights sleep and the stress of the approaching surgery combined with everything else had him all in a turmoil and only going through the motions of his routine. As he drove down the road to pick up Myrtle, he vaguely wondered if he’d eaten anything for breakfast. He was sure he had, but he couldn’t remember what. Then he realized he’d forgotten his lunch. He could always stop for it on the way back, but didn’t want to face his mother’s taunts and it was only another bologna sandwich anyway. He just couldn’t bring himself to bother.

Myrtle had her own concerns that Monday morning. She had almost forgotten it was the day she was to see her Ophthalmologist too see how her eye was healing. So she climbed into the car with her own butterflies.

“I’ll need the car today, Fred, if that’s ok,” she ventured.

“Mmm,” he replied.

“Fred?” she said, suspecting that he hadn’t actually heard her. He glanced her way. “Fred, did you hear me?”

“Wha..,” he enquired, the car wandering onto the shoulder of the road as he tried very hard to focus on Myrtle.

“Oh good, you’re pulling over,” she smiled. “Stop right here, Fred” she instructed. Fred didn’t know why, but he obediently did so. “I’ll drive,” said Myrtle. “You change places with me,” she instructed again. And again, Fred obeyed.

Once behind the wheel, Myrtle at least felt it didn’t really matter that much if Fred was with her in body only. She had the keys, the wheel in her hands ~ the car. Even only seeing from one eye she was sure she was the better driver on this day. In fact, she really didn’t need to bother him further, except she wasn’t sure where to drop him off. It was a strangely eery drive up the highway. It was obvious Fred had a lot on his mind and she wanted to give him time to struggle with his thoughts. She knew where Soames Shipping was, but when she pulled in, the labyrinth of driveways, shipping ramps and buildings was very confusing to the uninitiated. She looked at Fred, who seemed to recognize his surroundings enough to look down as if wondering how he got into the passenger seat.

“Where do I let you off, Fred?” asked Myrtle.

He gazed at her mystified. Then he pointed at one building in particular. “Those are the offices,” he replied. “Myrtle...?”

“I need the car today, Fred. I have an eye appointment. And you seemed a little preoccupied anyway,” she answered, before he finished asking.

Fred nodded. “Ok,” he said agreeably as Myrtle stopped in front of the building he’d pointed to. “I’ll wait here later,” he offered, climbing out of his car.

“Ok, Fred,” she waved. “You take it easy today, OK?” she advised with obvious concern. Then she waved cheerfully again and drove off with his car, Fred waving back, still not quite sure what was happening. At least, he thought, he didn’t have to try to park his car between those two extended cab pickups this morning. It was always a bit of challenge to squeeze his car into the space they left for him. He wasn’t sure he’d have been able to do it without denting something on this day. With that relieved thought on his mind, he wandered into the building.

Fred stumbled rather distractedly and wide-eyed through the outer office, bumping into a filing cabinet as he did so. This seemed to jolt him back to reality. He stood staring at it for a moment, then it occurred to him that he really didn’t need to be hurting himself anymore. He also didn’t need to be making a spectacle of himself any more than necessary. Nor did he want to make any more mistakes in his work. He took a deep breath and gave his head a shake, causing a searing pain up his neck which only heightened his resolve to do only as much as he had to. So, hoping that there were no really complicated shipping orders for him to route, he squared his narrow shoulders and made his way to his office safely.

Once there, he needed to rest his head to be able to think clearly, so he laid his head gently on his desk for a moment. It was there that Helen found him over four hours later, fast asleep and snoring rather loudly.

Myrtle had her own challenges at work that day. It somehow figured, in the normal sticky irony of life, that nothing momentous ever happened on those sleepy, rainy days when she didn’t have that much work to do anyway. But of course, on the day she had to get her work done quickly so she could leave early for an appointment was the very day all hell broke loose.

It wasn’t enough that Professor Dilby chose this day to visit Myrtle twice, once to gaze fondly at her and request an envelope, the second time to ask which day it was, which he may have genuinely needed to know, though it had Myrtle wondering if he’d spent the weekend in his office or something. Nor was it apparently sufficient that Dick was in a wild panic all morning over another meeting of the Dean’s committee and an agenda that he didn’t understand, but was sure had something to do with him. No, to add to Myrtle’s burdens, it was on this day that Mr. Pelham decided it was time to be mindlessly mean to some of his female students again.

Mr. Pelham was an instructor with a reputation at Upton College that Myrtle knew full well was earned. So, in a way, she wasn’t a bit surprised when two female students, one of them already in tears, came bursting into her office with his name on their lips. Myrtle almost automatically pulled a box of tissues out of a desk drawer and steeled herself to hear the whole sordid story.