Living with the Iffing
For one reason then another, I’ve been off the blog for a while, not adding posts, not reading posts from my fellow and sister bloggers. I’ve missed being here, and I’ve missed reading your thoughts. I hope as the year unfolds, I will do better. I have, however, been writing, and I share with you this wisdom the Universe sent to me at the beginning of the new year.
Living with the Iffing
He’s seated in the chair next to me at the bank—at this New Orleans bank, they’ve done away with teller windows. The tellers hold court behind a long desk, customers sit in chairs on the other side. The man and I sit side by side. He’s in the midst of a complicated financial transaction. While the teller works, he talks.
“All that fighting going on in my neighborhood.”
“You peeking from behind the curtains?” the teller asks.
“I was sitting on the porch with a baseball bat.”
The teller comments that maybe this isn’t so smart. “Bullets don’t carry a name.”
He agrees, but remains undeterred.
“That family. You know, you lose somebody, you bring in chicken. You bring in food. That family, they buy liquor.”
The teller lends one ear to his story as she steadily works. I get the feeling they know each other pretty well.
“They buy liquor then they start to fighting. I look out there, the boyfriend has a board. The girlfriend, she’s got a stick.”
He demonstrates the stance of the two neighbors, weapons raised above their shoulders.
“He’s holding the board, and she’s got the stick. I said, ‘Somebody hit someone!’”
“You what?” The teller begins paying attention.
“I can’t stand that iffing—are they gonna hit someone or not? I said, ‘Somebody hit someone!’ I can’t take that iffing.”
The old year rolls out. The New Year rolls in. We are asked, as always, to live with the iffing.
Joe Hawes
I’m with the teller here. Baseball bats don’t work well against bullets. Besides you never know if you are getting fighting whiskey or loving liquor.But a good seat on the porch is worth the risk
Ellen Morris Prewitt
It was funny because you could tell she was only half listening until he said he told them to get on with it. They are great tellers in this bank, like so many people in New Orleans, really friendly.
Marsha
That effing iffing.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
? ? ?
Luanne
Oy.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
As they say in New Orleans, true dat
Joanne Corey
Glad to see you back. I’m also glad that my neighborhood doesn’t have the kind of dangerous “iffing” as the neighborhood of the man in your post.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
Thanks, it’s good to be back! And I join you in that gratefulness.
Patricia Suttle
Ellen, you have a heart for people with troubles.
Ellen Morris Prewitt
I never thought about it that way, Patricia, but you could be right. I do love the way people cope with grace and humor with the lives they are living