READY TO SWITCH?

A question I would ask and one I would get asked with the answer always "YES". If you had to walk a mile to a store and a mile back (both ways uphill) carrying the daily goods required to feed the household you just might understand the question. Each trip required the purchase of heavy, very heavy water, and a lot of it. Add a few big bottles of coke and you had two and sometimes three bags of liquid. The remaining bags contained bread, meat, coffee... The bread type bags I actually enjoyed carring. The dreaded water bags warranted the question R.... to S..., YES. Trips like these involved the never spoken but always present man ego. You see, I never, no matter how much blood was cut off from my hand due to the weighted plastic bag digging into my flesh with each step switch until I walked as far as my brother Clay ( Yes, I counted steps). Then after walking two more steps than he did I'd ask Clay, Ready.... (YES). See I knew Clay counted too because he'd ask me to switch back after walking two additional steps. Towards the end of the most fascinating, God Blessed two weeks of my life we were walking almost the whole way without asking Ready..... Hands completly numb, back bent forward, sprinting with the bags of H2O, occationally scrapping the ground trying to complete the two additional steps. Well yesterday I missed Clay so very much. I was out on the hunt for water, bread.... Cautioning myself to buy just a little bit because I had to walk back. As I left the store with four heavy bags the numbness I'd forgotten about started to return to my hand before I got to the first red light. Then I had to cross the street, crossing the street here is a true life and death experience, trust me on this. After getting across Clay entered my mind, oh how I wish he was next to me. I really felt him beside me but I wanted more, I wanted to see him and ask, Ready...? However, his mental presence provided me a laugh as I knelt down on my knees, sweat dripping from my face, unwrapping the plastic bags now enbedded into my hands, passers by looking at me with the look like someone saying "Take a cab man, it's cheap here". So Clay you might not of heard me but I did ask "READY TO....? And as always you said yes, I laughed at myself talking out loud as I got up and trying to get two more steps farther than last before asking you again, READY TO S...? I was so proud entering the apartment with the goods from the hunt. Carol asked the question I didn't expect as I entered the door high from the kill, "What took you so long?". So I sat down, began removing plastic from my flesh while counting to ten before answering her. My reply, oh Carol how I miss Clay!!!! He might be half way around the world but he was with me every step of the way helping me out.
This morning as I finished cooking breakfast I looked around the kitchen seeing the mess I made. I just closed the door and thought, Wow, Carol will be missing Clay soon.

Mark