METAMAN

Journal Entry
Thursday 12/2/2004
Around 10:30 a.m.


While waiting in my doctor’s office, I was reading a pamphlet when, out of the blue, came the “Metaman” tune. Straight up, I perched wondering if Max’s little ditty had come blazing through to me from some parallel dimension. You see, I never knew how to whistle the tune he wrote, back when. I mean, I could hardly even remember how it went. Max was the only one who could whistle it as perfectly as I “heard” it today while sitting in the doctor’s office.

*****

So, what is “Metaman” anyway?

Well, one day about five years ago, Max and I had been lounging on the back patio, talking about the things we’d do when we retire.

“Hey, I’ve got an idea!” he said as he brushed Tiggi, lounging on the picnic table. “I’m gonna give the old folks in Sun City a super time.”

“How’s that?” I said while nosing through a Victorian magazine.

“With popsicles. Metamucil popsicles.”

“Whu?” My brain lapsed into a kind of stupor and the magazine slipped through my fingers. “What did you say?”

He put down the brush, knowing he now had my undivided attention. “Picture this,” he said, “me driving my white truck, playing a little ditty as I hand out Metamucil ice cream bars in a wide assortment of flavors and colors.”

“Okay, now I know you’re joking.”

“Nope, I’m serious as a post. Think of it, it’ll be fun and good for them. Good for me too.”

I was practically boring a hole through his shirt as he said, “So hey, here’s ‘Metaman’ – dig it!” And suddenly, impromptu, he began to whistle a cheery little tune.

As the last lilting note bounced off the table, Max sat back and said, “Well, what do ya think?”

I just shook my head and cackled, “Well, I have to admit, Metaman, you have created a catchy little number there. Carefree, light… a popsicle kind of tune.”

Thus, Metaman was born.

But was Metaman a tune or a man?

In retrospect, I think it was a little of both. Like a big kid, Max used to whistle his tune on weekends, especially whenever he could catch up with the ice cream man and get our Saturday drumsticks. Max had such a gregarious nature. I wouldn’t have put it past him to ask the popsicle man what he thought of Metaman… the tune, that is.

*****

So today, as I sit waiting for my doctor, I hear Max’s sweet little ditty for the first time since he died. Its light-hearted tenor brings such happy thoughts to mind. Tapping my toes, I turn the page of my medical pamphlet, and there at the bottom of the page I see canisters – colorful Metamucil canisters.

Max! I shriek in silence.

Oh, what am I doing? Sighing, I stash the pamphlet in my purse. Time to take a trip down the hall before the nurse calls my name. But on the way back, I am touched by the lovely voice of Karen Carpenter. Her melancholic sound is resonating through the office Musak:

I've just one wish on this Christmas Eve
I wish I were with you...*

Somehow, I manage to restrain myself until I reach the car. Then, safe inside, I let go.

-----

* “Merry Christmas Darling” from the “Christmas Portrait” album released in 1978. Written by Richard Carpenter & Frank Pooler and recorded by The Carpenters.