Kari Rogers
Emotional Trash
"That's all your house is: it's a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff," George Carlin says from the television. I’ve heard that line a dozen times, but I still laugh. I want to be a comedian. Mom always scoffs at this. She'd rather I be a poet or artist. She says poets and artists change the world by simply telling the truth. I think comedy tells the truth, too.
"See? Isn't what he said true? Comedians tell the truth," I pointed out.
"Yes, Loney, but they make us laugh at it, so it doesn't hurt. If the truth doesn't hurt, it doesn't change anything," she said, with a wry smile.
An hour later, I couldn't sleep. As I lay there with Mom on the worn, burgundy pull-out couch, I felt like junk. The couch was really a raft in a moat of junk: neglected antique toys and furniture, bags of coupons and never-worn clothes, the TV she leaves on to sleep, newspapers, tapes, everything everyone else has ever thrown away. And this is the nicest room, the only one either of us can sleep in. I always tho