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Creative Writing - Donna Monteith Mrs. Johnson I woke up this morning and looked outside. The sun was shining a glorious orangest yellow. It was so beautiful! I wished I could stay in bed and daydream all day, but instead I got dressed and rushed off to work. As soon as I entered through those doors, I could hear Mrs. Johnson’s mouth all the way down the hall. “I’m hungry. Y’all people not going to feed me, this place is like jail, nobody cares about me.” I went and got her tray. As soon as she got her tray, she started mouthing off again, “You call this food? I wouldn’t even feed this crap to a dog.” I said, “Mrs. Johnson come on, you go to eat, don’t you want to stay young and beautiful?” She said, “Don’t you see I already am.” Oh, she got a mouth on her. Mrs. Johnson is what you would call the talk of the town, or of the nursing home if you want to call it that. She is the first one up and the last one to go to bed. She is always looking for something to get into. Mrs. Johnson is a petite woman in her 80’s. She weighs about 100 lbs wet, if that much. She has big, bright, beautiful blue eyes that look so mysterious when she smiles. Her hair is a beautiful shade of silver with natural body waves. Her lips are the color of rubies and her skin the color of pecan from years of living in the Florida sun. Her nails are well kept and painted. All of her clothes look immaculate. In her room she has pictures all over the wall of beautiful art work that she has done. Mrs. Johnson pokes her head in the hall and spots a male nurse going down the hall. She yelled, “Hey, hey, I’m talking to you, don’t you hear me calling you.” The nurse said “don’t you know my name Mrs. Johnson? My name is Ralph.” She said, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. I just want you to know about this pain I’ve been having in my legs.” “Oh really, for how long?” asked the nurse. “About a week now,” she said. “Have you been doing any strenuous exercise at therapy?” “Nothing more than the usual,” replied Mrs. Johnson. “Would you like some pain medicine, Mrs. Johnson?” “Now you know I don’t like any kind of pills. How about you go ahead and rub my legs for me with those nice strong hands of yours?” she said while flashing him those nice pearly whites of hers. Ralph said, “Mrs. Johnson you’re just too fresh” and walked off to attend to another patient. Not too long after I am giving a resident a shower, I hear yelling and screaming in the hall. I rushed out there to see what the commotion was about. I’m just in time to see Mrs. Johnson picking up her walker to hit Peter over the head, and I took it away from her. I said what is going on here. Peter said he was watching the television and Mrs. Johnson came and turned the channel. I said, “Mrs. Johnson don’t you have your own personal T.V. you can watch?” She replied, “I don’t care. I can watch T.V. anywhere I damn please.” I said “yes you can, but have some courtesy if someone else is watching it. Please ask if you can change it.” She said “next time I’ll make sure I hit him in that bald head of his” and walked off. Talking about talk of the town, Mrs. Johnson said she owned the first Bed and Breakfast Tavern in town. People would come from miles away just to stay at her spot. She said she was the wealthiest person in town. I believe her because she still walks around with her head in the clouds, bossing people around giving orders. She would say to the girls “Go on down to the tavern and bring me those rent receipts, and bring them to me now.” I think she’s a little confused, but don’t want to admit it. I would say “Mrs. Johnson, you don’t own that tavern anymore,” and she would say “I own the whole goddamn town. I even own you too.” I would just laugh. I know she’s fresh, but I love her anyway.
By Donna Monteith
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