WordPress Daily Prompt: Proud

When was the last time someone told you they were proud of you?

Where shall I begin? It happens so often I lose count . Of course the local supermarket. Daily the assistants at the cash register say how proud they are they I spend so much money in their business. It was only last week when the butcher told me personally that his life wold not be worth while if I did not purchase the meat that he had so carefully prepared, wanting to please my wishes. He even let me hold his butcher’s knife dripping with blood from the last victim and took a photo. He asked me to sign the photo so that he could hang it over the counter, showing everyone how proud he was of my customer services.

Then of course the postman called last week. He only rings twice, so I always have to be ready. He had tears in his eyes when he said how proud he was to deliver the letters and parcels to my address. I had to give him a handkerchief to wipe his eyes. I told him it was no problem. I look forward to his daily visits and he too makes my life worthwhile bringing the letters and newspapers. I am not always so proud of receiving the invoices, but he is only doing his job. He went on his knees and begged for forgiveness and bowed his way along the path. Oh, how nice to see that people are happy.

It was only last week when the tax authorities sent a letter announcing how pleased they were to have me as a customer. It is a reward for their clerks to be able to send me the forms to fill out and each year they have their annual party in honour of my tax returns. I, of course, answer their letter telling them it is a pleasure to be a customer and they should carry on with their valuable work. It makes me realise why I receive a senior pension. I wrote of the happy memories I had when I was a working woman, being allowed to pay a certain percentage of my hard earned money into their fund “Save the country and the village”. I realised that their job was not an easy one and all the more I honoured their words of praise for my efforts. 

My visit to the bank was successful. The porter at the door bowed when I entered and the cash drawer was already open, awaiting my visit. They shut it almost immediately when I told them I was visiting for withdrawal. I was shown the door where the cash machine was. I am not so sure if they were proud of me.

Last week I visited the dentist. His eyes were reflections of $ signs as he looked at my teeth. It was just a cleaning job originally, but he was happy, as a sideline, to repair a lost filling. He was so proud of me saying that I look after my teeth, perhaps too well he added. He is almost out of work when visiting my teeth, but I should not despair. Golden Oldies are always a source for turnover he found, and before I left he gave me some caramels to eat. He said they were not exactly the thing for the teeth, but for the dentist. I am still thinking about that, but my dentist was proud of me and said to call again soon, perhaps in six months.

My doctor was beaming when I arrived for the result of my blood tests. She was proud of the results. I asked if that meant that I could cease taking my tablets for diabetes and the vitamin tablets for my blood circulation. She said no, but it has improved. She gave me a page showing all the results, actually it was two pages. There was a nice tick next to the cholesterol levels. I asked if that meant I no longer needed to take the daily tablet. No, you should continue. Until when? One day the grim reaper will arrive and I will no longer need the tablets, but she was proud of me. As I left she gave me  bag with three varieties of life prolonging tablets and a proud smile, telling me to call again in a few months. This week I received the bill for the visit, yes I am sure she was proud. I also made my sickness insurance proud.

The undertaker’s shop is next to the doctor’s surgery. As I walked past he waved at me from the window, pointing to the poster in the window with photos of the newest developments in coffins. I do not want him to be proud of me, so I changed my step into a run. Luckily the car was parked just around the corner.

I found this prompt fairly stupid the last time and time does not heal wounds now does it. We all know that pride comes before the fall. I wish I could say I was proud of my daily prompts, but it is more despair, hoping for something completely different, a prompt to be proud of.

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Interesting Afternoon

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The photo is the view from the high school in one of the local villages. Spent a few interesting hours this afternoon with some of my colleagues from the village first aid group. The students at the high school had been doing their first aid course, necessary for taking driving lessons in Switzerland, and they had their final day today. My colleagues and I played the injured and they had to deal with us. There were 5 groups, per group 3 students. One colleague had fallen down the stairs and had to have her neck fixed. Another had an accident with electricity. The instructor's little boy had fallen off his bike and I had a deep cut in my hand. The village is just down the main road from our village and as you can see in nice surroundings. The view on the photo is the Jura mountains.

I was also surprised to see that the school had a pen outside containing three goats, so of course I just had to take their photo.





After all it is not every day that you see goats. Actually you can smell them before you see them.

Anyhow the complete class naturally passed their examination well. I had to keep reminding them to put their special plastic gloves on before they started messing around with my cut as I had a special bottle of imitation blood that I had to keep painting on my hand. Looked quite genuine, but then you have to use the gloves. Afterwards they had to put a pressure bandage on the wound and eventually my arm in a sling. I noticed at the end of the test that I had received five different ways of tying a pressure bandage, and five different styles of a sling, but the main thing is that the injury is dealt with.

Otherwise a fairly quiet week. I did have to go to the dentist on Monday for my eight-monthly teeth clean job. Being diabetic, it does sort of tell on your gums, so he just likes to see me now and again. He is quite a good dentist. Being French he took the French dentists exam, and when he came to Switzerland he had to go back to school again and do the Swiss exam. What I like about him is that you do not have time to get nervous. As soon as you are in the chair, it is mouth open and the instrument is doing its job. It took him about twenty minutes to clean through all the teeth and afterwards I spent another few minutes cleaning up. I looked like a vampire after he had just finished with his victim.

The dentist did ask me if I eat a lot of oranges. I thought a strange question, particularly as I eat very few oranges, and in Summer never. He said that my teeth had an orange colour to them. It got me thinking and I realised it could be the colouring from Cola perhaps. I do like a glass of Pepsi now and again, but have now decided to switch over to mineral water for the time being.

And now for a quiet evening with a book, or the television to relax from the exhaustion of the day. Yes it can be quite a tiring life when you are in retirement sometimes.