Throughout it all, Anita was a good sport. She enjoyed his attentions and didn’t have any particular objections to making love in the family room after a hard day at work. Or in the kitchen, dining room, bathroom shower, entry hall or any of the other places in the house where her passion-crazed husband immediately disrobed her and made love to her upon her arrival home.
On Thursday morning he looked at himself in the mirror and started to panic. His beard was almost gone and the long twisting nails on his fingers looked more like claws than the well-groomed manicure he had cultivated since his rejuvenation. Howard had to take a pair of shears to give his fingernails a rough cut with the scissors before he was able to get purchase on his oversized nails with a pair of nail clippers. His toenails were so oversized that he was forced to trim them just so he could walk around the house. What was going to become of him? He went to Anita and told her that he had to see a doctor about his condition. Anita told him that if he went to a doctor and told him about his change in physical age, the resulting publicity would result in his prosecution for polluting. Since there had never been a recorded case of rejuvenation, the only explanation for what was happening to him was that the toxins that his body absorbed must have somehow caused him to physically regress. If his doctor became curious and decided to report the incident, the Center for Disease Control would become involved. Their first step would be to look into exactly which chemicals had caused his apparent rejuvenation and his involvement with polluters would come out. She told him that he brought the whole thing on himself by aiding and abetting polluters with their crimes. She pointed out that at his present size, he wouldn’t be able to protect himself from rapes if he was put in prison. He was beyond the help of any doctor. She told him to be patient and wait, surely the process would either reverse itself or stop of its own accord.
The unnatural wet, cool weather was starting to get on Howard’s nerves. He didn’t mind a few days respite from the hot Southwestern Sun, but the dreary constant rain of the past months had become depressing. It was April and the Sun still hadn’t made its reappearance to herald Spring. Howard felt like that Earth itself was conspiring with his odd physical malady to keep him indoors. He missed the camaraderie of work and longed for the lost opportunities to visit his mistress. He was bored. Apart from sitting around the house in his oversized bathrobe watching TV, there was nothing to do. Howard noticed that mind was beginning to be affected by disuse; his short term memory was getting rusty. He had forgotten to take out the garbage on two consecutive pickup days, forcing Anita to take the bags of rotting garbage to the dump herself. He seemed to be suffering from the same mental malady suffered by teens and preteens all over the world; selective amnesia. Fortunately, Anita didn’t make much fuss over it. She simply loaded up the back of the Suburban with the garbage and ran the errand like any other. Howard wasn’t too pleased that she used his van for a garbage truck, but it was obvious that she couldn’t put four forty gallon bags of garbage in her little car. Since it was his fault that the garbage pickup had been missed, he decided to keep mum about the untoward use of his vehicle.