Thursday, November 19, 2015

Anomaly

Moving.
Going through the motions; collecting.
Memories.
One by one.
Mechanical.
Emotionless.
Just, collecting.
Putting them in bags, in boxes, steel vaults.
Sealing them up with ties, with tape, with locks.
Shipwrecked debris, barely surviving; drifting along.
Staring up into nothing.
Thinking nothing.
Feeling. . .
   nothing.

Until, a strange sight comes into view.

There, in the corner, above the bedroom window,
   where the wall meets the ceiling,
sits . . .  a frog.  












  

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Shit, Plop, and Crash - 3 Short Stories


SHIT


Toilets.

They clog.

And, when you aren't accustomed to using a particular toilet,
   there is no telling the load that it can hold.
I felt like I was in the movie "Along Came Polly", only I wasn't Polly.
                               I was Reuben.
There was no pet ferret to interfere, however, there was a pet rat.
Fortunately, she was caged, and not allowed to run about the house.

It was pretty early in the relationship,
and I was not prepared to expose myself in such a "girlfriends are human" kind of way.

FORTUNATELY, I found a plunger.

UNfortunately, while plunging the toilet, the bowl overfloweth(ed).

                        SHIT.

"Um, Mike?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you have any towels that could be used to clean up a, um, mess?"

"What KIND of a mess?"

"Um, like a, um . . . "overflowed toilet" mess?"

"Do you need help?"

"NO. No. NOoooo.  DEFINITELY not. UNDER control. 
  Soooooo . . .
     where are the towels???"





PLOP


Cheesecake.
A very delicate matter.
Especially, when dropped upon the floor.

We picked one up at the local grocery store.

Looking through the glass case of mouth-watering(ly) enticing confections,
   we chose IT over the others - all chocolate crusted, and drizzled in all of its sweet chocolate(ness).
It made it from the store to the car.  Just.  Fine.
It made it from the car to my friend's house.

Just.

Fine.

"OOooooo, that looks GOOD," people said.

"Let me take it out of the box," said I.

Remember that scene in the episode of FRIENDS,
   where Rachael and Chandler are fighting over the cheesecake?
Rachael carries the cheesecake out into the hallway of their apartment building, when she trips, and . . .
PLOP.

"OOoohhhhhhhhh," the people sighed.

Cheesecake DOWN.

I suppose, like the FRIENDS episode,
   we could have gotten down on our hands and knees with our forks.
We had brownies for dessert, instead.





CRASH


Two things about red wine:

1) It stains.

2) The bottle is made of glass.

My boyfriend and I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things:
Gatorade, bananas, orange juice, yogurt, salt, and two of my favorite bottles of wine.

They were on sale.

We went to the checkout line (15 items or less),
where my boyfriend and I debated whether or not an 8-pack of Gatorade
counted as 1, or 8 items.

Anyways . . .

After the checkout person rang up the items and bagged our groceries,
   we placed them in the cart, and rolled them out to the curb.
Carefully picking up each bag, and balancing the weight between both arms, we . . .

CRASH.

One of the wine bottles dropped STRAIGHT THOUGH THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG.

REALLY???

Red wine ALL OVER THE SIDEWALK.

Red wine ALL OVER my WHITE shoes.

"OOoooohhhhhhh," the people sighed.

Wine bottle DOWN.

The very nice, non-English speaking cart collector
picked up the neck of the bottle from the ground (the only piece of the bottle that was left),
   and motioned for me to go inside to get a new one.
I could understand him well enough to make out the words "should have" and "double bag".

Yes.

They should have double-bagged the wine bottles.
Thank you, sweet man, for not making me feel like an idiot.
Of course, he was not aware of the previous toilet and cheesecake incidents.