Tuesday
Simptempter 05
41 A.B.
The Uninvited...
I woke up today to the sight of geese staring in my bedroom window.... Canada geese.... Six in number.... Branta canadensis to those who know. Average weight: 10 pounds. Eyes: Exceedingly beady. Beak to screen pressure: Approx. 1/679 ton per square inch.I do not know what they wanted.
I reflexively jumped up and ran to the bathroom to put on more deodorant.
By the time I had returned to the bedroom, they were gone.
Forever?
Who can say?
Tonight I shall sleep with a fresh stick of Secret under my pillow....
Just in case.
Confessing My Latest Sin...
Truth be told, I have not spent a night in my own bed in weeks.
Since late July I have been banished to the living room couch by the Snorting Demons of Wifely Throat.
The couch is comfy but cannot erase the fact that the three residents of this multi-doored abode now spend their slumbertime locked up in separate cells: Jester in the once and future laundry room; Wife within an apnea-spun cocoon; and I beneath a cuckoo clock which seems to say different things depending upon the depth of my repose. One morning I swore I heard it scream "Al Gore!" six times straight; another, it purred Chinese.
The stage properly set, the confessional curtain partially drawn, I am now ready to confess that sometimes... in the dead of night... as I dream my dreams... I sometimes mistake the soft back of the couch for that of my wife... and instill a forgotten button of an unknown upholsterer with far more significance than it objectively merits or strict propriety allows....
With weary eye I spent this afternoon searching both medical books and furniture catalogs in vain for some hint of the gestation period for ottomans... With shaking finger I surreptitiously traced the phone book listings with less and less hope of ever finding a Home for Bastard Hassocks....
Tonight, relief! A friend experienced in... clothly matters... has determined the slight cushion swelling to be nothing more than an errant sock...
A thing easily removed, then discreetly unraveled.
Alas, what of the future?
Annual infection....
Autumn is a virus
You catch it on a day like today carelessly sniffing an improperly disposed of north wind
Or while standing under a public tree that's suffering from a sudden bout of loose leaves....
Before you know it, there's a slight itch in the back of your throat for soup and hot cocoa
And thickening regret is dripping down from the shriveled summer expectations still in your head...
Afraid you might be contagious, the sun wisely excuses itself early and slips south.
To the lady who told me washing them
with dandelion tea was a sure cure for
the zits on my wife's one and only chin...The zits are still there, but the taste of the tea has been greatly improved.
(©Now by D. Birtcher, convicted serial word stalker)