The Grocery List
Lubrican
The Grocery List
by Robert Lubrican & Stormy Weather
Bookapy Edition
Copyright 2010 Robert Lubrican and Stormy Weather
2nd Edition edited in 2023
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Original cover art by Robert Lubrican
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Contents
Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven |
Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Fourteen
Fifteen | Sixteen | Seventeen | Eighteen | Nineteen | Twenty
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Foreword:
I got a very nice email from a reader named George one day, in which he said that he liked my writing so much that he'd probably be quite happy reading my grocery list.
Now that's a silly compliment – nice, but silly. However it gave me an idea. I happen to be fortunate enough to be friends with another author, who uses the pen name Stormy Weather. I told her what George had said and asked her what her grocery list might look like if she had naughty things with a man in mind. One thing led to another and we decided to co-write a story with two primary characters. She would write the female's sections, and I would take care of the male. The idea was to have two distinct and separate personalities at work within the story.
It was a lot harder than we envisioned, but when we were finished, we were both happy with it.
We present you now with … the grocery list.
Bob
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Chapter One
Thursday afternoon, August 9th [Bob]
It was just a piece of paper, a white looking scrap, blowing across the parking lot as I closed the door of my car and got ready to go into the supermarket. I noticed it only because it was a blur of white movement across my field of vision. To this day I have no idea what possessed me to reach down and pick it up, when a gust of wind brought it to my toes and then died.
The paper lay there staring up at me.
It was a grocery list.
The line across the top caught my eye. It said "Regular Thursday Shopping Trip", as if whoever had written this had "other" shopping trips, and wanted to keep this one separate, for some reason.
I stared at it, bent over. It wasn't like any grocery list I had ever seen before. Maybe that's why I picked it up. Oh, it had the list of things on it, like any grocery list would. But it had extra writing on it too, tiny neat script, and it was the reading of that writing that changed my life.
The script was in flowing, feminine characters, neat, and precise ... easy to read, which suggested that the writer was careful and precise, and paid attention to detail. That someone would take the time to write so clearly, for such a transitory purpose as making a grocery list, told me she had a good mind and knew what she wanted in life.
Or maybe it was that extra writing that made it obvious she knew what she wanted in life.
"Ideas to get the attention of a single man" was neatly penned at the top, under the Thursday part, followed by a list. Behind each item, was a description of what she intended to do with the item ... and her single man.
Pizza with meats - comfort food to warm him up
Chicken Fried Steak - for in between the times he pleasures me
Sweet wine - to sip together
Olive Oil - for his massage, so I can lick him all over
Fresh Oysters - in case he likes them - also for me
Whipped Cream - to squirt on me, and have him lick it off
Fresh Strawberries - to have him pluck, with his teeth, from my girly parts
Chocolate Sauce - for my breasts, and bud
Peanut Butter - for me to eat off of his manhood
Black Olives - for me, just in case semen doesn't taste good
Chocolate Cake with Frosting - to feed each other while we rest
Scented Candles - for ambiance
Lasagna - for our second date
There was a break, and another list. Only two of those items listed, the first two, had any additional information about the woman herself.
Spermacide - you are NOT on the pill, girl!
Topical Anesthetic - it hurts, the first time!
Bath Soap
Blond Hair Coloring Kit
Cheap Cotton Cloths
Napkins
Tampax
Red Licorice
SMALL bag of Ruffles
50# of dog food with additives for joints
Whoever she was, she was organized. Maybe too organized. Still, I was entranced. Such few words, on a scrap of paper, told me a lot about her.
She was a virgin, who was planning on losing that virginity with a stranger. She didn't know if he liked oysters, which meant she hadn't met him yet, or at least hadn't asked him if he liked oysters. She didn't like her current hair color, which seemed odd, because she definitely knew what she wanted out of the first time she had sex. She was young enough to still be menstruating, hence the Tampax, and her hymen was gone, for the same reason. She either knew, or suspected that semen would taste in such a way that she might want to replace that taste, but was obviously willing to taste it.
She was playful. At least she liked to play with food. She was pragmatic. She'd have to clean up during, or after her tryst, and chocolate stains good towels. Cheap cotton cloths could be tossed. She expected pain, but didn't want that to stop her from extended enjoyment. She obviously thought that a topical anesthetic might help with that. Everybody already has bath soap, which suggested she might tease him into the bath or shower with her. A new bar would be needed then. She indulged her own tastes -- that was probably the licorice and potato chips -- but she controlled her desires, which meant she was probably in pretty good shape. And, lastly, she had a dog, probably a big one, or at least one of the working breeds. They need the food with the additives for their hip joints, which she had reminded herself of on the list.
I held the list, and tried to picture her in my mind. I was a single man, and it wasn't at all hard to plug myself into her list, at least in my mind.
I stuck the paper in my shirt pocket, behind my pocket protector, which was full of pens and pencils. I'm a draftsman - old school variety. Pocket protectors weren't 'cool,' but then, I wasn't all that cool either. That's probably why I was still a single man at twenty-eight. I didn't care, though. I'd gotten used to my drab little life. I had my computer games, and a few TV shows I was addicted to, and my own dog, which I was as close to as I probably would be with a human. If I'd have chosen a dog, I'd have gotten a female, but this one chose me, showing up on my porch one day. It would be pretty difficult for a dog to wander into my neighborhood. We have a dog catcher who takes his job way too seriously. That meant somebody had dumped him. I understood why that had happened when I was exposed to some of his personality traits, but we got along okay most of the time. His only embarrassing habit was that he humped everything in sight. He still had his balls, and they worked fine.
I looked for this woman while I did my own shopping, but of course she could have been anybody. Besides, she'd probably dropped the list after she'd done her shopping, and was gone already. Still, I noticed when I passed some of the things on the list. I even bought some strawberries, which I hadn't planned to get. Then I headed for home.
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Thursday afternoon, August 9th {Chris}
"Lady, I know you'll find this hard to believe, but I need a keeper."
Lady was my Golden Retriever, and the look she was giving me left no doubt she was having no trouble believing any such thing.
When you live alone you talk to lots of things, and by the time Dad, who raises and shows dogs, gave Lady to me for my birthday three years ago, I was giving the toaster advice on his relationship with the new electric can opener and asking him what he thought about my split ends. Of course, Lady doesn't make up for not having a man around, and all I get from her is a female perspective, but you work with what you have.
Besides, she knows more about me than anyone else in my life ... including those things no woman would tell a soul. With all the things she knows, she could blackmail me for the rest of my days ... if, of course, she could talk ... not to mention be inclined to be a vengeful bitch, which she isn't. Her disposition is so sweet she seems to always be smiling, which is just what she was doing from her favorite position ... the old cloth-covered chair I'd found in Grandma's attic and placed in the corner of my kitchen just for Lady.
She winked at me and continued to survey the pile of pens, papers, spiral notebooks, tissues, loose change, individually wrapped peppermint candy, hand lotions, and a million other things that not more than ten minutes ago had been in the depths of my purse. It wasn't any ordinary purse. It was a denim bag my older sister Lacey made for me last Christmas. There were pockets of all sorts inside the deep, wide bag, which resembled a small suitcase. I tended to carry my whole life around with me wherever I went. If I couldn't leave home without it, it went inside my bag.
"You would think I'd be able to find one little grocery list in all that muck, wouldn't you?" I asked her as I glared at the stuff on the island in the center of my kitchen.
Swishing her tail, she glanced over at the grocery bags still loaded with canned goods on the counter by the pantry door. Items I'd just carried into the house. I usually shop on Thursdays, for myself. Then, on Friday evenings, I take Grandma Sparks (Mom's mother) shopping. That way I can pick up anything I forgot, while paying attention to her needs. Today was different, though. She called and was all excited because they were running a big sale. She'd told me all about the sale on Monday when she'd heard about it from her friend Nellie Maples, whose daughter is married to the manager of the supermarket. When there's a big sale I don't argue with her. I just make my list, like usual, and know that it will take longer, and that I'll always end up buying way more than I need because Grandma keeps saying, "You never know when you might have unexpected guests or when the market might crash."
In all the excitement of the afternoon, (Grandma losing her glasses, Grandma losing her shopping list, Grandma arguing with a lady over a bag of marshmallows - they all looked the same to me, but Grandma wanted that particular bag and she'd touched it first) I somehow managed to lose the special list I'd made out just for this trip.
"I did get some of the things on it," I explained to my dog. "But I lost the list and I know I didn't get everything."
The list I was referring to was one I'd made after I read a book I found at the yard sale. It cost me a dime and was titled 101 Ways to Catch a Man and 25 Ways to Keep Him Hooked for Life. I looked at the dog.
"I should have taken my special book with me to the store, huh?"
Lady whimpered and placed her paws over her eyes. I giggled.
"Okay. Okay. So the idea of roller skating in the park didn't go so well. I still say if it hadn't been for that crazy poodle running out in front of me and causing me to land in the pond, I would have met the man destined to be my Prince Charming. Is it my fault the dreamy hunk who rescued me was with his wife?"
She barked once.
"There's just got to be at least one single toad out there waiting to be kissed and rescued from his life of dreary existence. And I probably missed mine today all because I didn't have my list and wasn't in the aisles at the right time to bump into him."
Lady whined.
"I know. But I couldn't shop without my list. I couldn't remember the order I placed the items in and according to the book, it's important to go by the order. It's all in the timing. And speaking of time, it's time for me to change clothes so we can go for our walk."
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Thursday evening, August 9th [Bob]
When I got home and took the pocket protector out of my shirt pocket, the list fluttered to the floor. Bandit, my dog, was on it in a heartbeat, and I had to pry it out of his mouth.
"Stupid Dog," I said, roughing the fur on the back of his neck. "It's just paper. I know it has food listed on it, but it's only paper."
He wagged what was left of his tail at me. I'd never been able to tell whether the missing part had been intentionally removed, or was lost in some mishap. Knowing Bandit, though, mishap had the lead. When I turned around to put the list on the counter, he promptly jumped up and started humping my leg.
"Off!" I barked, and he got back down. He looked at me imploringly, like it was my job to get him a bitch to hump, or something. "Tough luck, buster," I said. "I'm working on something for me first. Then maybe we can find you a mate."
I fed Bandit, then got myself something to eat, and sat down to watch Wheel of Fortune. Vanna was looking good, of course, in a flowing gown that made me want to be the wind blowing it around her body. For a fifty something year old woman, she was in damn good shape. Talk about a MILF!
I munched while I solved puzzles and didn't win anything for it.
I heard things clatter in the kitchen. Bandit was at it again. He was a scrawny thing, some kind of mix between a Terrier and a Boxer, and as ugly as Tammy Faye Baker in the bad years, but he had an endearing quality to him. When he showed up on my porch one January, shivering, I let him in. I hadn't thought I wanted a dog until he fell asleep laying against me. He never did gain a lot of weight.
He could jump, though, and he could jump really high, which meant that I had to keep the counters clean, or he'd be up there sniffing around and exploring what there was to eat. He ate like a goat ... anything he could get in his mouth.
I remembered the list, and dashed for the kitchen.
He stood there, on the counter, his stubby tail wagging like crazy. His right front paw was on the list, and the cans of green beans and lima beans and black-eyed peas I'd gotten at the supermarket were lying on their sides, or on the floor.
"What are you doing?" I asked him.
He was smart. He knew exactly what I was talking about, and that he wasn't supposed to be up on the counter. His ears went up, and his tail stopped. I got the impression he was remorseful, but knew better. He jumped down, and then sat, wagging his tail, waiting to be rewarded for doing the right thing ... getting down.
"Bed!" I said, in my "I'm not happy" voice.
He got up and walked to the pad I had in the corner of the living room for him. He lay down and ignored me, like he was pouting. I picked up the grocery list and took it back to the couch. On the way I glanced at the puzzle on display on the TV and solved it. The contestants took four more spins to get it. When they did, I realized I had been talking to them, telling them what losers they were.
That was rich. Here I was, standing in my living room, talking to the TV and my dog, holding a grocery shopping list, written by a woman I didn't know, but had spent all afternoon thinking about how to find.
And I called them losers.
I sat down.
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Thursday evening, August 9th {Chris}
The walk we take each evening around the block would go much faster if Lady didn't have a fan club that requires us to stop at almost every house along the way for her to get her ears scratched, or her tummy rubbed, or her tail played with or a combination of all three. Her tail fans are a couple of toddlers who love to wrap their small hand around the long fluffy snake ... that's what they call it. Lady, understanding they don't know better, goes along with their game by lying down on all fours and placing her head on her paws, which encourages them to crawl all over her.
When we stopped for Doc Hinkle to flirt with the both of us, he invited us in for dinner and I accepted. In his seventies, he's been a widower for only a year, and everyone looks out for him ... especially a couple of the widow ladies from his church ... Cora Bates and Amy Jones. They both were doing their best to make the retired doctor their husband and, according to him, had done everything but a strip-tease, which he was expecting any day.
Cora, to my amusement, arrived for dinner a half-hour after Doc invited me to stay. The look on her face when she saw me tossing the salad would have knocked anyone else over dead, but having older sisters has made me immune to drop-dead looks, and I smiled at her and made polite conversation, which she couldn't ignore. She was a lady, after all.
Doc was getting ready to go on a mission trip with a men's group to Ecuador, and we talked about that as we shared the baked chicken, green bean casserole and salad, which was followed by the apple pie Cora brought.
I figured out early on that Doc had wanted me there so he wouldn't be alone with her (I later learned she'd invited herself over for dinner that afternoon, ) so I hung around after the meal, earning me more shooting daggers from Cora's eyes. I almost laughed several times. She really was fit to be tied. And when she lost at Scrabble her evening was made complete and she announced she needed to be going.
When I didn't make a move to follow her, she gave me the look that's supposed to turn to me into burnt toast and I gave her another of my heart-warming smiles, which she had to return whether it killed her or not.
After her car was out of his drive-way and had turned the corner, Doc gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek, thanked me for rescuing him, and offered to give Lady and me a lift home, which I declined. Lady and I love summer evening walks.
As we made our way home, we discussed how nice it would be if Doc Hinkle was thirty rather than seventy-five. I have nothing against May and December romances. My own mother is involved in one of those. My father too, come to think of it. But I just can't see myself on that stage. I want someone my own age to grow old and fall apart with at the same time I start to not be as young as I used to be.
When I walked into the kitchen I saw the light blinking on the answering machine located on a table beside my desk in the corner I've made into an office. There was a baseball game featuring Charlie Brown and Snoopy playing on my computer screen and I decided to change the saver while I was listening to my messages.
Unfortunately, none of them were from the toad I was seeking. Instead, I listened to Mom telling me she was in Paris. Her beau Mark Summers had asked her at the last minute to go with him on his business trip. She would be gone until Christmas. The next two messages were from my older sisters ... Lacey and Paula ... giving me the low down on our mother and questioning her sanity.
Most of their comments were the same things they'd been saying since Mom started dating Mark. That was at the first of the year when he'd joined the book club she'd started in The Bookmark, the used book store she and her best friend Grace had opened together ten years ago. I half-way listened to them, already able to quote just about every line. Their main concern is Mark being twenty-five years old, with which I personally see nothing wrong. Of course, I'm twenty-five, myself, and could be slightly prejudiced on that point. I'm also a romantic ... more so than my sisters ... and thought it was wonderful that Mom was having a great time with whomever she chose. Besides, Lady and I were looking forward to being bridesmaids.
The call from Lacey announced we would meet in the morning for breakfast at her house. I'd planned on hanging out at Home Depot, which my book assured me was crammed with gorgeous men with strong hands, and an interest in making the world more beautiful. They also offer classes on redecorating, where you can spend time with some of those men. But now I'd have to put that off until another day. If I skipped a called meeting of The Sisters, I'd never hear the end of it.
The final message was from Dad asking me to visit him and Peggy at the farm for the weekend. That was strange because I was there last weekend. I usually make the two hour drive every other week to visit. He and Mom divorced when I was fifteen and he moved to the country where he had room to raise his dogs. He met Peggy at one of the dog shows and they got married three months later. They had been together six years, now.
Dad's situation also gave my sisters the vapors. They couldn't grasp why their full grown father wanted to marry a woman young enough to be his daughter. She was Lacey's age ... twenty-eight at the time. When I pointed out that Dad loved Lacey, and spending time with her, it went over like a bull in a china shop and they refused to speak to me for a couple of weeks. I'm sure they would have held out longer, but Grandma read them the riot act when she discovered they were ignoring me. I was their baby sister and it was their duty to look out for me and they'd better straighten up and fly right or they would not get the sets of China she was saving for them. She threatened to sell the damn stuff and go on a cruise with a male-stripper young enough to be her grandson. Then, she said calmly, they'd by golly really have something to bitch about.
She'd also pointed out that Dad was old enough to do as he pleased, and his choices were none of their damned business as long as he wasn't doing something harmful or illegal. Oddly enough, she doesn't hold the same opinion when it comes to Mom and Mark. She thinks Mom is just being damned silly. Of course, Mom's her daughter and I guess that makes a difference. Then, again, it could also be that Mom changes boyfriends the same way she buys a new car every two years. I'm holding out for things to work with Mark. He's the nicest man she's been with since Dad.
"I bet there's a man Daddy wants me to meet," I said to Lady who was sitting at my feet wagging her tail the way she always does when she hears Dad's voice on the machine.
She gave a short yip.
"Yeah, I know. A beggar shouldn't be choosy. But the last guy he introduced me to turned out to be a bug nut. You should have seen all those dead bugs in collections all over house. Not to mention watching his homemade documentary on newts."
She barked, twice this time.
"Of course, I'm going. I'll give him a call before I get in bed. Right now I want to focus and see if I can make another copy of that grocery list I lost. I had everything so perfect. I just have to give it another shot."
Chapter Two
Thursday night, August 9th [Bob]
I needed to think about how to find my dream girl. The way I think best is when I'm doing my favorite hobby. I build ships. Not big ones, like you actually sail, but models. They have kits which have the plans and all the materials you need for the job. They cost between three and seven hundred dollars, which I know sounds like a lot for a model kit, but what you create with that kit is about three feet long and two and a half feet high, with full rigging and sails, and individual planks on the hull and decks. You have to build your own staircases and railings. You have to nail each plank on, just as if you were building the real thing. And I'm talking tiny little nails here, much smaller than a straight pin. This is tweezers and needle nose pliers work. You put together tiny little cannons, and cut gun ports in the hull for them. Stuff like that. My last one, which was the H.M.S. Victory, took me about six hundred hours to build. I don't quite build to museum quality. You have to paint them for that, and I can't bear to put paint on the beautiful and exotic woods that come in the kits. I just put a clear finish on everything, or wax, and leave them their natural colors. That's the way most of it would have been back in the sailing ship days anyway, except maybe for the hull, which might have been painted to make it last a little longer, exposed to salt water and barnacles and such. They painted the gun decks red, so that the crew couldn't see the blood splashed all over the place, but you couldn't see that in a model anyway, so I don't do that either.
Anyway, while I'm carving a yardarm from a dowel, and then sanding it smooth, I think about stuff. My hands know what to do, so I don't have to think about what they're doing. I think about whatever needs thinking about, such as this woman, and how I was going to find her.
It was clear to me that I had to find her. Her list spoke to me in so many ways. I was twenty-eight, which isn't all that old, if you've been married for six or seven years and already have two kids. I wasn't married. I had no kids, because I was a virgin, something I didn't advertise at the gym where I played racquetball. And I was a geek, so I didn't have many prospects, in terms of women, virgins or not. I wasn't particularly worried about whether the woman who would eventually have my children was a virgin, though it would be kind of cool if she was when I met her. I'm a fairly traditional kind of guy, and I figured it would be pretty special if we could find out what this sex thing was all about together.
Of course I knew a little about sex. That was because I had practiced my part. Alone, of course. I knew how to make it spurt, and kept it in good working order so that, when it eventually got the call, nothing would be clogged up or anything like that. I might only get one chance to impress a woman, and I wanted that part of me in tip top condition. Besides, if you use a muscle, it gets bigger ... right?
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Friday morning, August 10th {Chris}
Some mornings, I look in the mirror and smile ... something Grandma taught me to do. Other mornings, all I can do is groan, which is what I did Friday morning. My mousy brown roots were shining as bright as the Christmas Star and I'd forgotten to pick up some more coloring to keep my shoulder length strands looking the shade of blond from Miss Clairol, which was called Sunblonde Brown. When I'd decided to follow the advice on changing my hair-color to enhance my love-life, which I'd read in a magazine in the doctor's office, I hadn't realized there were a thousand shades of blond ... well, maybe not that many, but all the boxes on the shelves for that color sure looked like a thousand when I was trying to decide which one I wanted to be.
"You're lucky you don't have to worry about your roots showing," I said to Lady, who was sitting in her usual morning spot ... the frog-themed bath rug in front of the shower, which she helped pick out.
She gave a short bark.
"Okay, I wouldn't, either, if I didn't color my hair. But blondes have more fun."
She whined and left a question mark at the end.
"Okay. Okay. Things haven't changed just because I colored my hair. Guys still don't look at anything but my boobs. That's all they've looked at since I was twelve."
She whimpered.
"I never will forget Rachel Johnson's twelfth birthday party. She turned twelve a month after I did. Her Mom let her have boys over too, which we were all excited about. Turned out to be the most gosh awful night of my life. All the girls got mad at me because the boys were practically fighting over me just so they could dance with me and touch my boobs. I slapped several hands before I refused to dance any more. Then, of all the stupid things, some of the boys tried to talk me into playing spin the bottle with them. They wanted to go in the closet with me so I could raise my blouse up for them. I told them to go to hell and had Rachel's dad take me home. And you know what?"
She cocked her ears.
"He told me boys were pigs and could be pretty stupid and would stay like that until they graduated to being just plain dumb, which is what they become when they mature... if they mature. Otherwise, they just stay stupid and those are the ones to avoid. The dumb ones are the ones to stick with because even though they're still pigs, they at least mean well. He and Daddy are the reasons I didn't swear off men forever."
She wagged her tail in response to my mentioning Dad, which I'm pretty sure was part of her training. The same as when I mention Mom, she rolls her eyes and howls. Dad is really fond of Mom, but he has a warped sense of humor that he manages to pass on to all of his dogs. I swear I know a Dave Bryant Golden Retriever the minute I look into its eyes.
Pulling my over-sized Snoopy sleep shirt over my head, I tossed it toward the hamper, and carefully checked over the prize melons men admired so much. My pink nipples always looked erect, even when they weren't aroused. Mom had once told me they were suckable, and I about died ... I was only thirteen at the time. My areolas were a darker shade of rose, and I pressed them gently with my fingers. When nothing felt out of place, I began a careful check of the rest of my breasts, which currently required a B-cup. I performed this self-examination once a week since I'd had a benign lump removed from the left breast two years earlier.
Finding nothing unusual, I reached for a button-up shirt I'd found at a yard-sale last year. A man's, it was big and roomy and I was comfortable moving around. I have several of these shirts, along with over-sized pull-over shirts. When I'd pulled on my cut-off shorts, I padded bare-foot into the kitchen to stir up some breakfast for Lady and some orange juice for myself. I was due at Lacey's in another half-hour and was looking forward to her blueberry pancakes, which she makes from scratch. She teaches cooking classes at the local college three days a week.
Feeding Lady, and making sure she had fresh water, I reached for the handle of the fridge and noticed, again, the invitation and the ticket for the Fine Arts League's First Annual Mens Benefit Auction next month. Unmarried men would be bid on by single women for an evening out. My friend Rachel, who is in charge of the event, had talked me into buying a ticket ... not that she had to do much talking. I was thrilled at the prospects of fate leading me to this ... of finding my toad and falling in love at first sight. The proceeds of the event would go to the Children's Hospital, it was worth going to even if nothing exciting happened. On a more practical note, I was also attending for the chance to gain some experience for an idea I was playing with for a future romance novel.
That's right, I'm one of those romance novelists who write pages of escapism, the kind I shamelessly read when I was a teenager. How else was I supposed to learn about the relationships between males and females? My sisters found their guys quickly, the minute they turned sixteen, which was the age we were allowed to date. Mom figured if we were responsible enough to drive a car, we were old enough to have a boyfriend. But they got their guys so fast that I hadn't had a chance to see how they went about doing it. And they'd refused to give me any pointers, claiming they were looking out for their baby sister the way Grandma Sparks had told them to do, which I believe was a load of hooey. They were just jealous because I'd developed boobs at the age of twelve and mine were bigger than theirs, which is probably why their boyfriends were so nice to me. I'm still bigger than them, but they're more mature now and don't let it bother them, at least not too much.
My success as a writer irritates them no end, too. Not because they're jealous -- because of the plain and simple reason I was supposed to become a teacher. That had been their plan for me since the day I was born and I was messing up my life because I wasn't following the plan. According to them I would be married and pregnant by now if I'd done what they'd told me to do, which is the reason they're not much help when it comes to my search for the man of my dreams.
"I'll show them," I said out loud as I reached for the juice.
Lady whined questioningly.
"My sisters," I told her. "The man I bid on will be the man I've been looking for all this time and I won't ask either of them to be in my wedding. They don't help me at all. Why should they be part of the fun? Grandma always says when people don't help carry the load they shouldn't reap any part of the gold."
The phone rang and Lady went down on her belly and covered her eyes with her front paws. Another Dave Bryant touch.
"Stay inside and don't go out 'til Monday," Lacey said into my ear when I picked up the receiver and spoke. "While you're at it, maybe you should just stay in bed."
Lacey and Paula are redheads just like Mom. I got Dad's hair and his eyes and his freckles. I even got his build ... other than the boobs. I have no idea where they came from. No woman on either side of the family has ever had anything bigger than AA, and Mom is convinced they resulted from the fact I was born under a full moon.
Anyway, in spite of her hair color, my second oldest sister has always "been" blonde ... the stereotypical blonde like Chrissy, from Three's Company. Lacey believes everything she's told and wouldn't know a bad guy if he was a wearing a sign saying, "Look out! I'm a bad guy!" One time, when she was thirteen, Paula was paying her back for something or other and convinced her our neighbor's newly-adopted two-year-old son was a leprechaun. His ears were an odd shape and she told Lacey those were the type of ears leprechauns have. Lacey spent two months trying to get the kid to tell her where his pot of gold was hidden. She would have been at it still today, I have no doubt, if I hadn't overheard her asking him one day and got the whole story from her.
So I was used to hearing her weird and strange pronouncements whenever she called me and was unfazed by this latest announcement.
"Have you been talking to your psycho, again?" I demanded with a giggle as I filled my glass with orange juice.
"Shhh! She's a psychic! And don't talk about her that way. Terrible things happen to people who scoff at the great mysteries."
"Lacey, for gosh sakes! The woman is your mother-in-law and she's a nut if ever there was one. Nice, but nutty. Did her shovel talk to her today? Or was it the water hose?"
"Her mirror. She saw a terrible disaster befall you."
"For the third time this week and nothing has happened. Well, if you don't count losing my grocery list. I just know it's the key to finding my toad."
Groaning, she said, "You're one to be talking about Harmonia being nuts!"
"Well, whatever is going to befall me will just have to befall me. I'm not staying inside for the next three days. I want blueberry pancakes. I'm also driving down to Daddy's later today. He called last night and asked me to come down."
"But you went down last weekend."
"I know. I think he's got some match-making scheme going."
"Hang on. I'll ask Harmonia if it's safe."
"But..."
She was gone and I was left listening to the theme of Dark Shadows coming from her TV. She has the whole series on DVD and watches two episodes a day religiously at the same time every morning unless something major comes up.
Harmonia adored Lacey from the moment George took her home after their first date when Lacey was sixteen. She told Lacey right before George was about to bring her back home that she was the one her son was supposed to marry. Her coffee pot told her, just that morning; he would be bringing home the girl he was going to marry that very day. Of course, Lacey did the appropriate thing and adored Harmonia right back. And, after George's dad died last year, Lacey insisted she move into their basement, which they finished out into a very nice apartment. Harmonia tends their garden, spoils her grandchildren, puts together five-thousand piece puzzles, bowls in the park, and is a psychic to anyone and everyone she meets, whether they need one or not.
Knowing Lacey could be gone anywhere from ten minutes to a day (Harmonia gets on a roll when she's being psychic), I hung up the phone and grabbed my things to head over there. I would keep Harmonia entertained while my sister cooked breakfast.
In case you're wondering, Lacey didn't carry the phone with her because Harmonia doesn't allow phones anywhere near her. She says they interfere with her psychic vibes.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Friday morning, August 10th [Bob]
I was almost late for work Friday morning. I had stayed up pretty late on the current ship, which is a Spanish Galleon that had a lot of intricate detail work on the hull and cabin areas. When I went to bed and set the alarm, Bandit was lying in the middle of the bed, on his back, doing a good imitation of a dying cockroach. He hated to be moved, and wouldn't even begin to listen to me when I told him to move over. He just showed me all those white teeth in his mouth, and let his tongue loll out to the side. Then, when I had to shove him over, he growled at me.
"Knock it off!" I growled back. "This is a people bed. I got you your own bed which, I might add, I could return to the store in unused condition!" The stub of his tail wagged, as if to say that was the way things were supposed to be.
Bandit also hated my alarm clock. So, after I was asleep, and he jumped down off the bed to do his rounds -- he thought he was a guard dog -- he pulled it down with his teeth and danced on the controls. He'd done that before, and had learned that it didn't make that awful noise in the morning if he danced on it long enough.
So, when I woke, refreshed from seven hours of sleep, and realized that it should have only been six, I rushed getting ready and barely made it to work on time. While the company might make tens of thousands of dollars on my work each week, they were pretty picky about me being late. Oddly enough I can call it a day pretty much whenever I want to, as long as my quota of work is done for the day. Since nobody has the faintest idea whether my work is done or not until I turn in the whole project, I could tell them just about anything and they wouldn't know the difference.
I got to work on the drawing for the new museum the city fathers had decided had to be built. I was working on the cornices for the building, the design for which was way too fancy for this day and age. Just for fun, I made a couple of tiny alterations. When it was built, the cornices would contain some of the design elements of a 16th century Spanish Galleon. I wondered if anybody would ever notice.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Friday morning, August 10th {Chris}
As predicted, The Sisters Meeting went nowhere other than over ground I'd seen before and ended up right back where the trip had started ... with one exception. They were putting forth a plan to go to Paris and kidnap Mom to bring her home where they would have Harmonia deprogram her from the spell Mark had obviously cast over her.
If it wasn't for Dad, I'd swear I was adopted.
Letting them know in explicit terms they'd lost their minds, I grabbed up a blueberry pancake and left with their growls ringing in my head. They accused me of rushing off on some hormonal, crazed, man-catching scheme while our mother was in the clutches of an obvious gold-digger. There were warnings that I would be lucky if I saw Christmas presents from them this year. This threat washed right over me. I'd been hearing the same thing since I was a kid, when I didn't do whatever it was to please them, and had yet to not receive gifts from them.
As I took a bite of the pancake, I punched the button on my phone for Dad.
"Hey, Sprig," he answered. "Don't tell me you're not coming down."
"Hey, Daddy. No, it's not that. I need you to talk to some sense into my sisters. They've completely flaked-out over Mom going to Paris with Mark."
"How bad is it?"
When I told him about their plan, he howled with laughter. "Abbott and Costello Versus Godzilla!"
"Daddy!"
"Not funny? I thought it was funny."
I had to giggle.
"That's better. Now go home and play with Lady and let me take care of your sisters. By the way, wear your black dress this evening."
"Is..."
He hung up and I discussed ... with my car ... out loud ... the probabilities of him driving me crazy before I reached thirty, as I drove to my AA meeting. My AA meetings take place on Friday mornings at eleven in the basement of the Lutheran church a couple of blocks from my house.
No, I'm not an alcoholic, having never touched anything harder than wine, but I began attending the meeting two months ago when I read the success of a couple in one of those true love confession magazines while standing in line at Wal-Mart. The lady decided to attend the meeting at the advice of her mother who said, "Go to an AA meeting. These are all men who are trying to solve a problem in their lives, which takes great strength to deal with. Many of them know what they've already lost, and will treasure what they find with you." It was one of those love-at-first-sight kinds of things at that first meeting and they'd lived happily ever after for the past twenty-years.
Since it worked for her, I figured why not me?
So, I found the meeting at the Lutheran church and made my way there one Friday morning. What I hadn't expected was that, though I didn't have to say anything (not even give my name), I was the only woman in attendance and all the men instantly decided they were my knight on a white horse. That they all cared about me was obvious. Within the first half-hour each one of them encouraged me to introduce myself, and admit I was alcoholic.
Of course, I couldn't do any such thing and, being too embarrassed to admit the real reason I was there, which I doubt they would have believed anyway, I planned to get away during the break where they served donuts and orange juice. I never even made it close to the exit. I was surrounded by fifteen sweet well-meaning married older gentlemen and ended up staying the entire meeting. Not only that, I told them my name was Chris and admitted I was an alcoholic.
I got a standing ovation.
I know I could have stayed away after that first meeting, but I promised them I would come back every week, and when I make a promise I can't not keep it unless it's a life or death situation or an act of nature or something else along those lines. I'd even discussed it with Grandma Sparks to maybe see if it would be okay to get out of it since she's the one who taught us about making promises. She told me that's what I got for lying to begin with and I'd better be a good influence, support and example for those troubled men or she'd paddle my behind every day for the rest of my life.
So, I pretend to be an alcoholic and attend my meetings regularly. I even have a sponsor ... Ed. His name was chosen out of the hat when the men decided that was the only fair way for them to choose a sponsor for me. He's fifty years old and has three grand-children between his daughter and son. He's shown me pictures of them over lunch which we have once a week. They're a really nice-looking family. I've shown him pictures of Lady and of my nieces and nephews.
Ed thinks I'm doing wonderfully, since I never even glance at the wine list at lunch.
I often wonder if my dream toad is going to be able to accept the double life I lead.
Chapter Three
Friday, mid morning, August 10th [Bob]
June, the Boss's secretary, had to call my name twice before I looked up at her. My drafting pencil was poised, and I'm sure it looked like I was thinking about where the next line would go, and how important it was for it to be perfect.
In actuality, I had been thinking of my dream woman. I had been thinking, specifically, about what could be done with fresh strawberries, in terms of eating them, not from a plate, and not with a fork, or fingers. She'd been pretty specific in her list and I was dreaming about how I'd push my lips into her sex, to latch onto a strawberry. I was wondering what the mixture of tastes would be like. I didn't know what a horny vagina tasted like, but I was pretty sure it didn't taste like strawberries. If it did, that was the kind of thing that would make the rounds of the rumor mill in third grade.
I had moved on from strawberries to maraschino cherries, perched in a bed of whipped cream the size of areolas, when June started calling my name.
I looked up.
"Jasper wants to see you," she said, frowning slightly.
Jasper was what she called Mr. Thornbill, who owned the company, though he liked to call himself the CEO, instead of the owner. Nobody was allowed to call him Jasper, except June, who called herself an executive secretary, instead of just a secretary. I doubt his wife even called Mr. Thornbill Jasper, assuming she was allowed to speak to him at all. He was kind of impressed with himself, even though he couldn't draw a straight line with the help of a ruler.
I walked along the wall, following June. I knew the deal, though, and waited until she went around her desk and sat down. She checked papers on her desk, like I wasn't there, and then picked up the phone and punched a button.
"Mr. Randall is here, Sir," she said sweetly.
She put the phone down and said "You can go in now."
I went in and assumed the position of parade rest, which was what they called it when they showed me how to report to Mr. Thornbill. I knew it was some kind of military term, which seemed odd, since Jasper Thornbill had never been in the military. I'd heard a rumor that, during the Vietnam situation, he'd been a divinity student, which meant he had a 4F exemption from the draft. I guess as soon as that war was over, though, he decided - quite rightly, if you ask me - that he wasn't cut from the cloth of a ... man of the cloth. So, when he got his inheritance of some odd millions of dollars, he opened an architectural firm. He wasn't cut from that cloth either, but he hired people who were, and his some odd millions turned into bunches of millions.
Mr. Thornbill's head was down, like he was reading something important. He looked up from the completely bare, polished surface of his desk, which comprised possibly a quarter of an acre. It was built of some exotic, heavy wood from the rain forests and had actually taken a crane to move into his office. It was too big to fit in the elevators, and there was no way anybody could get it up a stairwell. So he had a bank of windows removed, and a crane hoisted the thing up, where it was pulled through the empty window area, after which the windows were re-installed. He spent more getting that desk in his office than he paid me in two years.
"I got a call from the Mayor yesterday," Jasper said, without preamble. "He wanted to know how the museum project was coming." He smiled, which meant I was in terrible jeopardy. "I told him everything was up to snuff, and might even be done early."
I didn't tell him I was already a week ahead of the schedule I'd been given by the architects. I did that pretty routinely, so that when they threw in all those last minute changes, I had more time to incorporate them into the original design. The only thing changes meant, to me, were new lines, and the erasing of some of the previously drawn lines. The architects saw it differently, of course. They were worried about stress loads, and torsion values and all that stuff. The other reason I routinely got ahead of schedule, was because if I had to erase lines, that paid differently than simply drawing new ones in blank spaces.
"Yes, Sir," I said. "We are right on schedule, and it is possible it could be done early."
"How early?" he asked.
"I'd hazard it could be as much as two or three days, Sir," I said.
"That much?" He was obviously impressed. Nobody else in the company ever got anything done on time.
"If there aren't too many late-stage alterations, Sir," I said.
"Excellent!" he said, expansively. "I knew I could count on you, Grindell!"
I decided not to remind him my name was Randall. He was happy, and that meant I'd stay employed, and happy too.
What's in a name, anyway?
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Friday evening, August 10th {Chris}
When the rain started pouring at the same time my tire decided to go flat, Lady and I discussed turning around and taking our butts back home to hide under the bed. Family loyalty won out, though, and we arrived at Dad's fifteen minutes before dinner was scheduled to be served.
I was such a mess from changing the tire, Lady and I went in the back door, which lets into the mud-room. Lady promptly shook herself and touched noses with Mac, the blind four-year-old Retriever Dad keeps in the house. He was wagging his tail a mile a minute and smiling at us.
"Hey, Mac" I said, scratching his ears. "Good thing I'm not a burglar, huh?"
His tail still wagging, he turned and led us through the kitchen which smelled like roasted chicken, and up the back stairs to our room.
Twenty minutes later, wearing the requested black dress, which hangs just below my knees, and with a different hairdo than I left home with, I entered the living room and immediately felt like an actor who walks on stage into the wrong play.
For starters, I was the only one "dressed" for dinner. Then I noticed I was the only female in a room of five men -- one of whom was my father, looking as if he'd just destroyed the last flea known to mankind.
Wondering if my male parent had finally taken complete leave of his senses without any of us being aware of his problem, I greeted Paul, Jerry, Dan and Evan as I was introduced to them. I noted their hair color -- gold, mahogany, gray and red -- so I could keep their names straight. Dad explained I would be hostess for the weekend since his wife had gone to visit her mother.
"So what do ya' think?" Dad asked when we were alone in the kitchen to get the food ready to serve. "Enough variety for ya'?"
"Are you feelin' okay, Daddy?" I asked, touching his forehead. "Maybe I should give Doc Ben a call."
Laughing, he pushed my hand away. "There's nothing wrong with me, Sprig. I just decided we were going about things all wrong. A little healthy competition never hurts when it comes to mating."
Before I could wrap my head around this to respond, he'd blitzed out of the room and called for the men to come help themselves to the buffet.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Friday evening, August 10th [Bob]
When I got home Friday night, Bandit practiced his ambush technique on me. When he heard an intruder picking the lock, which was, in reality, me using my key, he hid behind the chair I watched TV in and waited until the unlucky burglar, which in this case was me, came in and closed off all avenue of rapid escape.
I realized his plan, when his teeth latched onto my calf and he gave a ferocious, if somewhat muffled growl.
"OW!" I screamed. "You stupid dog!"
He let go, and sat, wagging his tail and waiting for praise for defending the house.
I limped to the table where I put my keys, wallet, pocket knife and pocket protector in a basket I used for that stuff, while Bandit sulked at the fact that I didn't praise him. I did, however, say a few things.
"You're supposed to have a sense of smell that's ten thousand times better than mine," I snarled at him. "Or something like that," I added, in case I was off by a few thousand. "You're supposed to be able to sense it's me when I'm clear out at the car! Are you retarded or something?" I limped to the kitchen. "No wonder somebody dumped you! You think about that, Mister!"
He went and walked around by the door, like he was looking for a good place to take a dump, and I scurried over to let him out. He ran into the yard, barking like crazy, scaring off all the other dogs that weren't there, and that he didn't smell. Then he rooted around in the forsythia bush and brought me one of the shoes I didn't know he'd smuggled out. The toe was eaten off already, and he wanted to play fetch.
When you play fetch with Bandit, it isn't like playing fetch with a real retriever. What happens is you throw the shoe, or ball, or whatever, and he chases it and kills it. Then he runs back to you and sits, leaving the dead object in the grass. The only way you can get him to go get it and bring it back is to act like you're going inside, and aren't going to play any more. What he actually wants is for you to do the fetching part. He just does the killing part, and then it's your job to go get the dead thing, bring it back to life, and throw it again, so he can kill it one more time.
I've tried outsmarting him. Like I tried throwing the ball five feet away, so I wouldn't have to go so far to get it, after it was dead. Of course he ran twenty feet out in the yard, where I was supposed to throw it, and sat down, waiting for the thing he was supposed to kill to get close enough to him to make it worth his while. Another time I tried throwing it once, and when he didn't bring it back, I went and got it and took it in the house, explaining in very clear English that, if he wasn't going to play right, we just weren't going to play. I left him outside, when he didn't come on command.
When you do that, he plays the miner game, where he digs for gold, so he can hire somebody to fetch things for him. Or he chews the toe off a shoe he's somehow smuggled outside. Since there is more gold than shoes, and, since he never seems to find any, he moves around a lot. Bandit doesn't consider a dry hole a failure. It simply means he needs to move five feet away and destroy more lawn.
Mowing the yard, at my house, is a little like four-wheeling in a Ford Bronco. The mower does lots of lurching and tilting, and powering out of holes.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Tuesday morning, August 14th {Chris}
While bad things sometimes happen to me on any given day of the week -- such as the fiasco last Friday -- Tuesday is the day I should just pull the covers up over my head and stay in bed.
Nothing bad ever happens to me on Mondays. Flat tires, bad hair, late to an appointment, Grandma calling because she's convinced her neighbor is a peeping Tom and other various disasters come mostly on Tuesdays. Thus, I hate Tuesdays rather than Mondays. Even putting one toe on the floor invites instant disaster. For instance, one time I'd barely touched my big toe to the floor when the phone rang and I heard a police officer inquire if I was the granddaughter of a Mrs. Edna Sparks.
I wanted to deny knowing the woman, but I knew Mom would kill me -- besides the man sounded like he was cute -- so I told him I was indeed her youngest granddaughter. He then informed me she needed to be picked up at the station. She and several other ladies in their upper years had been detained for disturbing the peace and they couldn't go home until someone in their family came in and signed for them.
Of course the officer turned out to be old enough to be my dad, and Grandma nearly got re-arrested before we got out of the station for trying to hit some guy with her purse. He'd whistled and made a suggestive comment to me. And all this happened because while she and her friends were bird-watching in the park, they got into an argument over Elvis being alive or dead and one thing led to another and they ended up in a brawl that resembled something in a bar.
And I swear, if they'd been bird watching on their usual day -- Friday -- rather than Tuesday, none of it would have happened.
So, the Tuesday after my weekend at Dad's, I was reluctant to get out of bed, but I had no choice. The phone was ringing and wouldn't stop. I have a machine, but the caller was hanging-up and redialing before the machine answered.
Lady was hunkered down as usual.
"You could go knock it off the hook and bury it in the backyard," I said as I made my way into the kitchen. I refuse to have a phone in my bedroom -- even if I do have a cordless.
Surprised to see Paula's name on the caller I.D. (it was well within the 'at least two weeks' that Lacey and Paula had said they weren't going to speak to me,) I said, "Good morning, Sweet Sister. I thought you weren't talking to me for the remainder of our lives."
"This is an emergency, Squirt. Have you seen the morning paper?"
"I just got up. You know how I feel about Tuesdays."
"You really should see a psychologist. Dan could get you in with someone."
Dan is her husband and he's a wonderful pediatric psychologist. I'm sure he's had loads of fun over the years figuring out our family. He's her second husband. Her first, Brian, the one she met when she was sixteen, ran off with a man who was released from prison, right after their second girl was born.
Paula pulled herself together after six months and went to work as a receptionist in a pediatrician's office, which is where, a year later, she bumped into Dan one fine rainy morning. They hit it off, in spite of the ten years difference in their ages, and had gotten married within three months.
"He'd just tell me I'm normal for my age," I replied. "What about the paper?"
Laughing, she said, "You're not normal for any age. Look on the second page, there's an ad I think you'll be interested in seeing."
"Lady, go bring --"
She was sitting at my feet, the paper on the floor as pretty as you please.
Thanking her and rubbing her ears, I opened up the paper.
"Oh, holy shitsky!" I gasped.
Paula was rolling with laughter.
Moaning, I cursed Dad's head a thousand times for his latest match-making scheme.
Dudley Do-Right is the only way to describe Evan Collier, the red-headed pick from the mix I'd encountered at Dad's over the weekend. He was tall and gangly with curly red hair and the poor guy seemed to be unable to walk without tripping over his own feet. According to Dad, though, he was a genius with animals (the man is one of the new vets at the clinic Dad uses,) and the fact he'd asked to meet me after Dad showed him a picture of me made Dad certain he was worth a shot.
Over the weekend, when I'd spent time talking to him in between talking with the others, I'd figured out there must be a "male" counterpart to 101 Ways to Catch a Man and 25 Ways to Keep Him Hooked for Life called 101 Ways to Catch a Woman and 25 Ways to Keep Her Hooked for Life and by some wild coincidence they'd all been reading the same book. I mean, they all opened with the same line, which the book recommends and then proceeded to talk about themselves for exactly two minutes before saying another line from the book.
I haven't read the book, of course, but the female version suggests doing the same thing to catch a man. I'd just read that section a couple of days before and was still trying to decide on whether or not to go that route. After encountering the men at Dad's I'd decided to skip that section and only come back to it if I didn't have any luck with the rest of the book.
I'd been polite the whole weekend, being on my best behavior, other than giving ridiculous answers to some of their questions, hoping they'd find me too crazy for their tastes. Apparently, I'd succeeded with all but Evan, who had obviously decided I was his Miss Right.
Which brings us to the paper ... in which he had placed an ad.
Not only had he proposed, he'd written a poem, which was included in the ad, and there was an image of a dozen red roses along with a teddy bear.
The whole thing was beautiful and yet hideous. I wasn't the slightest bit interested in marrying the well-meaning sap and now I would no doubt be labeled a fool and an idiot for not accepting the proposal -- since at the bottom of the ad, in small print, he'd requested a response to the proposal in the form of another ad, which he'd left payment for at the paper. He wanted to celebrate our happiness with the world -- or at least the world that read this particular paper.
I hadn't even gotten a warning from Harmonia that something gosh awful was going to befall me this week. Of course, Lacey wasn't speaking to me.
"Do I gather correctly that you and Evan won't be coming to dinner this evening?" Paula got out between her giggles.
I hung up on her. Immature, I know, and I regretted it the moment I did it -- the phone rang again. It was Dad.
Watching Lady go into her routine, I picked it up and before I could say anything, he said, "I just knew he was the one."
"But, Daddy --"
"I can't wait to see your response, Honey."
"But, Daddy --"
"You write so beautifully."
"Daddy! --"
"Gotta go. A student just came in. Love ya."
He was gone to train a dog, leaving me stuck with a mess he created. I looked at Lady, who was looking at me.
"He is the most frustrating man I have ever--"
The phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and sighed.
"Hey, Grandma," I said.
"Why in the hell have I not met this man you intend to marry?" she demanded in a tone that was meant to have me trembling and falling to my knees. "Do you know how embarrassing it is to have my friends asking me questions and not be able to tell them a damn thing?"
"Now, Grandma, would I ever get engaged to a man before he meets you and gets inspected by my Number One Grandma?"
"Phooey!" Her tone lightened. "I'm your only Grandma. Now what in the dickens have you got yourself into this time?"
"How about Lady and I come over for some of your biscuits and gravy?"
"I suppose you want cantaloupe, too."
"Yes, Ma'am. We'll be there as soon as I can pull on some clothes and brush my teeth. Love you."
The phone rang six more times before I got out the door, but I didn't answer. And I'd turned the machine down so I couldn't hear whatever messages might be left. I wasn't in any shape to be taking any more calls -- at least not 'til I had breakfast and talked to Grandma.
Chapter Four
Tuesday morning, August 14th [Bob]
I leaned over and picked up the paper on the floor by the door to the front office, as usual, and stuck it under my arm like I'd brought it to work with me. I know it was a silly childish thing to steal the company paper, but the fact is that I'd never seen anybody in the whole place ever pick it up. There were days, when I didn't steal it, that it lay there all day. I decided, one day when I was bored, that someone had ordered the paper just for me. Therefore, it wasn't stealing ... now was it?
Actually, I read the paper mostly for laughs. The Banner, as it was called, was about half a step above the average college newspaper. I thought of it as the place where all those journalism grads went who didn't get hired by The Post, or The Journal, or The Times. It was kind of fun to see what they came up with for headlines. They had a tendency to leave out punctuation that could be critical, or just use words that could have more than one meaning, such as one headline I saw one day that said: "Priest Holds Hostage" in big bold letters. What it was supposed to be was a headline to go with a photograph of some poor woman who'd been taken hostage by her husband, or boyfriend, or whatever, and when she escaped, the Priest hugged her. With The Banner, you got the kind of thing that ended up on The Tonight Show, with Jay Leno.
And, the kind of people who advertised in The Banner were the equivalent of those guys you see in car commercials at two-thirty in the morning, between re-runs of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, and infomercials about the thing that slices, dices, wakes you in a storm, brews beer and shines your tennis shoes, all for four low payments of thirty-nine-ninety-nine.
So, my first order of the day was usually to start that day off with humor, by leafing through The Banner and seeing how many screw-ups I could find in ten minutes.
On this day, I hit a gold mine. Some hopeless schmuck had actually proposed to his lady fair in the paper! And he did it on page two, no less, which almost anybody who reads a paper actually gets to. That meant that everybody who bought this rag, (and those of us who stole it,) would actually see what he'd done. And he didn't just propose. He wrote a poem! And it wasn't just any poem. It was a singularly bad poem. You'll never get to see it if I don't repeat it here. Not even Leno would use this stuff. But here it is, so you'll know why I laughed so loud that people came to see what was wrong.
Chris, fair Chris, now hear me out,
My heart is pining for ya.
I am so blue, from needing you,
The fairest Peach, in Georgia.
Nothing means as much to me,
As the bonny fair lass named Chris
I beg ye now, come make my day,
And join me in wedded bliss.
Evan
And, if that wasn't enough, the guy basically included a self addressed stamped envelope, except that this girl had to answer his proposal in kind ... in the paper ... for all the world to see.
I read it again. There was a picture of a teddy bear, for pity's sake, and roses. Maybe Chris was a guy, and Evan was gay. No, that couldn't be. Gay marriage wasn't legal in our state. At least not yet.
I couldn't wait. I might actually buy The Banner every day for a week, just to make sure I didn't miss her answer. Maybe she'd answer him in Haiku. I could just imagine it:
Should I marry you
This is not a quandary
No - fuck off Evan
I wondered if it was legal to print "Fuck Off, Evan"
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Tuesday morning, August 14th {Chris}
"Where in God's time have you been?" Grandma demanded as Lady and I walked in the back door of her house an hour later. "I was about ready to phone the police."
"They wouldn't have had to look far," I replied, sitting down in my place. Lady went to the rug in front of the sink and curled up. "I was already with one of them. Officer James Huntley."
"Nancy Grayson's sister's boy?"
I swear Grandma knows everyone in the world. I could take her anywhere and she would meet someone's sister's boy or someone's cousin's girl or any other combination there is. She and her friends -- including ladies from all over on the Internet -- have a network like nothing I've ever seen.
"I'm not sure," I said, reaching for a biscuit. "We didn't exactly get around to discussing our relatives, friends and other acquaintances."
"Oh, pish! You young people! What exactly did you get around to discussing?"
"My going seven miles an hour over the speed limit. A thousand cars around doing at least two-hundred miles an hour and he pulls me over for that little piddly amount, which I wouldn't have been doing if there hadn't been a spider swinging on a web in front of my face. Of course, the spider disappeared in all the excitement and Officer Huntley insisted I take the Breathalyzer, which apparently he didn't believe since he also put me through several other sobriety tests before being convinced I wasn't intoxicated or otherwise impaired."
"Sounds just like Nancy's sister's boy," she replied, taking a sip of coffee. "I met him at the police station when I visited it that time -- you know when they came and got us but were too busy to take us back to the park and you were kind enough to come and get me? Anyway, I met him that day and he's such a nice young man. He's a hunk, too, as I recall."
"I was hardly in the mood to notice."
"Fiddle-sticks! You ain't ever not noticed a man of any type. You're just like me. Did you ask him for his phone number?"
"Not exactly."
"Land sakes alive, Child! How on earth do you expect to get a man if you don't take advantage of the opportunities you're given?"
"It's Tuesday, Grandma. If I'd asked for his number he would have arrested me for solicitation or some such thing. And I have enough problems already -- thanks to my very own father."
"Don't worry. Nancy and I will work out something."
"Grandma!"
"Hush-up and tell me about this Evan fella'."
"There's not really much to tell," I said and went on to explain about my weekend.
"Good Lord. How old is he?"
"Thirty-five. Before I was with him five minutes, the only thing I could think of was Dudley Do-right."
She cackled and I took a swallow of orange juice.
"Daddy called me right before you called. He's as excited as he is when one of his bitches gives birth to a litter. I couldn't get a word in edge-wise. He honestly believes I'm going to marry this goof-ball."
"He'll get over it."
"But will I?"
"Of course, you will. Call the paper and see how soon you can put in a response to the proposal and just get it over with. Write flowery and heart-wrenching and let him down as gently as possible."
"Killing him might be easier."
"Yes, but if you're arrested for murder you won't be able to go out with your Officer Huntley."
"He's not my officer."
"Of course he is. He obviously pulled you over to flirt with you, got nervous and botched the whole thing. Men do dumb things. It's our job to help them out."
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Wednesday morning, August 15th [Bob]
It was actually a let down, Wednesday morning, when I opened the paper I actually spent money for, for once, and saw Chris' response to Evan's proposal. In gigantenormous letters was the single word
"YES!!!!!"
Well, that's how it is with reality newspapers. You get all worked up for something cool, and the reality lets you down. Chris had the opportunity to grab me by the balls, and get my attention, but she sputtered and died in the crunch.
I put the paper down. I'd wasted precious time laughing at Evan and hoping Chris would provide me with some entertainment. I needed to get back to the more important business of finding my dream woman.
It was almost a week since I'd found the list, and I'd done a lot of thinking about my dream woman. Most of it, sadly, was more along the lines of a bad romance novel, where I dreamed up the steamy parts, and plugged us in as the hero and heroine. What I hadn't done much of was make progress on coming up with a plan to find her.
On Wednesday, I tried to think about finding my dream woman using logic. The list said she had been on her "regular Thursday shopping trip". It had been blowing around the parking lot, which meant it hadn't been there too long. I'd been there around five. If she went at the same time each Thursday, that meant she'd be there each Thursday around, say, four at the earliest. Of course I didn't know if she'd dropped it on the way into, or out of the supermarket, but I figured four was the earliest she'd be there.
That meant that I needed to be at the supermarket by three thirty, just to be safe, and spend however long it took to spot her. I wasn't sure just how I'd do that, yet, but I was pretty certain that, based on my unbridled love for this fair maiden, that something would come to me. I was inspired, after all. I'd have to finagle my work load so I could leave early, that day, but I had all week to do that. It wasn't unheard of for a draftsman to do a site visit, to get the lay of the land, so to speak, and look at adjoining spaces. There wasn't actually a good reason for doing that, but it was an accepted practice by people who didn't understand drawing. Lots of people who didn't need to, did site visits. Jasper did site visits all the time, and the only thing he was qualified to do was use a toilet.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Wednesday morning, August 15th {Chris}
Wednesday morning would have been better than Tuesday if I hadn't carefully looked out my front window and seen Evan -- along with a thousand people -- at my front door. Okay, maybe it wasn't that many bodies, but when you've just been awakened by the door-bell ringing and the cold nose of a Golden Retriever on the back of your neck, even just one person at your front door at the crack of dawn can look like a stadium full of folks.
I couldn't really complain about not being warned of the impending doom outside my door. Certain I'd be bombarded with calls as soon as the paper came out and not wanting to deal with anyone before noon, I'd silenced the ringer on my phone before going to bed the night before. I was certain if I listened to the messages on my machine there would be plenty of people telling me I was headed up the creek without a paddle.
But I never dreamed the circus would show up outside my door at eight in the morning.
Taking another look to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, I noticed some of those well-meaning people were bearing cameras -- one of them was Dad. He and Evan both were wearing tie and tails. That's when I noticed the others, some of whom I recognized as my sisters and their families, were dressed to the nines, too.
"Well, are you gonna' let them in, or not?"
I squeaked and turned to see Grandma standing in the doorway leading from the kitchen. She has a key to my back door. Thank God, she'd kept everyone else out of the house.
"Good Lord, Child!" she continued. "You're still in your pajamas. Go get some clothes on, while I let them in. We can't have a wedding with the bride not properly dressed."
"What?"
She cackled.
"Simmer down, Sweetie. They're not here for the wedding -- least not today. I talked your father out of that, for which you owe me. He was ready to bring the preacher and the whole shebang when he saw the paper."
"Looks like he didn't leave much of the shebang out," I replied.
Snorting, she said, "Why in thunder didn't you do what I told you?"
I explained about deciding at the last minute that I simply couldn't turn Evan down in front of a million people -- okay, the few thousand who read the paper. My plan had been to just give a one word response along with picking out a teddy-bear image to go with my "Yes". Then, in private, I'd tell him I'd changed my mind.
"Maybe you shouldn't have made it quite so big," said Grandma, "or used all those exclamation points."
"All I told them was to print the word 'yes'," I complained. "And I didn't specify a size or any exclamation points. The editor obviously wanted to put in a little pizzazz."
"And your father added his own pizzazz by bringing everyone here to celebrate."
I sighed and shook my head. "All I wanted to do was let Evan down in private. Not have everyone laughing at him."
Hugging me she said, "You meant well, Doll. I love ya' -- we all do. Now go get changed and I'll take care of things out here so you can talk to Evan in private."
"Thanks, Grandma." I kissed her cheek. "You're the best."
"I know." She pinched my cheek. "By the way, you're having lunch with your Officer Huntley at one this afternoon at The Olive Garden."
"Grandma!"
"Scram!"
"But--"
She reached to open the front door and, cursing, I high-tailed it to my room.
* * * * * * * * * * * *
Thursday, August 16th [Bob]
Thursday, it turned out that I could leave early without an excuse. Jasper and all the big dogs had gotten in on a benefit golf tournament, where they got to hobnob with other movers and shakers in town. They all arrived at work wearing checkered slacks and pullover shirts with alligators or polo ponies on them, and strutted around saying words like "handicap" and "par" and "bogey". One guy even wore his golf shoes in. He slipped on the marble floor outside the elevator and landed hard. The crystal of his Rolex cracked, which was mourned more than the fact that his elbow didn't want to work right any more.
So, when I was ready to slip out and go find my princess, there were very few people around to see me do it.
In the week since I'd found the list, she was all I could think about. I knew it was crazy, but that's the way it was. I was sure that something would click when I saw her, and I'd just know ... you know?
I cruised the parking lot, and waited until I found a parking spot that would let me see the front of the store.
I sat there for forty-five minutes. I counted eighty-seven "possibles" going in or coming out, before I realized how ridiculous this plan was.
I saw lots of women who I hoped were her ... women of all shapes and sizes, and dressed in all sorts of ways. It was summer, so my girl-watching was fun, even though it was idiotic. It was time to move on to plan B.
Plan B was to hang out inside the market, at one of the parts of the store she might shop in again. I mean you had to replace strawberries ... right? A small bag of Ruffles only lasted so long, and I didn't think too many people would buy red vines on a given Thursday, between four and six.
The problem was that all those items were in different parts of the store, and I had no idea which one to zero in on. Lots of people buy Ruffles, and who knew how long a package of licorice would last her? It was summer, and everybody was buying strawberries. Everything else on the list was scattered all around the store too, and the kind of thing anybody might pick up.