I had just retired…well not retired in the sense I had reach the age of maturity and financial stability never to have to go back to work again, but retired in the sense that I just got off for the day and come home and was in my underwear, and was in no way doing anything that would in at all resemble work...at least until tomorrow. It was my normal posture on a Tuesday evening, well, I guess on a Wednesday as well, Thursday, also, lets just say this is how I spent my evenings.
Dinnertime had passed and I had already moved on to my desert. I had managed to gather up enough energy to put some brownies in a microwave and then heap a pile of ice cream over the top. However, this of course had only come after begging my wife to do it for me, but to no avail. I had brought my evening’s prize over to my favorite armchair, well my only armchair, but it was my favorite. While still piling the loads of sugary delight into my cavernous abyss of a mouth I plumped into my throne. Stopping my mastication only for a second I set my bowl on top of my lap and reached for the handle to the recliner. With more effort than I wished to exert I threw the chair back into its maximum reclined position.
“Ahhhh….” I breathed a sigh in relief. “Sweet victory…” But alas…it was not so, I had made one fatal flaw…
The remote! I shouted it so loud in my head it felt I had started an avalanche-like torrent of negative emotion. Oh what foolishness that I could forget such a vital detail into this evening’s adventure. I saw it sitting there on the coffee table in front of the couch next to me. And there I was, stranded on my own personal desert island, in the maximum reclined position, with a full belly that might as well been an obese elephant at this point. I wouldn’t move now, I couldn’t! I had already reached the maximum reclination as it were (and it was). Pulling the lever back in order to recline was one thing, but well…haha…pushing it up to get out that was a whole different story! The lever would always stick around midnight on the clock and the last decent down in the clockwise direction always caused just enough exertion of energy to be annoying, and under these conditions…unacceptable.
“Stupid…foolish…what a terrific folly,” I thought to myself. One can not imagine the discomfort in which I know lay. My entire night foiled by such a horrible error. Panic stricken I looked around frantically for a solution. My head bobbing and weaving, eyes darting, racing, hoping, yearning for a way out of this mess; and there she was…
My beautiful wife! She lay there in a sort of golden glow about her, her head halfway strewn on a pillow, mouth slightly open, eyes almost closed, wheezing as she breathed in and out, half-asleep, half-awake? Who knows? All I knew it was up to her now…she would have to reach for it.
By all means I was justified in my thoughts; it was indeed closer to her on the couch than it was to me. She could reach for it, lying on her stomach, her left arm pinned up against the couch, her right trapped underneath her body. It may have had to take her rolling over, which of course might be too much to ask, but she may have just been able to reach for it with the right arm if pulled out from underneath her.
I stared at her, as if willing my sense of necessity into her very spirit. The glow of the TV reflecting off her face, shadows dancing as the screen went from light to dark, I saw a slight twinkle in her eyes. She had felt my gaze…
Slowly lifting her head in my direction we caught eyes. A slight cough and a sigh erupted from her lips, she knew what I wanted.
“Are you kidding?” Is all she said. My blank stare indeed let her know it was not a jest.
“You are the laziest kid ever.” We had been married two months and she already knew me like her favorite novel!
But in those moments I saw a bit of contemplation, I could read it in her eyes! I knew her as well, two months earlier she would have pounced on the remote to give it to me, so maybe I could still work some of that charm.
“I love you.” Swish! It had to work.
Movement! She grunted and lifted her arm out from under her, stretching, reaching for the technological messiah of our current predicament. Her fingers stretched and curled as she reached towards the end of the remote. Using the very tips of her nails she inched it forward into her grasp. What a woman!
Without moving the base of her body she threw out her arm holding the remote at some strange spider-like cockeyed angle towards me. “All right…” I thought, a little movement on my part was necessary, but I sat up just enough to reach for the remote. Oh man I could taste it! I imagined the sensation it would have in my hand, the long slender plastic sense of security it would bring. Victory was ever so near. I reached, I reached out…and as I was about to grab it…she dropped it.
A conniving smile spread across her lips, and the faintest laughter was heard. She giggled, reveling in my misfortune. It was if an icy dagger had been plunged into my heart. I swear in that four seconds of misery there was pain unrivaled. I had been betrayed, betrayed by the foulest of vixens.
So I grabbed the DVD remote instead that was ever so cleverly wedged in my seat cushion and hit play, little did she know but Ong Bak the Thai Warrior had been stashed in the DVD player for just such an occasion. As the screams of Thai martial artists and the subtitles appeared on the screen I knew whose day it was. It was my turn to smile. Oh if I could only capture and sell the look she gave me, talk about WMDs, it would have killed any mere mortal man. But not this one…not this night, I had won this little adventure…
Dinnertime had passed and I had already moved on to my desert. I had managed to gather up enough energy to put some brownies in a microwave and then heap a pile of ice cream over the top. However, this of course had only come after begging my wife to do it for me, but to no avail. I had brought my evening’s prize over to my favorite armchair, well my only armchair, but it was my favorite. While still piling the loads of sugary delight into my cavernous abyss of a mouth I plumped into my throne. Stopping my mastication only for a second I set my bowl on top of my lap and reached for the handle to the recliner. With more effort than I wished to exert I threw the chair back into its maximum reclined position.
“Ahhhh….” I breathed a sigh in relief. “Sweet victory…” But alas…it was not so, I had made one fatal flaw…
The remote! I shouted it so loud in my head it felt I had started an avalanche-like torrent of negative emotion. Oh what foolishness that I could forget such a vital detail into this evening’s adventure. I saw it sitting there on the coffee table in front of the couch next to me. And there I was, stranded on my own personal desert island, in the maximum reclined position, with a full belly that might as well been an obese elephant at this point. I wouldn’t move now, I couldn’t! I had already reached the maximum reclination as it were (and it was). Pulling the lever back in order to recline was one thing, but well…haha…pushing it up to get out that was a whole different story! The lever would always stick around midnight on the clock and the last decent down in the clockwise direction always caused just enough exertion of energy to be annoying, and under these conditions…unacceptable.
“Stupid…foolish…what a terrific folly,” I thought to myself. One can not imagine the discomfort in which I know lay. My entire night foiled by such a horrible error. Panic stricken I looked around frantically for a solution. My head bobbing and weaving, eyes darting, racing, hoping, yearning for a way out of this mess; and there she was…
My beautiful wife! She lay there in a sort of golden glow about her, her head halfway strewn on a pillow, mouth slightly open, eyes almost closed, wheezing as she breathed in and out, half-asleep, half-awake? Who knows? All I knew it was up to her now…she would have to reach for it.
By all means I was justified in my thoughts; it was indeed closer to her on the couch than it was to me. She could reach for it, lying on her stomach, her left arm pinned up against the couch, her right trapped underneath her body. It may have had to take her rolling over, which of course might be too much to ask, but she may have just been able to reach for it with the right arm if pulled out from underneath her.
I stared at her, as if willing my sense of necessity into her very spirit. The glow of the TV reflecting off her face, shadows dancing as the screen went from light to dark, I saw a slight twinkle in her eyes. She had felt my gaze…
Slowly lifting her head in my direction we caught eyes. A slight cough and a sigh erupted from her lips, she knew what I wanted.
“Are you kidding?” Is all she said. My blank stare indeed let her know it was not a jest.
“You are the laziest kid ever.” We had been married two months and she already knew me like her favorite novel!
But in those moments I saw a bit of contemplation, I could read it in her eyes! I knew her as well, two months earlier she would have pounced on the remote to give it to me, so maybe I could still work some of that charm.
“I love you.” Swish! It had to work.
Movement! She grunted and lifted her arm out from under her, stretching, reaching for the technological messiah of our current predicament. Her fingers stretched and curled as she reached towards the end of the remote. Using the very tips of her nails she inched it forward into her grasp. What a woman!
Without moving the base of her body she threw out her arm holding the remote at some strange spider-like cockeyed angle towards me. “All right…” I thought, a little movement on my part was necessary, but I sat up just enough to reach for the remote. Oh man I could taste it! I imagined the sensation it would have in my hand, the long slender plastic sense of security it would bring. Victory was ever so near. I reached, I reached out…and as I was about to grab it…she dropped it.
A conniving smile spread across her lips, and the faintest laughter was heard. She giggled, reveling in my misfortune. It was if an icy dagger had been plunged into my heart. I swear in that four seconds of misery there was pain unrivaled. I had been betrayed, betrayed by the foulest of vixens.
So I grabbed the DVD remote instead that was ever so cleverly wedged in my seat cushion and hit play, little did she know but Ong Bak the Thai Warrior had been stashed in the DVD player for just such an occasion. As the screams of Thai martial artists and the subtitles appeared on the screen I knew whose day it was. It was my turn to smile. Oh if I could only capture and sell the look she gave me, talk about WMDs, it would have killed any mere mortal man. But not this one…not this night, I had won this little adventure…
1 comment:
HAHA...This made me laugh, which is not good since I am reading it at work in the Library. Well-written, Kevin; as usual. You captured the emotions and descriptions perfectly, because I could see all of this happening in real life...Write more.
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