I don’t remember coming home. I’m quite sure I must have
done so at some point because I’m presently (and pleasantly) perched on the
couch, staring dreamily out the window.
Sally, Mort and Scary Gary, are out there, playing some sort of
game in which tennis balls, golf clubs, several plastic cups and a large rock
feature prominently.
Yeah, I’m not getting it, either.
But I do know that
with balls AND clubs in the mix, this can’t end well . . .
I could hear Mom in her room at the top of the stairs. (This
house has really good acoustics for listening in on others’ conversations. Just
FYI.)
“No, I’m not what you’d call ‘computer literate’. Mom was
saying. “I sincerely need training!” Then, “Seriously? No, we each had our
vaccination a couple of months ago, when they first rolled them out. The CDC
sent a nurse right to our house. Something about Sally being enough of a global
threat without adding the whole COVID 19 disaster to the mix.”
She paused. Then laughed. “Right. All of us. I guess they
felt as long as they were vaccinating her, they may as well do the same for the
poor schmucks who live with her.” Another pause and she laughed again. “Okay, you're right. Those weren’t their real words, but I’m pretty sure I know what they were thinking!”
She sighed. “Never a boring moment.”
You have to know Mom usually doesn’t criticize her girls
like this. I think she was still steamed about the window. And the TV. And . .
.
Never mind . . .
And I don’t know about you, but I was tending to agree with her
assessment.
My phone rang and I looked at it hopefully.
Peter (or my Lincoln Park Saviour, as I now call him), said
when he took my deets, that he would call.
But, you know, in ‘boy’ time, that could be . . . any time
between birth and death.
I had just gotten in.
And my phone was ringing.
Could it be . . .?
I grabbed it. Oh, Lordy Gordy, it was!
Every ounce of calm, cool, and collected that I had ever possessed instantly fled.
I punched wildly at the button, finally managing to connect
on the third try.
“H-Hello?” I said a trifle breathlessly.
Okay, in writing that, I’m wondering what ‘a trifle
breathlessly’ even means. Certainly, it sounds great in a romance novel. In reality, it’s the condition wherein your breath has
bypassed your vocal cords completely and all that left is the tired wheeze of
escaping air—like a broken pump organ.
I desperately cleared my throat, told myself sternly to
breathe and tried again. “Hello?”
Better.
“Gwen?”
I dropped the phone.
Onto the floor. Where Sally’s cat, Mr. Peebles, who had
heretofore been sitting innocently at my feet, promptly batted it under the
couch.
Gahhhh!
I fell to my knees and frantically scrabbled for it.
I finally had it! “H-Hello.” I squeaked, desperately hoping to sound nonchalant.
Casual. Relaxed. Even blasé.
But with my now-racing heart, I’m quite sure what emerged
was panic. Fright. Terror. Fear. Dread. Alarm. And the faint featherings of ‘OhmywordI’mgoingtokeelover!
Not my finest moment.
“Peter here.” He was going on as though I had said something
intelligible.
My first impression had been right. And my first impulse
even righter.
Hang onto this guy!
Ahem. “Yes? Hi, Peter!”
“From the park.”
He wasn’t taking any chances on my mixing him up with anyone
else. Like I would . . .
“I’ve dropped my nieces off at home and wondered if you and
I—the two of us—could maybe get together for a walk? And if things go well, a
slushie at 7-11?”
If things go well. I snorted silently.
How could they not?
Just then the front door burst open and Sally stepped in. “Okay,
I’m in the clear,” she shouted. Go ahead!”
Immediately, a tennis ball bounced off the door behind her,
landing somewhere in the vicinity of the kitchen sink and the already-boarded-over
kitchen window. For just a moment, I envied that window. It had already given
its ‘all’. Its job was well and truly done.
As for the rest of us . . .
“Bulls eye!” Sally shouted, running to retrieve it. She
hurried back toward the door. “You got it, Mort! Well . . .” she spotted me, and
her trajectory, which would have taken her safely past my orbit, changed.
Oh, dear.
“Whoya talking to, Gwennie?”
“Erm . . . Peter. From the park?”
“Oooh, him!” Sally grabbed the phone. “Peter! If you want
her, you’d better hurry! There’s a line-up!”
She winked at me and dropped the phone back into my hands.
Then hurried out the front door.
“Peter?” I whispered into the phone. “Please save me!”
“I’m on my way!”
Each month, a group of us play something called ‘Use Your Words’.
A game where our illustrious captain, Karen of
Baking in a Tornado challenges us
to send her words (and/or phrases) which she then shuffles and re-distributes. The
result is unpredictable. And totally fun!
This month, my words were: training ~ CDC ~ vaccination ~
boring ~ computer illiterate
Having fun?
Go and see what my fellow bloggers have done!
