The Morning I Ran Out of Coffee

 

 

Coffee.  That’s all I needed and I expected it to be a quick in and out trip to the store and then back to my porch to enjoy the quiet morning.  Instead I’m standing in line behind the Coupon Queen who seems to have forgotten the concept behind an Express Lane.  Self-Checkout hasn’t made it to the sleepy town of Blue Maple yet so here I was standing in line feeling impatient and irritable, the beginnings of my caffeine headache crawling up the back of my neck.   I shifted my weight back and forth between my feet and silently counted to myself, refusing to let my own impatience destroy my day. My left leg throbbed, a sure sign the hard linoleum floors were not something my back was going to let me just stand on without some protesting. 

  I heard a heavy sigh behind me and some unintelligible muttering.  I looked over my shoulder expecting to exchange understanding looks with the customer sharing my fate.  Instead I was confronted with eyes dark with anger coming from a man in a ratted jean jacket.  He glowered at me and a feeling of dread heightened my senses. Dad called it my “dog-sense” and that I should always listen when it starts talking.  At this moment the Dog-Sense was telling me this character was not about to engage in any friendly chit chat while we waited.  I looked away.  I was not a confrontational person and this man was a confrontation waiting to happen.  I stepped to the side, glancing at ½ gallon of buttermilk in his hand.  “Do you want to go in front of me?  I’m not in a hurry.”   I was, but I didn’t like him behind me, he was making me uncomfortable and I preferred to have him in front of me where I could see him.  

The man lurched forward and his buttermilk-holding hand shot up and pushed me back into the shelf of impulse purchase items. Tubes of chap stick clattered to the floor.   

“Hey!” I protested, scrambling to regain my balance and composure, my face flaming with indignation, “Asshole!”

He didn’t bother with a response, in his free hand there was a gun. I froze, my indignation turning into stunned disbelief as my mind tried to comprehend what I was seeing. He lifted the weapon and pointed it at the cashier, his hand wavering slightly.    The Coupon Queen let out a squeal, her rusty-red hair quivering as she drew a pump hand up to her throat, her eyes wide.   

I stood there like a statue, staring in shock and anticipation.  I’ve never been the hero.  I’ve imagined scenes just like this one and being the one to come to the rescue, but in reality, I get stopped by my own disbelief that the scene is unfolding right in front of me. It takes precious moments for me to react and usually its too late or someone else has swooped in and saved the day.  

The cashier, a local high school girl, was visibly shaking as she tried to punch the code on the computer to open up the register.  I wondered if following the rules and giving the thief what he wanted was the best course to take. Lately the news had been drenched with stories of mass shootings and random attacks and the gun control issues were being argued vehemently in political circles.  This most certainly wouldn’t become a mass shooting, there were only three of us standing there with the thief, but three was still too many by my count.  I wasn’t quite ready to die.   I noticed the gunman was still clutching his buttermilk.

I surreptitiously reached into my bag, which I had opened to get to my wallet as I approached the counter just a few moments earlier.  My fingers brushed the smooth barrel of the Smith & Wesson 9mm my fiancé had insisted on buying for me.  I wasn’t keen on handguns having being raised in a home that was all about rifles and shotguns. I named it Peaches.   For months we spent every Saturday afternoon at the shooting range, firing Peaches and perfecting my aim.  I carried it in my bag wherever I would go, knowing it was there and feeling secure knowing it was in reach but hoping I would never actually have to use it.

I tried to pull Peaches from my bag in one smooth motion, but this isn’t the movies and I’m clumsy by nature. It caught on the handle and dropped with a clatter to the floor. “Shit!” I cried out and quickly bent down to pick it up.  I saw the thief’s boots, scuffed and dirty turned to face me before I felt the anger flowing off of him.  I glanced up as my hand wrapped around Peaches, my heart hammering in my chest.   He was pointing his gun right at my head and his face was hardened into a deep scowl, “That was stupid, Lady.”  

“No, you’re the stupid one!”  The Coupon Queen’s voice shrilled and there was a loud pop as she pulled the trigger on the Glock she was holding in her hand, having pulled it from the depths of her purse.  Cold buttermilk splashed over me and the ½ gallon of buttermilk dropped to the floor next to me now with a sizable hole in the side , splattering thick milky juice on my jeans and shoes, glugging as it poured out onto the floor.

 I squeezed my eyes shut as I pulled my own pistol back towards me and fell back out of the way.  The thief stumbled and dropped his weapon just inches from my own.  He bent to pick it up and I scrambled to push it away, sliding on the buttermilk and letting out an awkward cry, “Arrggh!!   I know it didn’t look graceful or smooth like it does in the movies, but in the heat of the moment, appearances were not a priority.  I pushed myself back up to my knees just as the cashier launched herself ungracefully off the counter and latch on to the thief’s back causing him to fall face first into the tiles and spilled buttermilk, knocking down the gum and candy display in the process.   She let out a curse and grabbed him by the hair and started pounding his head into the floor, grunting and crying.   Coupon Queen picked up the gun the thief had dropped and ejected the clip, giving it a cursory look.  “Two rounds?  Can’t afford the ammunition?”  She opened her bag and pushed the weapon inside, giving the bag a satisfactory pat.  “Should have gotten a coupon.”

 

 

The Pickle Jar

 It wasn't about the broken pickle jar.  Although the rumor is that was what the fight was about.  It was a standard jar.  Millions of them being massed produced and stuck on supermarket shelves before finding their way into a shopping cart and into the refrigerator of one of a million different homes across the land.   It wasn't special, it wasn't rare and it most certainly held no sentimental value.   It was a jar of pickles.   There were only three pickles left in it , floating in a murky pool of salty dill juice, flanked by errant seeds that had escaped and would eventually sink to the bottom of the jar.     It had sat on the refrigerator shelf for two weeks, starting out so full it was a challenge to pry a single baby dill out of the tightly packed array of late night craving stardom.  As the supply dwindled, the jar was shoved to the side or pushed behind the ketchup and mayonnaise until someone would get the afternoon munchies or a case of the mid-day boredom.   It was nothing more than a jar of pickles, until the day it was accidently dropped on the kitchen floor, the edge of the glass hitting the plated aluminum foot of the table leg at just the right angle to send a fracture across the surface.  As pickle juice exploded across the linoleum and the three errant pickles bobbled in a bizarre twisting skid towards the cabinet, that pickle jar took on a whole new meaning.   

Jason was already angry about dinner not being ready when he got home from work.  Karla was angry that he felt she had to make sure dinner was ready for him when she also worked all day.  The fact is, they had been angry with one another for months and instead of talking about it, they had resorted to childish games of silent treatments and passive aggressive statements as a way of communication.   As those pickles slipped across the floor, everything they had not been saying was suddenly there at the surface and ready to be said. There was no way it was going to be a pretty scene.    It began with Jason yelling at Karla about being clumsy and Karla yelling back at him being a bully.   Voices began to rise in anger, the words became more and more vicious as accusations and hurtful comments were hurled back and forth like a heated tennis match.  A dish was broken accidentally at first, and then the feeling it brought was satisfying. More dishes were broken and then furniture was upended and the shattering of glass could clearly be heard by any passerby.   

Then as suddenly as it had begun, it just stopped.  Jason and Karla exhausted like two dogs who had fought with all their energy until there was nothing left and no winner to be had.   They looked at one another.  They looked at the chaos around them.  They looked at the red and blue lights of the police cruiser as it pulled up in front of their house ( because of course someone called that fight in ).   They reached for one another and decided that moment...   they were hungry for a pickle.  

The Infamous Straw on the Camel's Back

It was a promise and a rose.

His company Christmas party was the reason he could not make it to his son’s Christmas program. I sat on the front row, smiling, taking pictures and trying to ignore the fact that other husbands and fathers were there to watch their little ones up on the stage belt out a warbling rendition of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

 Our boy panicked his eyes wide with stage fright as he stared out at the crowd from his place on stage. He caught my eye and bolted from the stage, his fake reindeer antlers floppy with the movement as he ran and flung himself in my arms, his heart beating rapidly. I comforted him, tried not to laugh and promised him everything was going to be okay.

His daddy called at two in the morning, obviously inebriated, wanting a ride home. I went and picked him up, my co-dependency personality over-ruling my common sense, and he gave me a rose he had picked up from the gas station. It was red, wrapped in cellophane, the petals bruised.

 I wanted to tell him I was done, but I caved and said thank you. 

While he slept off his holiday party, I sat in the front room tucked into the recliner, going over all the reasons I should leave and battling the part of me that was afraid to be on my own. 

Somewhere in the wee hours of the morning, puzzle pieces connected as I stared at the battered rose lying on the table next to me.

I was done. I had trusted him, ignored the whispers I heard, gotten angry at people that tried to tell me the truth and too stupid to realize that every red rose was a distraction to keep me from knowing what he had been doing.

In the end, I put away the dreams of happily ever after, I cried a river of tears and made sacrifices I never dreamed I would have to make. I had to walk away if I was going to keep that promise to my son.

It was going to be okay.

The Theory

The park was empty aside from a few joggers and a couple of moms watching their little ones play on the jungle gym.  I dropped my McDonald’s bag on the picnic table and sat down, my belly pushing up hard against the table and half of my butt hanging off the back of the bench.   It wasn’t super comfortable, but it was far better than squeezing into one of those tiny booth seats at any restaurant. 

I started pulling out my cheeseburger and fries when I noticed a woman striding towards me like she was on a mission.   Her blonde hair was pulled back in a loose pony tail, and she wore a form fitting black t-shirt and a pair of jeans.  She also looked like an older, thinner version of myself. 

I watched her from behind mirrored sunglasses as I bit into the burger.  She was coming right towards me!  I glanced around behind me but no one else was there so I braced myself for the inevitable interaction two strangers crossing paths.  She would either stomp by me without a word allowing me a quiet observation, or she would meet my gaze and force me to say “hello”.

“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” She demanded coming to a halt in front of the table her hands waving up in the air.  My family is full of hand-talkers and people have joked that if you tied our hands we wouldn’t be able to speak, however, that was not what I was thinking as I tried to desperately swallow the chunk of burger.

“WmmmFth?  Which roughly translated to “I’m sorry, what are you speaking of?” 

The woman, or should I say, Joyce the older, thinner model (OTM) scowled at me and gestured to the McDonald’s bag, “That is going to be your downfall!  You can’t eat that stuff, it’s so horribly bad for you!”

Great, even Joyce-OTM thinks I’m fat and feels it necessary to lecture me.   “Fuck off, it’s none of your business what I do.”  Okay, that’s not what I actually said, I’m way too much of a chicken to actually say the words I’m thinking.  Instead I just looked down at the bitten burger, the taste of charred hamburger still lingering in my mouth, “I know, but for one day I just wanted to not think about calories and my weight, I’m sorry.”  I was apologizing to myself?!  God, I really am a loser.

Joyce-OTM rolled her eyes, “Jesus Christ, was I always so damn pathetic?”  She slipped onto the bench so that she was facing me.  It was like looking into a mirror, same eyes, same big German nose, that little scar on my chin from a sledding accident.  It was also like looking at relative that had a striking resemblance but something was just a bit off keeping them from being a twin.  Joyce-OTM looked confident and secure, no trace of all the shit she/I had been dragged through before we hit thirty, and definitely much healthier.

Joyce-OTM leaned forward on her elbows and used her just-listen-and-shut-voice, the same one I always used when people weren’t listening to me and hearing what I had to say.  It was rather weird to hear it, did I really sound like that?   

“Yeah, the food will make you fat, but that’s not the thing.  You were right.  You were so right that it’s going to change the way America eats!”

“Right about what?” I searched my mind trying to grasp what obscure opinion I might have spouted that just happened to be spot on.

“The preservatives, girl, you were right about them!” Joyce-OTM threw her hands in the air, “You wrote about it in our blog, how you were certain the long term effect of decades of food preservatives were responsible for the increase of autism and ADHD issues.”

Cool, I was right.  I frowned, “Wait, and how are you here?  Time travel, really? “

“Technology surges forward super-fast in 2025, a ton of things changed.” She answered impatiently, waving her hands as if to get rid of that train of thought, “Now listen to me…   it was that article that got the attention of some researchers and conspiracy theorists.  They investigated and stumbled upon something much worse than autism.”  Joyce-OTM leaned forward so much I could see the flecks of gold in her eyes of brown.

“But what about...”

“Girl, there’s no time, I have to get you to safety.  It was you that started it all.  Now people want to stop you.”

“Oh…. MY….. God.”  I said it really slowly so Joyce-OTM would know I was being sarcastic, “Is a killer android coming here to terminate me? “

Anger flared up in her eyes and she grabbed my chin in a painful squeeze, “They found a chemical in there, one that makes some people go crazy.  All those mass shootings?  Those are the people that reacted badly to the chemical… it triggers the aggression in them.”

I jerked my head out of her grasp, “Isn’t there some kind of law of time travel that you’re not supposed to touch me?” I rubbed my chin and glowered at her. 

Joyce-OTM opened her mouth to speak but the sound of something solid clunking against wood caused her to jump up and yell, “Get down!”

Dumfounded, I stared at the newly form pits in the picnic table.  There were no bullets.   I said as much.

“You’re an idiot!” Joyce-OTM hissed and pushed me hard in the chest and I fell ungracefully backwards and landed with a grunt, my legs caught up on the bench and the rest of me lying on the grass. My eyes closed instinctively and I let out strangled groan as I mentally assessed any damages.  Aside from a sore ass and raw elbows, everything felt normal.

I opened my eyes and let out a chuckle, realizing I had let my imagination run away with me again.

I turned my head.    

Joyce-OTM was squatting in the grass, watching me, a knowing smile on her face.

“Welcome to the year 2098.”  

Holding On

 

“..If there is anyone in attendance who has cause to believe that this couple should not be joined in marriage, you may speak now or forever hold your peace.”

I held my breath as I looked at Newton, remembering how sure I was someone, namely his freak of an ex-wife, would show up and start causing a scene. I offered him a smile and faltered as a commotion in the back reached my ears. I turned, heart thundering in my chest, certain I would see Charity there, tears streaming down her plump cheeks, her short hair bobbing up and down as she sobbed and declared her undying love for Newton in a voice that was like a fork being dragged across a porcelain plate.

 I gasped in disbelief as a familiar figure stood, his arms crossed over his chest in that annoying way that used to just piss me off. Eyes of muddy brown met mine, and he smirked. “Yep, I have a problem with it.”

“You’re supposed to be dead.” I heard myself say the words and realized how stupid they sounded.

“Melissa, honey, you ought to know by now you can’t get rid of me that easily.”

“Who is that?” Newton asked, his faced scowled in annoyance.

“Its Royce.” I muttered, “its Fucking Royce…”

“I thought he was dead.”

“Me too.” I wanted to hug Royce and punch him at the same time. I felt the tears stinging my eyes and I felt the anger bubbling up, “How dare you come here now? How dare you?”

 I lifted my dress and stomped down the aisle towards my dead husband, rage driving away the knowledge that everyone was staring at me. “Six years you’ve been gone, I waited for you, Royce, and I mourned for you! You have no right to come back now and shout out ‘surprise!’ like it was all some big joke!”

Royce met me at the aisle, his voice low and surprisingly gentle, “I know, baby, its okay. I just wanted to let you know I kept my promise.”

“What promise?!” I was choking on my own tears now. I had imagined Royce coming back all these years and I knew it was illogical because people didn’t just survive airplanes blowing up in the sky.

“I told you I would come back, Melissa.” He said softly, “Don’t you remember?”

I did remember. His promise was sometimes the only thing that had kept me going while I mourned his death and tried to find a reason to keep going. Hearing the words broke something in me. I collapsed in his arms, the fight draining from me as I held tight, breathing in his familiar scent. The ache that I had been carrying around with me for six years was more painful than ever and I just knew that at any moment I would waken and see that it was just another frightfully realistic dream.

“Melissa…” I jerked my attention back to Newton’s concerned face. He was watching me with confusion in his eyes of gray.

I realized I was still standing at the altar, our wedding guests all in the pews. Royce wasn’t there though. The minister was staring at me intently, “Madam?”

“I have cause to believe… this isn’t going to work.” I felt tears spill from my eyes as I looked upon Newton’s shocked expression, “I’m not ready, Newton, I’m so sorry…”



March 7, 2016 at 5:33 pm

Never Stop

Entering me in the contest was a practical joke my best friend Robyn was playing on me. The odds of an ex-smoker, former obese, middle-aged woman winning a spot on the Olympic Torch carrying team were pretty far-fetched. We laughed about it when the letter came in announcing I was a finalist. She knew I was not a runner, God had gotten generous with me up top and unless I used duct tape to strap the girls down, running was not something I did voluntarily.

So how did I end up here in South America, standing on a dirt road with a camera crew on hand and spectators sipping on water bottles and shouting in a multitude of languages, with me only understanding English and a smattering of Spanish words? It all comes down to pride. Somebody told me that I would fail. Do you  want to know how to motivate me? Tell me I can’t do it, tell me I’m going to fall and people will laugh, challenge me that way and you can bet that I’m going to try all that much harder to prove you wrong.

However, my pride was not enough to keep the reservations away. Despite losing over a hundred pounds and beating a smoking addiction, I still looked in the mirror and saw the woman I used to be. I could feel the eyes of the crowd judging me, criticizing my ample chest, my thick thighs and the telltale rasp of the beginnings of emphysema. What was I doing here? I know they were asking the questions because I was asking the same thing. It wasn’t too late though, I could step away, feign a stomach bug or just admit that I shouldn’t be there.

I was nearly to that point when I heard the cry of the crowd as the other runner came in site, torch flickering in the late afternoon sun. My heart started racing as I took my position and waited, my hand outstretched waiting for the smooth metal of the torch I would carry into the night. Pounding footsteps came up behind me, the sound of heavy breathing and the slap of metal hitting my hand. My fingers curled around it and I started to run, and caught my toe on the hard dirt surface of the road. I did a whole lunging forward kind of motion, with the crushing knowledge that I wasn’t going to catch myself before slamming into the ground in front of hundreds of strangers. The stones that dug into my knees and elbows were sharp, my face burned in humiliation and I looked up to see I had somehow managed to keep the torch upright. A gasp had rippled through the crowd and all I could think was that I needed to disappear fast!

I jumped up and gave my cuts a cursory glance, the gasp turned to a cheer and I put one foot out and then another, determined to do this. As I faded into the darkness, running my shame into the ground as I allowed myself to laugh and a new sense of determination filled me


 March 9, 2016 at 1:55 pm

The Door

When I fell back against the wall in my rental house, after gracefully tripping over my own shoe lace, I thought it seemed a bit hard. Expensive wallpaper with an intricate floral design gave no hint that anything was being disguised and I laughed to myself as I ran my hands over it looking for a hidden seam that would open up a secret door.  For good measure, I rapped my knuckles against it.

The wall felt solid, a bit too substantial for drywall and studs.  I have to admit, my curiosity was piqued.  My left foot banged up against the base board and the board popped out sending out a puff of black sand across the carpeting.  I’ve never been one to just walk away from an intriguing mystery, I did what only seemed logical.  I reached down and pulled on the baseboard.  It had been secured with heavy 16d sinker nails and the odds of one coming loose were not very good.   I managed to slip a couple fingers around the loosened board and tugged.  It moved only a fraction and I pulled harder. The sound of cracking and splintering filled the room and I suddenly found myself falling hard on my butt with a broken piece of baseboard in my hand, a single sinker nail still dangling out the backside.   Laughing at myself and how ridiculous I must appear, I looked back to the wall and saw the wallpaper had torn and there was something behind it.  

You would think the first thought in my head would be that of how to hide the damage so my new landlord would not freak out.  At one time, I might have had that as a first thought, but the desire to know the mystery pushed that thought away and I crawled back over to the wall and carefully lifted the torn paper.  Whatever was there, it was metal and old.  It looked like wrought iron but not the fancy detailed stuff with whirls and loops.  It appeared to be, rusty and impenetrable and ancient in appearance. 

It was an odd thing to find in a townhouse that couldn’t be more than twenty years old.  Logic at this point was still hanging in the balance and so I started pulling away more wallpaper, enjoying the sound of the tearing and marveling at how much it was hiding.   Eventually I had to stand and kick away the piles of shredded flowery paper, my fingers stretched full trying to reach the last bits up near the ceiling.   I stepped back and surveyed my handiwork.  It was a door.   A solid wrought iron door with a single looped handle on the right side. It was flush with the rest of the wall which meant it could only open by pushing in. I pushed.  It was like pushing on the side of a freight-liner, not that I had ever done that, but it was what I imagined it would feel like. Hard, cold and unyielding.  I lunged at it, hoping my excess 280 lbs would budge it.  A dull pain exploded in my shoulder the moment I made contact and a slid to the floor clutching my arm and whimpering like a scolded puppy. 

I leaned my back up against it and tilted my head so I could peer up at the smoothed rounded loop that served as a handle.  I looked away and down at the nest of torn wallpaper I was sitting in and silently resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to explain myself and somehow come up with the money to fix the damages I had just caused.   With a grunt, I reached up for the handle with the mindset of pulling myself to my feet.  Instead of the desired effect, the handle pulled down and the door gave a screeching sound of metal upon metal as it opened up and a gust of stale dusty air whooshed past me.  I scrambled to my feet, and poked my head inside, not really sure what to expect but my heart was thundering in my chest and tingles were running down my spine. 

I did a quick spider scan around the door to ensure no sudden drop downs that would cause me to go into one of my infamous spider dances that were reminiscent of a spastic windmill, and I took my first step inside.    Sunlight from my front windows splashed through the door and covered a table laden with thick dust and an empty flower vase in the center.   I ventured further in, pulling out my smartphone and clicking on the flashlight application so that bright artificial light blanketed the room.  It was disappointingly empty.   I let out a pent up breath and turned back to the living room.  The debris from the wallpaper was gone and sitting at the kitchen table was a small man dressed like a garden gnome, impatiently drumming his fingers, and glaring at me.   “Why have you opened the Forbidden Passage?!”

I did the only thing I could think of.  I laughed.

 He did not.