One day, a strange man dressed in a business suit approached Mary, and asked her if he could call her “Ivy.”
“That’s not my name,” she said.
“Please?” he begged.
“Whatever.”
“Ivy,” he said. Then he ran away, pointing, and yelling, “Poison Ivy!”
That was Mary’s oddest day to date.
I hate the way you eat your mashed potatoes. It sets my teeth on edge when I hear your teeth hit and then scrape the spoon as you pull it back out of your mouth. Who the hell eats mashed potatoes with a spoon? You have to put your fork down just to eat your fucking mashed potatoes. By God, one of these days I’m going to pick up your steak knife and end your life with it.
“Penny for your thoughts, Darling?”
“Oh, I was just thinking about… work.”
Yeah. How much work it would take to stab you.
“It is not just black and white. There are bluish green areas over there, and if you look closely enough, you’ll see the occasional splotch of yellow. But the truth is, it is red all over.”
“Sir?”
“Yes, Todd?”
“What is it?”
“It’s a joke, Todd. Don’t you get it?”
“What if,” I asked my husband as we sipped coffee from our china cups, “coffee contains some sort of secret ingredient that allows the government to read our thoughts.”
“What are you saying, Darling? That now coffee is part of your conspiracy theory? I honestly don’t know why I married you.”
“Now that you mention it, I was thinking the same thing. How could I have married someone who is so… insensitive to the possibility that everything is spying on us?”
“Everything is not… wait. Did you say you were thinking the same thing as I? Put down the cup.”
I’m not a nocturnal wanderer. I love to sleep at night. I work hard while the sun shines – I get up as it rises, so that I may be ready to labour when the day begins.
The moment it sets, I go to my rest. I’m a vampire of light.
“Well then John, if she won’t have me, I’ll marry someone else!”
“You can’t just ‘marry someone else,’ old chap. The wedding is scheduled for tomorrow. You’ll have to call it off.”
“But I can’t do that. There are people coming from all over the world. I know, I’ll call Cupid.”
“Please don’t.”
“It’s too late. There he is at the window! Wait! Don’t aim it at me now!”
“Duck!”
“John? Please, will you marry me?”
“I should rather die!”
“But then, who will be my best man?”
“It won’t be me, old chap. I don’t swing that way.”
“Drat.”
It’s a major disaster. So much blood has been spilled. I had one job to do. Just one. How could I have been so careless? I’ll never be able to show my face in public again!
I should have known I was too clumsy to work in a butcher shop.
22:30 Honey! Are you coming to bed?
Yeah! I’ll be there in a minute!
22:36 Honey! Are you coming to bed yet?
On my way, dear!
22:40 Honey! Are you…
I’m here.
Oh good. But before you get into bed, can you let the dog out?
…
22:54 Honey! Are you coming to bed soon?
The dog’s still outside!
Well get him in! I wanna snuggle!
Be there soon, dear!
23:01 Honey! Are you…
Yes.
Good. Get into bed.
… Honey, did you lock the front door?
No, didn’t you?
No.
23:09 Honey! Are you coming back to bed soon?
Be there in a minute!
What’s taking you so long?
Cat wanted in!
We don’t have a cat!
You sure?
Of course I am!
Okay! I gotta find the cat now and let him back out!
23:44 Honey! Are you coming…
I’m here.
What the hell happened to you? Where’d all those scratches come from?
The cat. It didn’t want to go out.
…Wait, what colour was the cat?
Black.
Maybe it was Blackie! I haven’t seen her since before we met! You’ve gotta go let her back in!
…
1:03 Honey! Did you find her yet?
… Honey? Honey where’d you go?
…
Honey?
…
Ugh. Men!
I remember it like it was yesterday. I came home from school and my big brother, Wade, was building something on the front lawn. When I asked him what it was, he said:
“It’s a trebuchet. We’ve been learning about them in history class.”
I couldn’t wait to get into Grade Six. “What does it do?” I asked, awestruck.
“It throws stuff. I’ll let you know when it’s ready to go.”
“Okay,” I said, and I went in to get myself a snack. Mom wasn’t home – if she had been the whole thing probably could have been avoided.
When I went outside half an hour later, Wade was on the roof, dropping rocks into a bucket that was hanging on the same level as the gutter. That thing was HUGE, I tell you.
“Are you almost done?” I asked.
“Three more rocks and she’s ready to roll.”
I waited until he was back on the ground, and I asked him: “What are you going to throw with it?”
“I forgot to give Petey back his tennis ball. I’m gonna pitch it to his house.”
“But he lives a whole mile away!”
“Yep!” Wade gave me a real shit-kickin’ smile then, and I knew things weren’t going to go so good.
“Stand back and watch,” he said.
And I did. I stood way back. When he let that thing go it was a good thing no one was inside too. He damned near cut the house in two. But Petey got his ball all right. Went right through his bedroom window.
Tuesday Use It In A Sentence is brought to you by the lovely Kelli this week. Pop over and join in! https://fortyandfantastique.wordpress.com/2016/03/14/tuesdayuseitinasentence-trebuchet/
there is a cherry on the table. and if i could just reach it i would know colour, i would know my past, i could have again the loves i’ve lost, and the places i’ve been, and all the growing up i’ve done…
but the table is vast and the cherry seems to shrink before my eyes, rotting, shriveling, becoming meek. i see the pip and the stem falls off and then… and it’s so fast. so very fast. so very, very…
Linda G. Hill 