[lit-ideas] Sunday Twofer
- From: David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2013 14:55:01 -0800
While her parents were busy trying on gear, the little girl at the snorkel
rental place was getting bored and so was doing that thing kids do when first
they learn to wave: hand open, hand closed, a kind of a shellfish gesture. She
practiced on everyone in the small store, and achieved considerable social
success. Wave... big people smile. Wave... big people say, "Hello." Wave...
they make faces. When she captured my attention, she explained, "We're going
swim-MING," with emphasis on the second syllable. "Really?" I responded, being
about as original as a royal. There was a lull of the sort you sometimes get
at cocktail parties, neither of us knowing quite what to add. She got us out
of the difficulty by revealing one more thing she had learned recently,
"1,3,6." My turn to be served came, so I have no idea what the sequence meant,
but she was very pleased with it indeed.
On Monday the jacuzzi man stopped by our house. I've limped along for donkeys'
years, improvising like a Boy Scout, holding the old filters in place with bits
of nut and wire and dib dib dobs. Finally the rust got too much and everything
disintegrated. I decided to spring for new gubbins. Because the tub is so
old--it came with the house--the parts had to be ordered from who knows where?
Somewhere out by back of beyond. As I said, on Monday they and the man finally
came.
Like old men discovering a mechanical repair in public, our chickens wandered
over, possibly to offer advice.
"Oooooh, an electric screwdriver. That's interesting."
"Yeeeees."
"He's undoing nuts."
"Yeeeees. Quite interesting."
"Lifting."
"Yeeeeees. Don't see much of that hereabouts."
"It's a flap."
There followed a widespread beating of wings, silence, embarrassed muttering.
David Ritchie,
Portland,
Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------
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