The Humor and Life, in Particular Web site |
Hard Headed MenAugust/September/October 2008 Humor Writing Contest WinnerYou have to wonder how a grown, intelligent man can be so bereft of common sense. I mean, really. This was a man who was an engineer. A man who could design a vehicle down to the nth degree of usability. Why then, could he not be convinced that he could not fit furniture from a two thousand square-foot house into a storage container that was only slightly over a thousand square feet?I tried without success to convince him that it would not work. No way, no how. We were downsizing a big house with a two car garage to a small mobile home that had no garage and no outside storage. We were still arguing when the pod arrived. I had been sneaking furniture out to the curb every day while he was at work. The neighbors had it gone before he got home, without fail. This ploy worked pretty well until I gave away the sofa. He finally noticed that something was not quite as it should be. I think it dawned on him when he grabbed the remote and flopped down to watch t.v.The day arrived to start loading the stuff into the pod. After two days of pushing, shoving, rearranging, and lots of profanity, he was almost defeated. Almost. He reluctantly gave away the five-year-old push mower and, thanks be, the king-size water bed. The pod was full to the brim, and there was still a pile of stuff in the garage. That was when he hit upon the brilliant idea of driving the sports car instead of shipping it. If he did that, he reasoned, then he could put things in the nonexistent trunk and passenger seat. Then…he could load our pickup to the brim. As it was a quad-cab, he could foresee everything else fitting in the cab and bed with no problem.I saw a couple of drawbacks to this plan. The first one being that he expected me to drive a loaded truck, with no visibility out the rearview mirror, nine hundred miles up an interstate that was busier than most downtown streets. I don’t think so! He worked at loading the truck with precision and forethought. When it was obvious that the pile in the garage was not going to fit as planned, he spent three days loading and unloading so as to be sure that his “good stuff” would have a place to ride, like the set of mechanical drawing tools that weighed two hundred pounds and had not been used in ten years, and his set of power tools that might still work. I spent two days with hand cramps from holding the steering wheel in a death grip, and fighting a blinding headache from ducking crazy drivers in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I lived in fear that I would be found lying, bleeding in an overturned truck, while his darn belongings rolled across the highway. We made it to our new state unscathed, mostly. And on day one we met with our realtor and made plans to go see our new home before the closing. My husband refused to leave the sports car parked in town and decided that we could leave the truck, filled with our personal belongings, to their own fate. I rode with the realtor. He followed in his darn toy car. If I seemed to be getting somewhat exasperated at this point, it is because I was. House was viewed, papers were signed. We slept on the floor of our new home for four days. Then for four months we had to climb over boxes, squeeze behind an oversize armoire, which I also had said not to bring, just to get to the computer. By the end of the third month, after much arguing, heated discussions, and other things not worth mentioning, he managed to erect his first-ever storage building.We will not discuss that he refused to listen to me, and the stupid floor sloped downhill. We will not mention that there was not enough flooring in the first place and the darn thing now trembles whenever you step inside. What we will say, with deep abiding gratitude, is that at last there are no more stacks of boxes full of totally useless junk in the computer room. Now it is all inside his “workshop” (nasty chuckle.)Wonder how long it will take him to realize we didn’t need five huge boxes of thirty-year-old Christmas decorations? ©Glenda Widger ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Glenda Widger is a freelance humorist and a granny from the foothills of North Carolina, USA. She writes for fun and poverty. For Glanda, writing about the funny side of life is an addiction. She is a member of Writers with Humor Discussion Group (WWH) — everybody in the group, by now, has learned that writing is her way of staving off running barefoot through cow pastures. Her short story “My Max” has been published in the anthology “People of Few Words” which can be found on Lulu. She has also garnered a few honorable mentions in various writing contests such as Humor Press and Literary Magic. She was a winner in the 2008 Woman’s Day Magazine essay contest. In addition, she sold a short story, “The Break In” to the Gulf Coast Writers’ Association. To Glenda it’s not the accolades. It’s the pure enjoyment of doing what she loves that keeps her writing. But…a small stipend, on occasion, sure helps with keeping her in hot fudge sundaes. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking Sites. |
