The temperature is climbing already this morning, in a hurry to reach its high. Smotch is outside being a Good Steward Of The Land, and I am… Not.
I sit on the couch under the cool caress of the ceiling fan, reveling in the touch of the breeze along tingling skin. I hear the hitched breath sigh of the screen door opening and barely glance at the sound of his footsteps on the hardwood, focusing only on preventing myself from overheating.
My husband is a reptile. He’s perfectly content in 100 degree heat.
I am not.
It has to be over 95°F for him to even consider taking his shirt off, yet he is panting despite the “balmy” 88 degree surroundings. Warm from exertion, the fine sweat on his brow belies a state of antagonized befuddlement.
Something is wrong, I think distractedly, only to be interrupted from my thoughts by his urgent summons.
“Hon?” he inquires to get my attention, confused concern infusing his intonation.
I can tell from the cadence of his voice and the impatient movements of his limbs disturbing the atmosphere that yes, indeed: Something Is Wrong. But it’s all I can do to slit my eyes open against the sweltering air and not glare. “Mmmm?” is my only response.
He takes a deep breath. “Hon…” he starts with exasperation.
Oh, good grief.
I sit up more straightly against the cushions and breathe slowly, raising a sardonic brow as I give him my full attention. This must be important. {‘Important’ is relative; terminal crisis or minor nuisance? Tomayto, Tomahta.} Did the deer get the rest of the lettuce plants?, I wonder. Or perhaps that little brown bunny finally ate the huge pickle that we haven’t picked.
Oh, dear. He’s running his hands through his hair. Never a good sign. Maybe something really is wrong. Something a normal person (i.e., a person who is NOT Master Gardener McSmotch) would consider ‘wrong’, that is.
“Out with it,” I say. Whatever it is, it can’t be all that bad. And getting worked up over anything on a hot day is, quite frankly, something Other People do. SO not my thing.
He sighs.
Then, gesticulating in a way that would make any Italian mother proud:
“Hon, I can’t get my hose to squirt!”
.
.
.
. . . Looooong bewildered pause . . .
.
.
.
“Uhmmm… I’ve heard you can see a doctor for that…”
omg,, here I was expecting him to heel over from the heat,,,and those exams are,,uncomfortable
Nah, he’s like a lizard. He comes alive in the heat; I wilt. 😉
It took him a minute to comprehend my retort though, so maybe the heat got to his brain. 😛
Ha! Too funny! I can’t stand the heat either. Not quite sure why I stayed in FL…..
Florida?! Gah! You’re far braver than I. Gators and skeeters and humidity, oh my! ????
I’m in the opposite corner of the country, and it’s been an unseasonably hot drought year. The sunshine is a nice change from constant rain, but our poor trees are wilting from dehydration.
If only we could send you our extra water ;-). It gets scary out west with the drought fires.
We’re not in a fire zone, thank goodness, but it seems like half the state has burned in the past decade.
The east and the midwest are having more rain than they need, and we – who typically get rained on daily – are feeling the lack.
I don’t know what people would talk about if they couldn’t complain about the rain… It’s either too much or too little. Goldilocks and Baby Bear need to get together and figure out the “just right.” 😉
I’m sorry to hear about his hose — they got this Saw Palmetto stuff that’s supposed to fix that. 😀
Hahaha! 😛
Turns out it was the timer, not the hose. 😉
😀 I’m very relieved to hear that. 😀 LOL
Heh.
Weeellllll…
It’s really no fun when the timing’s off. 😛
It’s all about timing, isn’t it ??????
Hahaha! The hips are nature’s metronome. 😛
😀 I love that thought. 😀
Sometimes the hose can get a kink in it that impedes flow.
It would figure. The Kinky Hose – Sounds like a Penthouse story for nylons fetishists.
The best creative writing lab. We did XYZ, “one limp dick”. We did XYZ and it was FUN, “one semi-erect dick”. We did XYZ with a five paragraph description of what we did and how it felt, “Five hard-ons”. Men are such visual creatures. I used to buy Penthouse “Variations” for fantasy material. The rating scale is a rip-off from Hustler magazine though. There were aspects of Hustler I liked. Oui, and associated mags were published by Gloria Leonard, a porn actress that moved behind the camera. I will consider her sexy to the end of her days. I wish she would read that. As I mentioned with Club magazine, the writing preceded the pictorials. You want to look at nude girls, they all had them. You want weird, kink, or swinger stuff, you want to read. Some of those women were so delightfully twisted it wouldn’t matter how old their body got.
I guess my question is, what special talent of yours was he appealing to, in resolving the problem of a non-squirting hose?
HA! Excellent question!
I’m magical, don’tcha know. Tell me your problems and POOF! They cease to exist. 😛
Seriously, I have no idea. Though I’m the only person in this house who seems to know how to read directions, which makes me The Fixer. I assume he wanted me to fix it. Nothankyou!
Good story…you had me going…I was ruling out AMI/CVA…a whole laundry-list of serious shit, medically speaking (I’m an ex-medic and tend to try to think three steps ahead), but you gave me a good chuckle in the process…I think I needed that.
😀