Skip to main content

Roadtrip!

We left yesterday at three in the afternoon and I have been home for an hour. The kids are blissfully playing at the school with other blissful children and have not even stepped a foot in our home since we arrived back. I have at least another hour to myself.
I suddenly want out of my clothes. I need a pair of shorts. I travel down the hallway passing the bathroom, over into my room.
The closet door is open and there are some clothes outside of it on the floor. One hanger lays beside a red sweater. There is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle on the floor, too. It is Michelangelo.
The Hypochondriac's Guide To Life. And Death by Gene Weingarten is sprawled across a Jean M. Auel novel. Which are both sprawled across my un-made bed.
I grab some shorts and make a path to the bathroom. There is a hat, blue pajama bottoms, a pillow and part of Monday's paper in the hallway. I only wonder why I had not noticed this when I had first blazed a trail to the bedroom, now while I am writing this.
I sigh when I arrive in the bathroom. I have not been here in awhile.
There are two towels on the floor, one sprawled and dry, one balled up and still...damp. There is a book on the floor by the bathtub. There are nail clippers, a bottle of tylenol and green hair gel all out on the counter. The soap is in the sink.
I pull a u-turn and head for the living room.
I cannot believe the things I end up seeing!
There are clean clothes and lots of them. They are on the loveseat and the floor. There is a book on my coffee table. One green marker, one black pen and four crayons are beside it. The orange one is broken. The main attraction though is a two- foot replica of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, smack dab in the centre of the table.
There is a pair of red shorts folded on the back of the couch next to an opened Steinbeck novel.
A picture is knocked over on my borrowed oval table.
Oh!
My computer desk. Two brown cups. Of coffee from stores. Yeah...and a blue coffee mug behind them.
There is also two receipts. One from a drug store. One with 25 cents of Canadian Tire money beside it. Also included was my favorite John Irving novel and my big copy of The Lord Of The Rings.
And a package of Magic Grow Ancient Animals. Just Add Water!!!!
I turn slowly taking it all in.
There is a comforter folded neatly beneath the coffee table. But my couch blankets are askew.
Oh, but there is the four bags our Roadtrip had required, stacked neatly in the corner by the birdcage.
I look at the bird and I want to blame him.
I see the cat and her belly all lolling, stretched on my hardwood floor basking in the sun and I want to blame her.
There is no freaking way I am going into the kitchen. I shake my head.
Did you have a Mensa party while I was gone? I ask The Voice.
Silence. That is all I hear.
I cannot leave you home alone for one night, can I? I say, heading back the way I had came.
Towards the bathroom. I am going to have a bath.
Did you get the shampoo on your little Roadtrip? asks The Voice.
I pause briefly before slamming the bathroom door.
I am going to light candles and a pretty good book got left in here, eh? I let The Voice know.

THE END

Comments

Phoesable said…
nothing like going away and coming back to see home through new eyes. sometimes it's my favorite feature of traveling, sometimes my least favorite. :-) Great descriptions, Q.
Traci Dolan said…
Queenie, what were you doing in my house???? I missed seeing you...lol.

Popular posts from this blog

The Village Itself

Across the road from my home is an apartment building. It is made of brown brick and has three stories. It also has plenty of windows I often forget about while I go about my daily and nightly routines. I also forget my curtains are white, lacey and see-through scraps purchased from an aisle in Wal-Mart. Fifteen apartments. That may all house people with binoculars. It was the muggiest night this past summer had owned. Brenda was down for a visit and when she comes, it usually means a night spent over on my couch for her. Brenda lives in another town. It was one in the morning, no sleep to be found between the two us. We sat slouched on my front porch trying to capture the occasional breeze offered, sucking it deep into our lungs, praying it would cool us down. Our glasses of Pepsi sweated warning us how warm the drink would taste in our mouths. "Tilly! Tilly!" the shout sat our spines straight as we looked across the street to the where the sound was coming fr...

Rosy Cheeks

My son's circle and lined wall, created with the permanent red marker, became something he liked to show-off. I guess the other kids who come here liked it, too.   I guess he wanted to show-off more. That is one of the many hypothesis I have about how the Map of Africa came to be. I just keep hoping my kid is some kind of odd little genius.  On the morning I discovered the map of Africa, I was not speechless and I could breathe. "What is this?" I demanded. And loudly. My son shrugged his shoulders. "I like it. It's nice. Took a long time." He had chipped paint off the wall. His walls are white. That morning, it was discovered his room used to be beige.   And it was starting to look like a room in an abandoned house. I thought to myself that maybe this look would be the in thing  20 years from now and he could make millions. He could be a visionary. It was a good enough excuse for me to leave the room. I used it...

..What Are You Waiting For?

She had a real calm smile; it took its time creeping up into her eyes. And there she was looking up at me. She was sitting, right down there on the sidewalk, up against the wall of the bank. Her hand was wrapped around a red pen; buried into a magazine. And I was walking by her. Her eyes were brown. I did not smile back at her. One can never be too sure about anyone who is downtown. A few days later; it was grey and chilly, and I saw her again. With the same simple smile; this time growing into recognition. She stood just inside the entrance way of the video store, ducked, despite the fact she was barley five feet tall and the doorway was at least ten. Funny girl, I thought. Her smile passed by quickly, and then she bent her head down, to the inside of another magazine. She took a long, lipstick drag off a cigarette. "What are you doing?" she asked, when I was passing by her a day and a half later. And I stopped my step, for I was truly stumped. I looked down at my br...