And now, the third segment in the Adventures of Mr and Mrs Boring. Go to mrandmrsboring.wordpress.com for the first and second posts. Soon, I will only post “the adventures” on that blog.
He had never had a full-time love before her, this woman who sat before him on the rocking chair. And maybe that is why he did not understand…
She rocked with abandon…because she could.
“What is it, dear?”
“I don’t like the doctor.”
“I thought we were going back to the doctor next week,” he mumbled.
She pursed her lips, and played with the same- the pink leathery one that hung from the side of the rocking chair. She eyed it, and played with the strap.
“I’m glad you like it.”
“It’s OK,” she managed.
He watched her rock, then forgot what he was going to say. finally, he picked up the newspaper and turned to page 2. He read the last few paragraphs from the article she had interrupted earlier.
“Do you like it?”
He peered over the paper a minute, his glasses at half mast.
“What?”
“Do you like my purse?”
“Well- of course, I like your purse, honey.” He flipped the pages and found an article about illegal ivory trading in Africa. He buried his mind in the article…
“I thought so. You don’t like anything I buy.”
He felt her stare. He lowered the paper.
“I said I liked it.”
“You didn’t mean it.”
“If that’s what you want…”
“You don’t like it, do you?”
“I never said that.”
He forgot about the conversation and finished the article. His eyes glanced at an ad for chicken wiring from Farm and Home Supply…
“You don’t like me either,” she snarled, knocking her glass on the floor. The red liquid puddled there and sank down deep into the carpet. She watched it in horror, torn between two choices, when Mr Boring looked up from his paper.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to live in the country?”
She slipped out of her heels and kicked them so that one covered most of the red liquid stain.
“Hey, what happened?”
She shrugged.
“That stain. What is that?”
“Since when did you actually care what happened in this house? Do you vacuum the floor? Do you wash the dishes? Do you soak the laundry before washing? No, I didn’t think so. You don’t do anything around here. You and your paper. You wouldn’t know if your wife just keeled over dead on the carpet…”
He threw the paper on the floor. The woman in front of him did not resemble the woman he married. She did not even resemble the woman he knew last Tuesday. She did even resemble the woman he brought home from the dentist last Friday. There were veins in her forehead that were not there this morning…
“You! I should have left you at the altar, you lazy…”
She stomped out of the room like a five year old high on candy canes and coca cola…out the dining room door, leaving Mr Boring feeling as awkward as a priest saying mass in pajamas…
And just then, the doorbell rang. Not once. Not twice…but three times.
And as he stood at the door, the figure in black tried to say something, separated by the glass rectangle between himself and…until the door opened…
“…to get here as soon as…”
“What do you want?” Mr Boring cried.
The figure in black adjusted his collar and fondled a silver cross.
“Well, isn’t it obvious?”
“No,” Mr Boring admitted, leading his guest into the same living room as the red liquid stain and discarded heals. The man sat in the rocking chair as if offered and immediately began chastising his congregant.
“I rushed over when she called. And quite frankly, I’m appalled,” the priest proclaimed. “I can tell you, I do not like it when I miss his holiness presenting mass live from Rome.”
“I am sorry, father,” Mr Boring said. “I don’t know why she would call you…although she has had a bad day and all…”
“Do you have EWTN?”
“Why, of course…it’s…”
And then, as he was flipping through the remote channels, eyes fixed on the screen…his junior holiness eagerly lurching forward on the rocker…the treasure of his heart came bounding in, cat like, snatching her heels from a surprised priest, who held them absentmindedly in his hands…
“What was that?!” the priest demanded.
“She took her heels.”
“Your wife…came in like a tiger, and took them straight from my…”
He looked away a moment…then stood…
“The pontiff,” Mr Boring pronounced. “from Rome.”
They sat in their chairs like little school boys, eyes moving with the ceremony on the screen…and as the pope raised the chalice, Mr Boring, all five feet seven of him, felt a tingling sensation, like watching a last minute super bowl touchdown…and the priest loosened his collar, and together the boys on the edge of their chairs punched the air with their fists…
“Yessssss!!!”
something poetic 