The Grocery List

by Lubrican & Stormy Weather

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Chapter Three

Friday, mid morning, August 10th {Bob}

June, the Boss's secretary, had to call my name twice before I looked up at her. My drafting pencil was poised, and I'm sure it looked like I was thinking about where the next line would go, and how important it was for it to be perfect.

In actuality, I had been thinking of my dream woman. I had been thinking, specifically, about what could be done with fresh strawberries, in terms of eating them, not from a plate, and not with a fork, or fingers. She'd been pretty specific in her list and I was dreaming about how I'd push my lips into her sex, to latch onto a strawberry. I was wondering what the mixture of tastes would be like. I didn't know what horny pussy tasted like, but I was pretty sure it didn't taste like strawberries. If it did, that was the kind of thing that would make the rounds of the rumor mill in third grade.

I had moved on from strawberries to maraschino cherries, perched in a bed of whipped cream, on mountains of flesh, when June started calling my name.

I looked up.

"Jasper wants to see you," she said, frowning slightly.

Jasper was what she called Mr. Thornbill, who owned the company, though he liked to call himself the CEO, instead of the owner. Nobody was allowed to call him Jasper, except June, who called herself an executive secretary, instead of just a secretary. I doubt his wife even called Mr. Thornbill Jasper, assuming she was allowed to speak to him at all. He was kind of impressed with himself, even though he couldn't draw a straight line with the help of a ruler.

I walked along the wall, following June. I knew the deal, though, and waited until she went around her desk and sat down. She checked papers on her desk, like I wasn't there, and then picked up the phone and punched a button.

"Mr. Randall is here, Sir," she said sweetly.

She put the phone down and said "You can go in now."

I went in and assumed the position of parade rest, which was what they called it when they showed me how to report to Mr. Thornbill. I knew it was some kind of military term, which seemed odd, since Jasper Thornbill had never been in the military. I'd heard a rumor that, during the Viet Nam situation, he'd been a divinity student, which meant he had a 4F exemption from the draft. I guess as soon as that war was over, though, he decided - quite rightly, if you ask me - that he wasn't cut from the cloth of a ... man of the cloth. So, when he got his inheritance of some odd millions of dollars, he opened an architectural firm. He wasn't cut from that cloth either, but he hired people who were, and his some odd millions turned into bunches of millions.

Mr. Thornbill's head was down, like he was reading something important. He looked up from the completely bare, polished surface of his desk, which comprised possibly a quarter of an acre. It was built of some exotic, heavy wood from the rain forests and had actually taken a crane to move into his office. It was too big to fit in the elevators, and there was no way anybody could get it up a stairwell. So he had a bank of windows removed, and a crane hoisted the thing up, where it was pulled through the empty window area, after which the windows were re-installed. He spent more getting that desk in his office than he paid me in two years.

"I got a call from the Mayor yesterday," Jasper said, without preamble. "He wanted to know how the museum project was coming." He smiled, which meant I was in terrible jeopardy. "I told him everything was up to snuff, and might even be done early."

I didn't tell him I was already a week ahead of the schedule I'd been given by the architects. I did that pretty routinely, so that when they threw in all those last minute changes, it was easier to incorporate them into the original design. The only thing changes meant, to me, were new lines, and the erasing of some of the previously drawn lines. The architects saw it differently, of course. They were worried about stress loads, and torsion values and all that stuff. The other reason I routinely got ahead of schedule, was because if I had to erase lines, that paid differently than simply drawing new ones in blank spaces.

"Yes, Sir," I said. "We are right on schedule, and it is possible it could be done early."

"How early?" he asked.

"I'd hazard it could be as much as two or three days, Sir," I said.

"That much?" He was obviously impressed. Nobody else in the company ever got anything done on time.

"If there aren't too many late-stage alterations, Sir," I said.

"Excellent!" he said, expansively. "I knew I could count on you, Grindell!"

I decided not to remind him my name was Randall. He was happy, and that meant I'd stay employed, and happy too.

What's in a name, anyway?

Friday evening, August 10th [Chris]

When the rain started pouring at the same time my tire decided to go flat, Lady and I discussed turning around and taking our butts back home to hide under the bed. Family loyalty won out, though, and we arrived at Dad's fifteen minutes before dinner was scheduled to be served.

I was such a mess from changing the tire, Lady and I went in the back door, which lets into the mud-room. Lady promptly shook herself and touched noses with Mac, the blind four-year-old Retriever Dad keeps in the house. He was wagging his tail a mile a minute and smiling at us.

"Hey, Mac" I said, scratching his ears. "Good thing I'm not a burglar, huh?"

His tail still wagging, he turned and led us through the kitchen which smelled like roasted chicken, and up the back stairs to our room.

Twenty minutes later, wearing the requested black dress, which hangs just below my knees, and with a different hairdo than I left home with, I entered the living room and immediately felt like an actor who walks on stage into the wrong play.

For starters, I was the only one "dressed" for dinner. Then I noticed I was the only female in a room of five men -- one of whom was my father, looking as if he'd just destroyed every flea known to mankind.

Wondering if my male parent had finally taken complete leave of his senses without any of us being aware of his problem, I greeted Paul, Jerry, Dan and Evan as I was introduced to them. I noted their hair color -- gold, mahogany, gray and red -- so I could keep their names straight. Dad explained I would be hostess for the weekend since his wife had gone to visit her mother.

"So what do ya' think?" Dad asked when we were alone in the kitchen to get the food ready to serve. "Enough variety for ya'?"

"Are you feelin' okay, Dad?" I asked, touching his forehead. "Maybe I should give Doc Ben a call."

Laughing, he pushed my hand away. "There's nothing wrong with me, Sprig. I just decided we were going about things all wrong. A little healthy competition never hurts when it comes to mating."

Before I could wrap my head around this to respond, he'd blitzed out of the room and called for the men to come help themselves to the buffet.

Friday evening, August 10th {Bob}

When I got home Friday night, Bandit practiced his ambush technique on me. When he heard an intruder picking the lock, which was, in reality, me using my key, he hid behind the chair I watched TV in and waited until the unlucky burglar, which in this case was me, came in and closed off all avenue of rapid escape.

I realized his plan, when his teeth latched onto my calf and he gave a ferocious, if somewhat muffled growl.

"OW!" I screamed. "You stupid dog!"

He let go, and sat, wagging his tail and waiting for praise for defending the house.

I limped to the table where I put my keys, wallet, pocket knife and pocket protector in a basket I used for that stuff, while Bandit sulked at the fact that I didn't praise him. I did, however, say a few things.

"You're supposed to have a sense of smell that's ten thousand times better than mine," I snarled at him. "Or something like that," I added, in case I was off by a few thousand. "You're supposed to be able to sense it's me when I'm clear out at the car! Are you retarded or something?" I limped to the kitchen. "No wonder somebody dumped you! You think about that, Mister!"

He went and walked around by the door, like he was looking for a good place to take a dump, and I scurried over to let him out. He ran into the yard, barking like crazy, scaring off all the other dogs that weren't there, and that he didn't smell. Then he rooted around in the forsythia bush and brought me one of the shoes I didn't know he'd smuggled out. The toe was eaten off already, and he wanted to play fetch.

When you play fetch with Bandit, it isn't like playing fetch with a real retriever. What happens is you throw the shoe, or ball, or whatever, and he chases it and kills it. Then he runs back to you and sits, leaving the dead object in the grass. The only way you can get him to go get it and bring it back is to act like you're going inside, and aren't going to play any more. What he actually wants is for YOU to do the fetching part. He just does the killing part, and then it's your job to go get the dead thing, bring it back to life, and throw it again, so he can kill it one more time.

I've tried outsmarting him. Like I tried throwing the ball five feet away, so I wouldn't have to go so far to get it, after it was dead. Of course he ran twenty feet out in the yard, where I was supposed to throw it, and sat down, waiting for the thing he was supposed to kill to get close enough to him to make it worth his while. Another time I tried throwing it once, and when he didn't bring it back, I went and got it and took it in the house, explaining in very clear English that, if he wasn't going to play right, we just weren't going to play. I left him outside, when he didn't come on command.

When you do that, he plays the miner game, where he digs for gold, so he can hire somebody to fetch things for him. Or he chews the toe off a shoe he's somehow smuggled outside. Since there is more gold than shoes, and, since he never seems to find any, he moves around a lot. Bandit doesn't consider a dry hole a failure. It simply means he needs to move five feet away and destroy more lawn.

Mowing the yard, at my house, is a little like four-wheeling in a Ford Bronco. The mower does lots of lurching and tilting, and powering out of holes.

Tuesday morning, August 14th [Chris]

While bad things sometimes happen to me on any given day of the week -- such as the fiasco last Friday -- Tuesday is the day I should just pull the covers up over my head and stay in bed.

Nothing bad ever happens to me on Mondays. Flat tires, bad hair, late to an appointment, Grandma calling because she's convinced her neighbor is a peeping Tom and other various disasters come mostly on Tuesdays. Thus, I hate Tuesdays rather than Mondays. Even putting one toe on the floor invites instant disaster. For instance, one time I'd barely touched my big toe to the floor when the phone rang and I heard a police officer inquire if I was the granddaughter of a Mrs. Edna Sparks.

I wanted to deny knowing the woman, but I knew Mom would kill me -- besides the man sounded like he was cute -- so I told him I was indeed her youngest granddaughter. He then informed me she needed to be picked up at the station. She and several other ladies in their upper years had been detained for disturbing the peace and they couldn't go home until someone in their family came in and signed for them.

Of course the officer turned out to be old enough to be my dad, and Grandma nearly got re-arrested before we got out of the station for trying to hit some guy with her purse. He'd whistled and made a suggestive comment to me. And all this happened because while she and her friends were bird-watching in the park, they got into an argument over Elvis being alive or dead and one thing led to another and they ended up in a brawl that resembled something in a bar.

And I swear, if they'd been bird watching on their usual day -- Friday -- rather than Tuesday, none of it would have happened.

So, the Tuesday after my weekend at Dad's, I was reluctant to get out of bed, but I had no choice. The phone was ringing and wouldn't stop. I have a machine, but the caller was hanging-up and redialing before the machine answered.

Lady was hunkered down as usual.

"You could go knock it off the hook and bury it in the backyard," I said as I made my way into the kitchen. I refuse to have a phone in my bedroom -- even if I do have a cordless.

Surprised to see Paula's name on the caller I.D. (it was well within the 'at least two weeks' that Lacey and Paula had said they weren't going to speak to me, ) I said, "Good morning, Sweet Sister. I thought you weren't talking to me for the remainder of our lives."

"This is an emergency, Squirt. Have you seen the morning paper?"

"I just got up. You know how I feel about Tuesdays."

"You really should see a psychologist. Dan could get you in with someone."

Dan is her husband and he's a wonderful pediatric psychologist. I'm sure he's had loads of fun over the years figuring out our family. He's her second husband. Right after their second girl was born, Brian, the one she met when she was sixteen, ran off with a man who was released from prison.

Paula pulled herself together after six months and went to work as a receptionist in a pediatrician's office, which is where, a year later, she bumped into Dan one fine rainy morning. They hit it off, in spite of the ten years difference in their ages, and had gotten married within three months.

"He'd just tell me I'm normal for my age," I replied. "What about the paper?"

Laughing, she said, "You're not normal for ANY age. Look on the second page, there's an ad I think you'll be interested in seeing."

"Lady, go bring --"

She was sitting at my feet, the paper on the floor as pretty as you please.

Thanking her and rubbing her ears, I opened up the paper.

"Oh, holy shitsky!"

Paula was rolling with laughter.

Moaning, I cursed Dad's head a thousand times for his latest match-making scheme.

Dudley Do-Right is the only way to describe Evan Collier, the red-headed pick from the mix I'd encountered at Dad's over the weekend. He was tall and gangly with curly red hair and the poor guy seemed to be unable to walk without tripping over his own feet. According to Dad, though, he was a genius with animals (the man is one of the new vets at the clinic Dad uses, ) and the fact he'd asked to meet me after Dad showed him a picture of me made Dad certain he was worth a shot.

Over the weekend, when I'd spent time talking to him in between talking with the others, I'd figured out there must be a "male" counterpart to 101 Ways to Catch a Man and 25 Ways to Keep Him Hooked for Life called 101 Ways to Catch a Woman and 25 Ways to Keep Her Hooked for Life and by some wild coincidence they'd all been reading the same book. I mean, they all opened with the same line, which the book recommends and then proceeded to talk about themselves for exactly two minutes before saying another line from the book.

I haven't read the book, of course, but the female version suggests doing the same thing to catch a man. I'd just read that section a couple of days before and was still trying to decide on whether or not to go that route. After encountering the men at Dad's I'd decided to skip that section and only come back to it if I didn't have any luck with the rest of the book.

I'd been polite the whole weekend, being on my best behavior, other than giving ridiculous answers to some of their questions, hoping they'd find me too crazy for their tastes. Apparently, I'd succeeded with all but Evan, who had obviously decided I was his Miss Right. Not only had he proposed, he'd written a poem, which was included in the ad, and there was an image of a dozen red roses along with a teddy bear.

The whole thing was beautiful and yet hideous. I wasn't the slightest bit interested in marrying the well-meaning sap and now I would no doubt be labeled a fool and an idiot for not accepting the proposal -- since at the bottom of the ad, in small print, he'd requested a response to the proposal in the form of another ad, which he'd left payment for at the paper. He wanted to celebrate our happiness with the world -- or at least the world that read this particular paper.

I hadn't even gotten a warning from Harmonia that something gosh awful was going to befall me this week. Of course, Lacey wasn't speaking to me.

"Do I gather correctly that you and Evan won't be coming to dinner this evening?" Paula got out between her giggles.

I hung up on her. Immature, I know, and I regretted it the moment I did it -- the phone rang again. It was Dad.

Watching Lady go into her routine, I picked it up and before I could say anything, he said, "I just knew he was the one."

"But, Dad --"

"I can't wait to see your response, Honey."

"But, Dad --"

"You write so beautifully."

"DAD --"

"Gotta go. A student just came in. Love ya."

He was gone to train a dog, leaving me stuck with a mess he created. I looked at Lady, who was looking at me.

"He is the most frustrating man I have ever--"

The phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and sighed.

"Hey, Grandma," I said.

"Why in the hell have I not met this man you intend to marry?" she demanded in a tone that was meant to have me trembling and falling to my knees. "Do you know how embarrassing it is to have my friends asking me questions and not be able to tell them a damn thing?"

"Now, Grandma, would I ever get engaged to a man before he meets you and gets inspected by my Number One Grandma?"

"Phooey!" Her tone lightened. "I'm your only Grandma. Now what in the dickens have you got yourself into this time?"

"How about Lady and I come over for some of your biscuits and gravy?"

"I suppose you want cantaloupe, too."

"Yes, Ma'am. We'll be there as soon as I can pull on some clothes and brush my teeth. Love you."

The phone rang six more times before I got out the door, but I didn't answer. And I'd turned the machine down so I couldn't hear whatever messages might be left. I wasn't in any shape to be taking any more calls -- at least not 'til I had breakfast and talked to Grandma.

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