“come on in and sit down. I'll have a mug for you in a minute. The coffee's just like I like my men: strong and fresh. Pour yourself a cup.”
Lizzy plops herself down in the “captain's chair,” the one with the arms and the softest cushions on its seat, and proceeds to hold court.
“Last year, I replaced all the windows in my house with those expensive double- pane, energy-efficient kind. This week, I got a call from the contractor who installed them, complaining that his work had been completed a whole year ago and I had yet to pay for them.
“Boy, oh boy, did we ever have a go-around!
“Just because I'm a woman doesn't mean that I am automatically stupid!” I yelled into the phone at him. He yelled back that he was out the price of the windows.
“So, I proceeded to tell him just what his fast-talking sales guy had told me last year: He said that in one year, the windows would pay for themselves.
There was silence on the other end of the line, so I just hung up, and he hasn't called back.
Guess he was embarrassed.”
“We had a bummer of a summer up our way. Not enough warm days for me to put my bathing suit on. There are probably a some geese and a few guys at the lake who might be happy with that decision. Pits on them if they can't take a joke!
“Speaking of geese, the Canada geese should be flying south later this year. The weather this fall has been so nice that they have been delaying their flight. I suppose that I ought to be glad or something but the longer they stay the more they crap on the beach and the longer I have to wait to walk on it.
“I had a heat pump at my house until I met Charley. Charley put out as much hot air and he was pretty fair in bed so I kept him and got a gas furnace to keep the rest of the house warm.
This year I need to get up on the roof to clean the flue on the fireplace. I love having a fireplace but they can be such a pain-in-the-ass at times. Whenever I would drive in a neighborhood that had fireplaces, I could smell the wood fires and see the smoke curling out the chimneys, and I thought of having my coffee beside a crackling fire in the living room, and I loved the idea of a fireplace.
“No one ever told me that if you're single you have to arrange for the delivery of the firewood, make sure that it's dry enough to burn before you accept it, then stack it, or pay to have it stacked, schlep it into the house, start the fire, feed the fire, and stay awake until it goes out before you close the flue. That's just too much work!
“Now where the hell is Charley when I have something for him to do for me? That guy has more excuses for not doing things than a schoolteacher gets on the first day of the county fair. There are times when he's about as useful as a hairbrush to a bald-headed man.
“I feel a real bummer coming on. Want to attack some cheesecake with me?”
Lizzy heads for the fridge. She's into some serious comfort food. See you later!
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