What Did You Do Today?

June 5, 2011 at 10:00 am · Filed under Family, Mostly fiction, Stories ·Tagged author, Be Still.... and know that I am God, busy, can't hear, can't see, Charles L. Mashburn, family, funny, housework, humor, I made this up, joke, laughter, Pennies From Heaven, retirement, sniffs everything, story, walking the dog, wife, writer, yardwork

This is a short little story about my dear sweet wife, Sherry, and a slight misunderstanding we had one afternoon a few weeks back. Nothing major, mind you; I think she can laugh about it now… well, I hope she can!

I retired almost a year ago, and since then I’ve devoted much of my time to writing daily encouragements I send out each morning, I’ve published a book of encouragements, I write these blog stories, and last but not least, I’ve taken over most of the household duties. You know; cooking, cleaning, laundry; all that stuff; Sherry loves the setup we have going. My number one hobby is working in the yard; flowers, tomatoes, etc. Needless to say, I am seldom bored.

I forgot to mention walking the dog—an activity that she (the dog) demands be a priority. My schedule usually revolves around the twice daily walk around the neighborhood park. I probably should clarify the term “walking”, though.

Docker’s—silly name, and has nothing to do with the brand of pants—is over fifteen now, which is somewhere around plus or minus 80 in dog years. She can see very little, and can hear only the loudest of noises. Even when she hears a loud noise, she often looks the opposite direction from where the noise came from. My point is, we no longer go for walks, we go for sniffs. What we do, actually, is wander around the perimeter of the park, her stopping every few feet to thoroughly sniff at a weed, tree, or pile. (Do I need to tell you what kind of pile?)

But, I’ve wandered away from what I set out to tell you. My point is, I am quite happy with the arrangement Sherry and I have, and I think most of the time she is too. But sometimes, I get the feeling she might be a little jealous of the freedom our arrangement affords me; in the sense that I can make my own schedule, and don’t have to answer to anyone. She works very hard at her job, and is often under a lot of pressure and occasionally gets stressed out. Don’t get me wrong, in spite of those little annoyances; she is very happy doing what she does.

Anyway, one afternoon not long ago, she came in and I was taking a little break from my busy schedule. She walked in the front door, to see me sprawled out in my easy chair ( I refer to this giant recliner as, “Big Comfy”) and she stopped short, put a  hand on her hip and… I’m not gonna say she glared at me, but she had a somewhat disgusted look on her face. I’ve seen the look once or twice before, and I’m afraid this was the second time in as many days.

I grinned at her—sometimes that will diffuse the situation—and one of her eyebrows did a menacing upward tilt. (I hate it when that happens!)

“What did you do today?” she asked sweetly. I’ll leave it to you to define “sweetly”.

I kept the grin on, still hoping it might work its magic. “Nothing,” I said. It was meant to be a joke, but she obviously found no humor in it.

She snorted in disgust then dropped her purse on the hall tree seat. When she turned back to me, the look on her face further convinced me she found no humor in my casual remark and manner.

She was speaking out of one side of her face—I wouldn’t say she was snarling, but maybe some of you guys know what I’m talking about—as she said, “That’s what you did yesterday.”

I took one more shot at trying to humor her. I held my hands out in a give-me-some-slack gesture and—still grinning—said, “Well, hon, I wasn’t finished.”

I won’t tell you what she said next, but it was not a ladylike dissertation.

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