Spring Has (Almost) Sprung

What’s on my mind? Spring is on its way - but we’re not springing anywhere. We can talk the talk, but we can’t walk the walk.

On Saturday, I tried to move a planter filled with herbs and soil and fertilizer and concrete gnomes and ride ’em lawnmowers and a ginormous bag of peat moss and other garden stuff. 

Okay, most of that story’s horse pucky, but the planter nonetheless weighed a lot more than I can carry. Himself figured it was 100 lb., but I’m guessing it was more like 500 lb. The upshot was that something in my back went crick! No biggie, I thought, so I ran around on Sunday serving appys to guests and a good time was had by all. 

Then came Monday. Whammo! When I tried to get out of bed, my back and one leg froze up and I couldn’t move. Happily sawing logs and deaf in both ears, Himself was oblivious to my screams of  AAAHHHHH!-AAAHHHHH!-AAAHHHHH! AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!

(The Harrises, who live across the street, probably thought: “That shrew is always yelling at the poor man!” or: “Never pegged ’em as the ‘rough sex’ type.” or: “Classic drug withdrawal …”)

After I’d punched Himself a couple of times, he woke up and hobbled over to my side of the bed and sort of rolled me out far enough over the mattress so I could get a toe on the ground and a lungful of air, after which I resumed screaming. 

With his hearing aids on the stand on the other side of the bed, Himself couldn’t make out what I was saying. Given that my lips were flapping like a duck on steroids, he deduced I might just be in pain. 

The logical thing for me to do was grab Himself’s neck so he could yard me up, but - thanks to a driver who claimed he was invisible - Himself’s back is no good, either. Our backs now go out more than we do. Screaming in unison, we sounded like a couple of lousy opera singers.

So here we are in bed, cramming leftover appys into our maws because our screams are less piercing when our mouths are full. 

Mr. Harris called this afternoon to say he was worried because he’d been hearing screams from our bedroom. Mr. Harris wears double hearing aids, just like Himself. The only way Mr. Harris would hear anything coming from our bedroom would be if he eavesdropped directly under the window on the pretext of weeding our garden. Some people might believe that story, but we wouldn’t. 

For one thing, Mr. Harris doesn’t even weed his own garden. For another, I know for a fact that ever since Mr. Harris read “50 Shades of Grey” last summer, his libido’s been stuck in overdrive (Mrs. H. is my authority on that, but because she told me in confidence, I suggest you not spread it around). 

The only other way Mr. Harris would know anything unusual was happening at our house would be if Mrs. H told him.

So when Mr. Harris called, yaketty-yakking about how worried he was because he hadn’t seen us in days and asking if everything was okay because he and Mrs. H have been hearing a lot of screaming and groaning ... Well, when Mr. Harris said all that and started pumping me asking me a lot of questions, I was in too much pain to answer, so I handed the phone to Himself. 

Like me, Himself had no-o-o interest in talking to Mr. Harris just then, so he said (groaning, breathing heavily, and yelping as he tried to turn over): “May we call you some other time? We’re in bed and our mouths are full.”

Mrs. H stood under our bedroom window to say Mr. Harris ran to the library right after phoning us. She said he borrowed “50 Shades Darker,” and now she fears the worst. She thinks Mr. Harris may have a girlfriend because he’s reading a book about how dark he should dye his hair. I promised Mrs. H (aka “the grapevine”) I wouldn’t tell a soul. 

When Mrs. H asked if we were still in bed, I screamed: “Yes! Yes! Yes!” to release the pent-up pain I’d been holding back while she stood under the window, shootin’ the breeze. 

Everything went quiet after that, so I asked Mrs. H if she was still standing under the window. “Not really,” she said. “I’m just doing a little weeding.”

© Nicole Parton, 2019