He Who Needs No Introduction

A man knocked on the door. His camel-colored company shirt had many, possibly too many, pockets. How many matchbox cars could fit into those pockets? I wondered in my toddler-boy-brain conditioned state.

The name “Brad” was stitched on his shirt, right over his heart. Shaggy, brown hair was pulled back from his face with a grungy bandana. In one hand, he held a black nozzle which was connected to a round, silver container on the ground.

“I’m Brad, bug guy. You want me to start on the inside?” he asked.    

Here was a man who needed no introduction, yet he gave one.  

And while the contents of his container were to remain a mystery, his mission was clear.  

He was there for the bugs. No dilly. No dally. And certainly, no small talk.

The BBB

The Bad Boys of Bloomington are gathering for the race weekend, so naturally I am clearing out of town.   The last time they congregated, the house was almost burned down from a late night attempt at making what was reported to be gazpacho, traditionally a cold, uncooked vegetable soup.

When I discovered the scene of a skillet of charred tomatoes and a crumbled pair of shorts on the countertop, two questions came to mind. Why was the stovetop needed and pants were not to make cold, uncooked soup?

It will forever remain a mystery as the BBB is a very close group, committed to holding secrets for each other and for a period of no less than life. A more dedicated group, I have never encountered, aside from a makeshift family of two raccoons and a baby opossum outside of a dumpster, which is a story for another day.

As I walked through the rest of the house after they descended on it for the night, I discovered the BBB sprawled out and sleeping with crumbs, empty bags of snacks and empty beer cans scattered around their comatose bodies.

Quietly, I called for my girls to emerge for their breakfast and began to look in their normal hidey-holes. A pathetic “mew” led me to find three little cats cowered together under a chair. Perhaps the usually the warring felines united in a one-time front for survival against the debauchery of the night?

Yet another unsolved mystery of the night.

What is not a mystery is that these men see themselves as brothers from different mothers, they are comfortable far beyond casual and gespacho and pants or not, they will wreck the place in their merrymaking.  My fervent hope is simply that the house is still standing when I return on Monday.

Reprieve

Thermostat Battles

The house is finally warm enough for me to stop shivering. I am wearing a scarf, two shirts and a sweater while wrapped in a blanket and can still feel the chill. And even this is a tolerable relief from the freezing conditions of the morning, but sadly, time limited.

This is just another day in the saga of the Thermostat Battles. It has been quietly fought over the last few years by a few degrees in either direction. If its warm, I’m winning, which isn’t often. Everything else is a loss. Admittedly, we try to fairly negotiate the temperature depending on the season but then we each make secret/not-so-secret adjustments when the terms are not agreeable to both parties.

Unfortunately, the odds recently changed in my temperature-opponent’s favor when we acquired a roommate, who also prefers a constant state of refrigeration. He moved in during the hottest season, when long pants and coats are locked away like criminals and windows can be left open at night for the fresh air and sound of cicadas. The open-windows-at-night thing was never a possibility in any of our past apartments unless we wanted to welcome in more than night noises and a breeze.

Back to the present when mysteriously, the windows ended up shut, the A/C kicked on and dropped to a dangerously, hypothermia-causing, get-ready-to-freeze-to-death low. The summer days took on the temperature of the seasons to come, unnaturally early and indoors. Instead of wearing shorts and t-shirt, I was in jeans with a sweater, shivering and silent.

Now it is Fall and my enemies continue to collaborate against me; they make bold and direct moves to freeze me out.

I am left somewhere between a Pacifist and a guerrilla war soldier. We the cold and puny are outnumbered, two to one. We do not want to fight, we don’t believe in war, but fight we must or die in the middle of the night from cold.

While I work on a new battle strategy, I will continue to use the same tactic, adjusting the temperature, slowly enough to avoid detection, but surely, up to a climate more like Key West or Cuba. Yet, each time I hit the button up a degree, I do it with the full awareness that it is only a matter of time before it plummets back down into the cold, cruel torture zone and the battle continues.

Such is the life of Puney.