Dena Taylor’s Musings

Saturday morning I did not wake up and greet the day. I did, however, grunt, put clothes on and make my way to the neighborhood coffee shop.

I drove the short distance, parked my car and climbed the stairs to the entrance. Once inside, I stood in line, assuming the position of the uncaffeinated, a sort of a slouched stance, eyes glazed over.

While I waited, I decided to go digging for my wallet. As I looked down at my purse, something fiery caught my eye. I blinked and refocused. On the floor next to my foot was a dark red t-shirt.

No, that’s a tank top. No. Okay…what is that?

Upon closer examination I noticed a small white tag that said “Jockey” and realized it was a pair of red cotton underwear.

Ohmygawd! Someone’s underwear! How embarrassing! Funny, I have a pair just like that.

I froze.

Oh. My. God. Those are my red underwear on the coffee shop floor!

Before you could say “full coverage,” I was folded in half, clutching the practical, not-at-all-sexy pair of cotton briefs, shoving them deep into the caverns of my purse. As I lifted my head and looked around to see if anyone noticed, I frenetically managed a multitude of darting thoughts:

Please, please, please let no one have seen! How did they get here anyway? That man reading the newspaper RIGHT NEXT TO ME, did he see? My laundry basket—where was my laundry basket? Thank God there’s no one behind me. How would they get into my purse? No one is looking. No one saw–no way. Unless they’re clean! Smile at the barista.

“How you doin’?”

“Good. Yeah. You?”

“Good, thanks.”

Of course! They weren’t in my purse at all. I just washed this jacket. And it’s fleece! They must have stuck to the jacket!

Having solved the mystery, I started to laugh. I tried to imagine exactly where on my jacket my unexciting undies had clung. Inside? Outside? Did I walk up the stairs to the coffee shop with them clinging to my sleeve? Did I wave at anyone? Did I wave a red underwear flag?

While I waited for my americano, I convinced myself that no one had seen my red cotton underwear on the coffee shop floor. And just what would I have done if they had? Held them over my head and asked if anyone in the coffee shop had dropped their drawers? Or, snatched them up and said, “Ohhh, ran out of Cling Free! Ha ha ha,” knowing that people would start piecing together a story about why I had a pair of loose underwear hanging about. “She’s obviously on her way home,” they’d think. “Hope it was a good night,” the well-wishers would mutter. “Not if she was wearing cotton,” they’d conclude.

I put my wallet away and felt my underwear hiding deep down in my bag next to some pens and a notepad. My plain Jockey underwear, blushing red.

“Looks like you’ve already had your share of cake.”

“I trust we’re not mixing alcohol with any medications?”

“Forty-what? Oh. My. God. Are you totally depressed or what?”

“Maybe you can wish for a date instead of having to eat birthday dinner with your mom.”

“Between the belly and the balloons I thought we were having a baby shower!”

“You almost had me but I know a trannie theme party when I see one!”

“Be glad you guys are out here. The chef has been coughing up a storm back there.”

Tuesday. The day I want to shrink back into the womb and hang quietly by the cord.

It starts as a hum in the distance. When I’m on the porch. Barefoot. Reading. Sipping coffee and trying to do something with my life.

Then it gets louder. Like the drive-by buzz of a 200-pound mosquito. The dread drops in as weighty as the greasy guilt after eating an entire Bloomin’ Onion at the Outback. The Leaf Blower is coming. He’s driven and tidy, and there’s nothing I can do to stop him.

As the hammering drone increases, I express my angst in a four-lettered arrangement and retreat inside. I strongly suggest the cats move off the couch and take my place on the porch. “Go on,” I say. “You can have it all to yourselves. Besides, doesn’t all that fur act as some sort of sound barrier?”

“Well, doesn’t it?”

One walks toward the door and pokes his head out. But the noise increases. He turns back, eyes his spot on the couch and resumes his task so as not to fall behind on the 18 hours of sleep he requires each day.

I turn to the window and see not one but three Leaf Blowers, plodding forward behind a fury of crunchy brown refuse. I watch them angrily and can’t help but notice they’re doing it wrong. They blow over cleared areas an extra two or three times in an extended dance version of vibrating torture. They need a choreographer, I think. And a sound technician.

Are they trained? I wonder. Is there a Blower Boot Camp? I’m sure the technique for oak leaves is far different than for elm. There’s probably a formula of gravity and velocity and mass that determines the angle and force at which leaves must be blown. Then there’s the protective clothing and eye gear, because you never know when a fingernail shard or rogue toothpick might blow up in your face.

I can’t take it any longer. I have to leave.

I rush to the car, dramatically covering my ears as if the noise will cause me to break out in hives that pulsate in tune with the clatter. Then he sees me—a lone Blower separated from the pack, with his baseball cap, hefty earplugs, blowy machine thingy hugging his back, and sunglasses hiding eyes surely laughing at the havoc he wreaks.

As I back my car out he stops, pulling his head up ever so slightly, blower now purring at half-mast. I edge forward considering my options. If I go to the left I can scatter the leaves. He’d have to turn back.

He’d have to reblow.

Instead, we veer in opposite directions, creating an arc of avoidance. Allowing each other to proceed with the day. With what must be done to earn a living. Or, in my case, to refrain from committing a heinous crime. Against a Leaf Blower.

The Staph Infections

The I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butters!

Skinny Jean & Muffin Top

Myocardial Infarctions

Holmes Depot

-Woooooooo!

-Here comes the paint bear! GRRRRRR! “I’m the Paint Bear (growl) and I’m gonna wipe out that bad paint with my big fat primer paw! ROOOARRR!”

-Oopsy.

-Oopsy againsky.

-Argh! I’ve got ya, ya little high gloss bandits! To the primer plank with you lot! Argh!

-(singing) Fat love! doo doo doo It’s better than skinny love. oh yeah You might need more space…yeah…but you get more in your face…with fat love…”

-Get in there Mr. Rolley Rollerson! Cover up that whore red high gloss beeatch.

-(singing) Roley poley, Daddy’s little fatty roller on the ceiling…

-Ouch.

-I don’t feel right.

-Let’s get some air.