just goofing around – Page 74 – Michael Seidel, writer

His wife, as she sometimes does, came in and said, “Just making sure you’re alive,” and then left for the gym.

It’s something she’s been doing for a few years. But he’d recently stayed with his mother, who twice told him that she was going to send someone down to his room to see if he was alive when he visited her.

Just what kind of vibe was he giving off to others that they wondered if he was still alive?

Everyone was worried about putting their trash cans out by the curb the night before pickup because of bears.

But most people’s trash cans are stored by the side of their house. Some are behind wooden fences, no doubt a robust protection against a bear (yeah, that’s snark). A bear can get these cans just as easily there as on the street, waiting for the trash collector. If they’re really concerned about bears getting into trash cans, they need to do a lot more than delay putting them out until the morning.

Floofbucks (floofinition) – 1. Money set aside to pay for things such as provisions, food, care, and toys planned for animals.

In use: “During an economy when inflation threatens spending plans and savings, many people become more mindful of their floofbucks because they need to keep their fur buddies healthy, fed, and happy.”

2. Black-market currency used by animals to buy favors and information from other animals.

In use: “Stray cats and dogs often scrounge for floofbucks by trading whatever they find to other animals, then using the floofbucks to buy information about houses where humans are known to be easy touches for animals.”

He has the bug. It overtook him without warning and is as insistent and annoying as a mosquito visiting his ear canal. Acknowledging what must be done, he goes into his closet and begins pulling out clothes and trying them on. Yes, they’re his clothes, and not his wife’s – not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just a point of order.

First to be tried on is the flight suit that he last wore over thirty years ago. Does not fit, he finds. Hell, it can’t ever be tugged over his shoulders without his spouse’s help. It’s surprising how much it’s shrunk since he last put it on. He keeps his Air Force service dress uniform out of nostalgia, even though it also shrank.

Business suits are next. He formerly wore a lot of them during his time in marketing but hasn’t put one on for almost twenty years. They have also shrunk. He makes a mental note to google why some closets make clothes shrink. Maybe it’s the way he’s storing them or something. Jeans, pants, and shirts are pulled out, tested, and put into neat piles. In an hour, he’s collected three towers of clothes which have shrunk. He’ll donate them to charities.

The shrinking worries him, though. Maybe he should move his other clothes somewhere else before they shrink.

Yes, maybe, he decides.

Maybe.

He’s used to people looking at him and saying with some surprise, “Your eyes are so blue today.” Sometimes green or brown is substituted for blue.

He nods and replies, “That’s the Tyndall effect, which is when particles in a colloid scatter the beams of light and reflect different wavelengths. All eyes are really just brown.”

That always causes people to give him another look. He’s kinda getting used to that. Maybe someday…