Tag: slice of life

The Writing on the Page

I keep spying on the woman to my right.

Sounds quasi pervi, doesn’t it?

I just want to see her book, a small paperback. She flips through it, pen in hand, underlining passages.

I’m horrified and fascinated. Writing in books? I know others do this and it’s permitted under certain circumstances, but it’s something against my personal coda. Unless…is it a puzzle book?

What is this book she’s defiling? If only she’d put it down so that I can see it.

She left while I was busy writing. I never saw the book.

It’s another unsolved mystery.

1

This Old Thing

My wife carries a small Casio calculator in her purse.

Solar-powered, made of black and gold plastic and black vinyl, the calculator folds. When it’s folded, it’s about the size of a credit card and is as thick as two stacked cards. We bought it for a few hundred yen when we lived in Japan on Okinawa between 1981 and 1985.

Actual size.

We used it last night to balance the checkbook. As we finished, we talked to each other about how amazing it was that the little inexpensive still worked. Back then, the yen to dollar ratio was about 234 to 1.

Over forty years later, it’s a little worn but works perfectly. As I reflected on that, I wondered how many other things I’d ever owned that I could say the same about.

0

One-Liner Wednesday: Decisions

My decision to decide later crumpled against a more urgent decision to get up and eat, which led me to a pause in front of the bathroom mirror where I decided, not today, and maybe not tomorrow.

1

The Encounter

Midnight.

I turn on the master bath lights and see a large spider in one of the porcelain sinks.

Finding a tube of cosmetics, I tried to give them a lift up and out.

The spider raced around in a slipping, sliding frenzy to escape the tube. “I’m trying to help you,” I reassured it.

Withdrawing, I found a small cloth and shaped a ramp in the sink. Recognizing the opening, the spider used it to climb up and out. Then it disappeared without even a backward glance or wave.

I wonder what she’ll tell others about her encounter with a human.

4

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑