Humor
It was late October and we are just finishing up winterizing the sprinkler system for the parks in a small central Illinois town. I had been doing this for several years and there was always a subdued feeling that would sweep over me each autumn. Soon the placidity of winter would wrap its frozen arms around this little village and rock the song of summer to sleep.
That Friday afternoon we decided to call it a day by stopping at my Foreman’s Mother-in laws house for a surprise visit at his daughter’s birthday party.
We snuck in the backdoor to hoots & hollers and streamers and whistles. I eased into a kitchen chair, unzipped my coat and watched as my boss descended into the sunken living room and did his best impression of a Norman Rockwell painting.
I was handed a huge piece of chocolate cake and a steaming cup of coffee. I began to unwind with the knowledge that this week was finished and the weekend would soon be mine.
About halfway through my cake, as the kids had quieted down a bit, the tiniest voice I had ever heard let out a resounding “Hey!”
I didn’t acknowledge it. Too my surprise there it was again, “Hey!” Again I shrugged it off.
“Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!” Now I was beginning to wonder what this was.
Was I on Candid Camera? Was I being Punkd? I scanned the room to see if anyone else had heard this Lilliputian yelp. Not one face glanced into the stifling kitchen where I now sat impotent.
Over and over and over the miniature voice incessantly walloped me;
“Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!”
“Was this in my head?” My sanity began to unfurl like a torn curtain in a hurricane.
My heart began to pound, sweat began to bead on my forehead, and it took every fiber of my being to maintain any self-control at all, and to keep from doing a scene from the Lord of the Flies on the kitchen table.
Immediately the only voice of reason left in my cranium began to remind me that my schizoid Aunt Margie was currently residing in a Looney bin somewhere in rural Iowa. (Which is pretty much anywhere in Iowa.)
“Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!” It was unyielding! “Didn’t anyone hear that” I wanted to scream. I wanted to jump up and tell everyone to shut up so they could hear this piercing voice and silence it along with my gnawing insanity. But I couldn’t, for fear of the same fate as my Aunt. Being locked away in a cornfield wearing a backless robe and a big-boy diaper doing the Thorazine shuffle.
Now the “Why’s” began to cascade across my once young and fertile brain. “Why me? I’m prudent, rational, and reasonable! Why not my sister? She’s already halfway crazy! Why not finish her off? Take her! Leave me alone!!”
“Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!” Like Edgar Allen Poes’; The Tell Tale Heart, the voice threatened to rip up the floorboards, beating and yelling the same thing over and over and over. “Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!”
Was this some sort of poetic justice? Had I spent my last few sane moments on earth fantasizing about my weekend? Had the sins of my past short-circuited my synapses?
I began to hyperventilate, my blood pressure was skyrocketing, my veins were ice. I was on the verge of a complete and total mental breakdown as the pint-sized voice pounded and pounded at my eardrums.
I was afraid to look down at my cake, convinced that there would be a miniature version of me standing with tiny fists at his sides yelling at the dumber and larger version of himself.
At the zenith of my madness, a mere eyelash away from a perfect meltdown. A great resolve washed over me as if heaven itself had come down to rescue me. A calm flooded my senses as I embraced this moment of self-preservation.
“I can do this”, I thought. “I can live with this whispered illness, no one will ever know.” I began to convince myself that I could hide it, all the while the voice continued; “Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!” “I will go through life, living and functioning just like the normal family celebrating before me. I can co-exist with this, this nuisance that just keeps howling like a dog, as if I were the moon. “Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!”
It just yells and yells, no bizarre instructions; “Go climb a bell-tower or take a trip to Washington D.C.” It’s not telling me I’m Jesus or the devil, it just yells. “Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!” Maybe the tireless dwarf and I could actually get along with each other? Become friends! “Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!”
I was beginning to grow accustom to this petite carnival barker as I surveyed the kitchen wearing my dimwitted shackles. As my eyes came to rest on the counter across the room lucidity slapped me across the face like a Nazi schoolmarm.
I leapt out of my seat and yelled at the top of my lungs, bringing the entire party to a standstill and almost buying a one-way ticket to Iowa. Just a mere six feet away from me, a telephone was lying off the cradle and a very frustrated person, who could have been anywhere on this planet, was screaming at the top of his lungs; “Hey!” “Hey!” “Hey!” Finally getting a borderline lunatics attention and silencing his ire as well as his roar.
“The phone is off the hook! The phone is off the hook!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. I was overcome with spasms of laughter as the eternity of the last ten minutes melted into one gigantic sigh of relief. It was over. I was sane.
My momentary celebration of sound mind was doused quickly by the looks of panic and alarm from my boss and his Lollipop Guild as they stared at the madman in the kitchen.
I sat down quickly and finished my cake with great vigor; jubilant and triumphant as I embraced my level head again, thankful that it did not run in the family!
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This is a very intertaining story. I laughed as I read it and the ending was so comical that I wasn't expecting it. Great writing! Truely fun to read. Constance
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