Could be that it didn’t like Lar fixing the wall sconce last night (finally! -- he had to take it apart and scrape out the melted leftovers, put in new bulb), or it simply felt jealous that I was totally digging this guy:
(Aw, cut it out -- he had the sexiest French accent, tattoos, and good hair), but whatever the reason for its annoying (and potentially dangerous) prankage, I wish it would cease and desist immediately.
Time for a story, kids. I need to tell a story. So sit back, relax, pretend that you don’t think me insane, and enjoy...
The following events are true, names have not been changed, because nobody in my home is innocent.
If was 9:15 p.m., the holiest of hours, and Ms. Lori was watching a hideously bad movie starring Matthew McConaughey, Patricia Arquette, the fabulous Gary Oldman, and a host of talented dwarves (see photo above). To her dismay, Ms. Lori developed a bit of a crush on one of the characters, a leettle man with some beeg sex appeal, which is why she continued watching this silly, didactic, thinly disguised public service announcement of a film. Anyway.
Ms. Lori watched the hideously bad movie while laying the palm of her hand against her left eyelid and silently praying to the eyeball god that she wouldn’t catch conjunctivitis from her boy. As multi-tasking had become difficult for her lately, Ms. Lori soon stopped praying and paid full attention to the hideously bad movie, though her mind did wander a bit whenever Patricia Arquette’s gnarled yet strangely attractive overbite flashed on the screen; “Why is it,” Ms. Lori thought aloud, much to the irritation of her husband, “That her teeth are so damn appropriate? If anybody else possessed teeth of that nature, they would be shunned by Hollywood, chased by orthodontists across the globe, perhaps even forced into a life of prostitution and misery.”
The nightwind howled, the window pane shook, and Lar, as usual, ignored Ms. Lori’s inane musings to the best of his ability.
But Ms. Lori would not be ignored. “Seriously, Lar. I mean, imagine if I had teeth that looked like they’d been worked over by a ham-fisted wise guy. I don't think I could pull it off.”
Silence.
“Hey, did the kids tell you that the cat had another one of her weird moments? Yeah, Sarah got all freaked out because -- again -- Sapphire ran around the house today with her tail puffed four times the norm, then hid under the bed. Why do you suppose she does that, Lar?"
The trees groaned.
“By the way, I’m pissed that the boy caught pink-eye, man. So not cool. Now we’re all going to catch it, and we’ll have to spend Christmas Eve entertaining friends and family while wearing big-ass eye patches. We’ll have to wear rubber gloves and keep our distance from our guests so that they don’t catch it, too, and we’ll probably talk like pirates and shit, because, you know, we’ll most likely drink way too much in order to dull the pain and inflammation, and I’ll definitely embarrass myself by shrieking Shiver me timbers! at my grandma or something, and…”
And the wind screamed.
“Lar?”
Lar, who’d apparently had enough, somehow slipped into the other room without Ms. Lori noticing and was working on the computer.
She shrugged and continued watching the hideously bad movie as the ice storm raged outside, her muddled brain pondering Patricia Arquette’s teeth while thoughts of pink-eye and Christmas cookies competed with unspeakable fantasies involving a little French man. Ms. Lori soon began to drowse, as she even bores herself at times, but a loud popping sound, followed by the tinkle of shattered glass, jolted her awake.
What the hell was that?
She rushed into the living room to find Lar standing before the wall sconce opposite the one he’d fixed just three hours previous. The bulb had exploded. He scratched his head, knuckled his hips, then turned to a wild-eyed Ms. Lori and said, “The light bulb exploded.”
“I see that, Lar.”
They both stared at the light fixture.
“I don’t like this, Lar. Not at all.”
A cold draft brushed across Ms. Lori’s shoulders, caressed her neck, slithered down the back of her nightshirt . She shivered. “ I need a smoke.”
Ms. Lori hurried to her upstairs office, opened the door, flipped on the light and pop! The bulb exploded. A bulb that had been replaced no more than two weeks earlier.
Later that night, as the ice storm drifted off to other places, and Lar snored like a truffling pig, and the cat peered into the heating duct, tail poufed, ears back, Ms. Lori lay awake, pondering, as usual. She pondered over things unseen, wispy visitors of unknown origin who enjoy terrifying suburban housewives. She pondered the meaning of life, the mysteries of death; she pondered over Lar’s deviated septum, whether Breathe-Right Nasal Strips would help. She pondered over which main dish to serve on Christmas Eve -- stuffed shells or prime rib? She pondered, while rubbing her swelling, weeping eye, if wearing a patch and rubber gloves would hamper the evening as much as she feared, or if her costume would add an eccentric spice to the festivities. Finally, as her ponderings are wont to do, she bored herself to sleep.
It was two o’clock a.m. when the closet door slowly creaked open.
*******************************************************************
Note: My boy just told me that the television in the family room turned off and on. I'll be right back.
Okay, it turned off again as I was heading down the stairs (which are right next to the family room), and turned back on when I entered the room.
This is so exciting! Yet sucks.
UPDATE: It's about 8:30 in the morning, and I was replying to comments when I heard a loud crack -- startled me for a sec, but continued working figuring it was the house settling or something. Then, about one, two minutes later, the light fixture in my office (the one I wrote of above), made a HUGE cracking sound, and pieces of the inner rim of the opaque globe-like covering (the light is on the low, sloping ceiling above me -- my office is in the attic, a small attic) fell off into the globe. I took it apart (you need a screwdriver to get the globe off) and discovered that 1/4 of the inner rim is snapped off. This fixture has been there ever since we renovated the attic (used to be a bedroom for my oldest daughter, now it's my office), and it's been perfectly fine for over four years. I'd just changed the bulb last night, and nothing seemed amiss with the globe, so WTF?!
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