DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters. I am not making profit from
them. Lawsuits suck.
NOTES: Written for a firstlines1000 challenge.
Superglue
John stood by the window, the tips of his fingers against the cold glass.
Once again he was reminded of how much he hated superglue.
Well, not 'reminded' per se, because that would make him sound like he'd held a
life-long grudge against adhesives and had loads of superglue anecdotes to tell
from his younger days. He had anecdotes about accidentally burning down a
warehouse and campfire ghost stories gone wild, but none about superglue.
John started really hating superglue about two minutes ago.
Having a tendency towards procrastination as he did, he drifted away from his
geography project and went to the window of their room, to lean against the
glass and stare outside in a melancholy sort of manner. It was the weekend and
he was spending his Sunday morning doing this? Behind him, Bobby
industriously continued pasting cutouts onto the posterboard.
"John, where's the ruler?"
"Should be on the table," John answered nonchalantly, trying to tug
his fingers off the glass.
"Right."
Seconds passed.
John said, "Bobby?"
"What?"
"Why are we using superglue to paste paper?"
"I don't know," said Bobby, vaguely.
"Why not regular glue? Or, y'know, scotch tape?"
"It was just there," came the reply. "I didn't really feel like
going through my bag for my gluestick. Hey, do you want to use the Jamaican
article or the Dominican Republic one for the Carribean section?"
"Whichever."
John was pretty sure he remembered hearing about some chemical that dissolved
superglue. This brought to mind three questions:
a) What chemical was this,
b) where could they find some, and
c) would he still have fingerprints at the end of the day.
Maybe John could melt off the glue. If he could get to his lighter. Which he
couldn't.
"John, awfully sorry for breaking into your look-wistful-and-deep time, but
could you come here and help me with this?"
Maybe John could just break the glass.
"In a minute," said John.
Nah.
Tug tug.
Still stuck.
Damn it.
"So," said Bobby, standing up. He went next to John, crossed his arms
and said, "What's so interesting?"
"Nothing."
They stared at John's hands.
"Mmmhmm," said Bobby.
"I can probably melt the glue if you get my lighter," said John.
"This is kind of funny."
"Dude."
They looked at each other, and John thought that that was too much mirth showing
on a guy whose friend just superglued himself to the furniture.
Alright, that would be pretty funny. If, you know, he weren't the one superglued.
"Bob, can't you like... freeze it off, or... I don't know." John
shifted his fingertips. "I don't know, what do I do?"
"I'm going to get some orange juice," said Bobby. "You, I'm
guessing, will stick around."
John rolled his eyes. "Comedy gold, Drake. No, wait, I was being sarcastic.
Shit. Bobby! Come back and get me out of--"
"Later, John."
And he went out, and he was gone, and John stood by the window, the tips of his
fingers against the cold glass.
One superglue anecdote, and--judging from their progress thus far--counting.