August, 2014
Semantics, Schmantics
"Are you moving away to a college dorm? Or opening your own darn house?" I grumbled.
"It's not that bad," Charlie teased back. "Or are you just out of shape?"
"Out of shape! You little—"
"Mommy! Don't be a bad example!" Lexi grabbed the portable TV-DVD player and headed toward the dorm.
"Lexi! That's too heavy—" I started to object.
"Who do you think has been hauling it around the house the past year?" Ev asked in a most irritating tone of sweet reason. She opened the back seat of Charlie's car (formerly her own Saturn wagon) and stopped. "Charlotte!"
Ooh, someone is in the doghouse. "Mom?"
"What is Sherman doing here?"
Not doghouse…
Earlier that year two cats had appeared on the back porch at Ev and Lily's house. Barely past kittenhood, they were bedraggled, wet and half-starved. Within a week, they had the household wrapped around their paws and had been named "Mr. Peabody and his cat, Sherman." Sherman was Charlie's favorite and vice versa.
"Um… going to school?"
Ev put her hands on her hips. "You freeping idiot, now we have to drive all the way back home with that cat!"
"No, no, he can stay!"
Lily joined us from the back of my van, a milk crate of books in hand. "You seem to forget that part of the Old Dominion student handbook—'the only pets allowed in dorm rooms are fish'," she quoted.
"Well…" Charlie had on her game face. I'm sure it made her moms as uneasy as it made me (and would have made Ducky, except he was sitting up in the dorm room while we schlepped stuff back and forth; it kept us from having to lock and unlock the door every time). "I already talked with my assigned roommate. She's cool with Sherman moving in."
"I don't care if she's a Popsicle, you aren't allowed pets other than fish!" Lily hissed, trying to keep anyone who might be in charge from overhearing.
"Oh, that's okay! I'm changing Sherm's name to Fish—that way, if anyone asks, 'Do you have any pets in there?' I can honestly say, 'Just Fish!'" Charlie said brightly.
(The sad part is… they kept the litter pan so clean and the other rooms on the floor were so awful, nobody suspected for the entire year there was a cat in residence. That says something about the youth of America… I'm not sure what, but it says something…)
You know these tales are stolen from real life. Do you even have to ask whose kid was the basis for this one?
Yes, I am still on hiatus. Yes, I am still packing. (Boy, is this an experience…) But, you see, I was at the library and had some time to kill on the computer (my own is totally blocked off at the moment; don't ask). So… I cheated. Instead of going home and packing (there has to be an end, there has to be!) I played hooky and posted the shortest chapter I've ever written.
Okay. Back to the salt mines...