Title: Last Words
Author: Anna-Maria
Rating: PG
Summary: "Don't worry Dad. At least she didn't realize the tarantula got out"
Seven o'clock in the evening and I've found a clean shirt and stumbled downstairs to the ironing board, the one that used to be near the television set. This was a splendid arrangement as it allowed me to shout abuse at the inanities of the presenters of the current affairs show that is on after the evening news. This doesn't improve your ironing technique but it does help you to wake up. There is nothing like bellowing "moron", "lightweight", and "wanker" full voice at the television to bring you to full consciousness.
My wife, Catherine, for reasons unstated decided that this arrangement was unsatisfactory and relocated the ironing board to a small recess behind the bar area, with the bugs. I can still see the television screen, but only just.
So this evening, I slide into this bug caged cul-de-sac with my shirt, steam and dry iron and television remote control and begin my evening. It is at this point that I realize that the shirt that I've pulled off the clothes rack is missing two buttons.
Dumb and Dumber, aka the presenters of the current affairs show, however would be along soon to brighten my evening and as I flicked the remote switch the channel changed and I was greated with the sight of a blonde woman in a low cut leotard bending forward in front of the camera.
I like blondes. My wife as a matter of fact is a blonde, but I'd have to admit that I was unprepared for this display of mammalian overflow, this soon after waking up. I moved back from the ironing board a few centimeters. "Good God", I thought to myself. As I did so, I tossed the shirt on the board, moving back a few more centimeters, just far enough to make contact with the glass shelves behind me on which was sitting the cage of one of my tarantulas.
I heard it rather than saw it. Moving to and fro on the glass shelf. "Oh please God no," I thought. Because on these shelves above the bug cages were wine glasses. Lots of wine glasses and stuck in a confined space with the ironing board, shirt and steam belching iron in front of me and shelved behind, I had nowhere to move. "Crash" went the cage. It was, I suppose only a second, perhaps two, before the first glass hit the floor and shattered into several thousand fragments. My wife appeared bleary eyed at the top of the stairs, followed shortly after by her daughter, Lindsey. She stood there for a few seconds, observing me amidst the sea of wine glasses, "This better be cleaned up by the time I'm changed", she said before making her way back to our bedroom. Lindsey however made her way down the stairs to me. "Do you have any last words?" She asked, giggling in my ear. Upon seeing the expression on my face, she placed her hand on my shoulder, and said to me comfortingly, "Don't worry Dad. At least she didn't realize the tarantula got out".
"Oh God"