First Things First

Helen sighed as she watched the high school marching band through her window. Sousa tunes followed them down the avenue as they strutted, pounded and hooted for all they were worth.

Thankfully, she had remembered to hang up the Stars and Stripes that morning. It had been the second thing on her to-do list today. Helen was big on lists and made use of them frequently; they helped her to remember things. There was little room in her world for things forgotten, especially important things.

As the band faded into the distance, she referred to her list for the third time that day. It reminded her to make a shopping list and to not forget to include large garbage bags and detergent. Helen smiled to herself as even she could see the humor in the list with a reminder to make a list. She was in a great mood, better than she had experienced in years.

The shopping list completed, Helen moved on to number four, shop for groceries. This was something she typically did with great reluctance, putting it off until the last moment. Today was richly different. Vegetables looked brighter, beef seemed fresher and even a quart of Choc-Crunch ice cream made it guiltlessly into her cart. She couldn’t wait to get home and start preparing her celebratory feast.

Once home, Helen noticed the calendar on the refrigerator. Yep! It was still July 4th. It didn’t take a list to remember that tomorrow would be the fifth or, more importantly, that yesterday was the third.

This brought her back to her to-do list and step number five. Clean up after step number one.

She grabbed a couple of large trash bags and headed into the bedroom, where she removed the scissors from her forgetful husband’s chest.

Word count 298