Fire Down Below

    "Honey!"

    I hear my wife calling from downstairs. This cannot be good, for many reasons:

    1)  First of all, I'm upstairs, and she knows it. If the subject were relatively minor, she would come up to tell me. But she's calling me, not unlike the spider beckoning the fly. Also, this way, she figures I have the whole trip from upstairs down to the kitchen (better known on Saturdays as "Mission Control") to prepare myself for today's assignment. Even though I know that she knows I'm upstairs, I still don't answer, quietly slinking down in my chair, hoping- no, make that praying- that somehow she becomes distracted (exactly how is irrelevant- telephone, mugger, nuclear holocaust- I really don't care how) and I am somehow spared today's journey back into medieval torture.

      2)  Secondly, she's calling me "Honey". We both know that she never calls me "Honey", at least not in the way "Honey" was meant to be said. It's not said lovingly, but said impatiently, in that "Don't-make-me-have-to-come-up-there-and-get-you" tone of voice. Also there's a hint of "taunting" in her voice. Example: Did you ever get stopped for speeding and just as the cop is giving you the citation, he throws in "Have a nice day"?  Just like the cop, she's enjoying this moment a tad too much!

      3)  Lastly, it's Saturday. She's always had this idiotic notion that, since we both work during the week, we should set aside Saturdays to accomplish things we didn't have the time to do during the week. Do you think that she ever stopped to consider- even for a teensy weensy second- that maybe I had some important stuff already scheduled? Perhaps that Friends episode that I missed on network TV 10 years ago didn't mean anything to her, but it sure left a void in my life. Besides, it's not like TBS is re-running these all the time, so who's to say when my next opportunity might be to find out if Chandler and Monica ever did get married? (Lord, haven't I waited long enough? You can only keep that sort of anticipation bottled up for just so long!) Hell, I've got feelings too, you know!

    "Honeeeeeeeeey"

    What's the use? I'm screwed. My only choice now is to go and face the music. Ever see Dead Man Walking? Yeah...I'm Sean Penn. My only hope now is that before I get from between here and downstairs, something happens that gets me off the hook. Who knows, maybe she forgot to take her Citrical yesterday and as a result, her pelvis somehow just cracked (where's a little osteoporosis when you need it, anyway?)  But, who am I kidding? I never get lucky like that.

    Finally, I make it to the kitchen and she's there (Damn!), apparently healthy (Double Damn!) and with a functioning voicebox (Triple Damn!) (Man, my bad luck is really starting to snowball!) I reluctantly take a seat at the kitchen table, waiting to be fitted with what is the working equivalent of a ball and chain. She then speaks the words that nearly bring me to tears:

    "The basement is a mess."

    Not the basement! Not the place where I routinely throw everything that I don't have a storage area for! Not the place where my own kids are are afraid to go without being accompanied by an adult! (Yes, they would even prefer to go down there with a stranger than enter the "black hole" alone! Actually, I'm willing to bet that whoever coined the term, "White trash" did so shortly after meeting us and then observing our basement!)  I make a feeble attempt to glance up at my wife with that helpless, "Don't-I-have-any-options?" look, and her returning glare is all the answer I need.

      I get up and make my way to the basement door, feeling much the same as one in the military who is about to embark upon a mission that virtually guarantees certain death. I reach the bottom of the steps and pull the overhead chain for the main basement light. I pull the chain and get a quick jolt of 110 volts. My God! You could get killed like that! Who's the moron that wired this thing? After the initial shock I remember that it was me that wired this baby (never had wired anything before but, with only two wires, I figured I had a 50-50 chance of getting it right..50%...heck, that's almost half) and I also remembered that I had attached a string to the chain so there wouldn't be hand-to-chain contact, which would have eliminated the chance of shock. But the string had broken off a couple of weeks ago, and "Mr. Fix-it" forgot to put another one up. Part of me glad to be alive, but another part of me, given the task at hand, also wishing for a lethal jolt to stop my suffering! I put on some rubber gloves and turn the light off until I can fix it later, and instead use a portable "trouble light" which is actually better as I can move it with me as I clear a path through the collection of rubble known as my basement. I venture on, sizing up the challenge that lay ahead. The relative peace and quiet is shattered by the voice of the resident nut-job:

      "Honey, I don't hear you working down there...What are you doing?"

      I get a Hefty bag, open it up, and start looking for stuff to pitch. Before I can answer, Attila the Honey breaks the silence again:

      "There's plenty of junk to throw out down there...You shouldn't have any trouble finding it!"

      Just then, as if on cue, I spot our wedding album. Item #1 for Mr. Hefty!

      "You're absolutely right, dear. I'm on it."

      Three hours later, I'm still working, she's still yelling! This is the worst day ever! As I'm filling my umpteenth bag of crappola, I start to hear a faint trickling noise, like water, coming from a distant corner of the basement. I follow the sound, and soon identify the source: the hot water tank! Damn! It had sprung a leak! And it was a pretty good one, too. Water was flowing out at a pretty good rate. Fortunately, the basement had a sump pump, and there was a slight pitch to the basement floor so in the event of a flood or whatever, the water would all be channeled to the sump. The angle of the water stream ran right past the base of the basement steps to the sump. As I was thinking about what to do about my ever-increasing level of crisis, the Wicked Witch of the West broke my thought with yet another proclamation:

      "You've been quiet down there for a long time mister....What are you doing? Do you have girlie magazines down there? I'm coming down, and that floor better be clean because I don't have any shoes on!"

I heard the door open, and then Godzilla started down the steps. When she reached the floor she spoke again:

    "This floor is all wet, you idiot....What have you done? It's pitch black, how can you see anything without the light on?"

      With the background illumination provided by the trouble light, I could see her reaching up for the chain for the basement light, barefoot in the stream of water. Suddenly, the realization of what was about to happen shot through me. I started to get up and shout the warning to my wife:

      "Honey, Don't pu..."

      From out of nowhere, my left hand shot up and covered my mouth and prevented me from speaking. Next, my right hand shot up, for what I thought would surely be an attempt to remove my left hand from my mouth and allow me to save my wife. But no...my right hand apparently was in full agreement with the left, for it too covered my mouth, rendering any further rescue efforts, much to my chagrin, totally impossible.

      It was the best day ever!





      1337 Words