My life with Kurt, the epitome of engineer, he is the ultimate “left brained” king of spreadsheets. Aside from still wanting to play Dungeons and Dragons or some other role-playing game like Vampire he is mentally an 80-year-old curmudgeon who seems to be highly allergic to change of any kind. Oddly, we are a perfect match.
On laundry days, Sophia loved to steal the smallest of my three baskets, the one I use to haul clothes up and down the stairs. This basket allows her to partake in her all-time favorite activity, putting things into containers. Sometimes she really loads up, taking toys off her shelves to put in the basket, and other times she only stows the favorites, Bear, Moose, and “Friend”. After an incident of stair tumbling I’ve since taught her to ask for help in hauling her basket of loot down the stairs. Sometimes she still thinks she can do it on her own, but generally, she’s pretty good about the rule.
I was sleeping in on one recent weekend day. Moose, Bear, and “Friend” were loaded into the basket and Sophia had indicated that she wanted the load to go downstairs. “Do you need help taking that down stairs?” Kurt asked, “Ok, hand me the basket.” Sophia then proceeded to take Moose, Bear, and “Friend” out of the basket and hand The Basket to Kurt. She then carries the three favored toys down the stairs herself. Kurt tossed the basket back up the half flight of stairs and Sophia gave him a look of, “Why the hell did you ask me for the basket if you didn’t want it?”
Kurt believes her literal interpretation of things is a sign we have a lawyer in the making.
“He snapped his Achilles tendon playing softball.” Kurt said.
“Going to start teasing him about his age? Call him…oh who was that?…Not Hercules.”
Kurt raised his eyebrow, “Achilles.”
I buried my head in my hands knowing the torment about to come upon me.
“Who was the guy that died of Lou Gehrig’s disease?” He began.
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
Watching a show on luxury yachts, they went over the details of the dining area of a yacht and I said, “two hundred thousand a week and they can’t hire someone to straighten the candle sticks?” Kurt looks at me and says, “Sounds like you’re ready to be rich. You’re a pain in the ass.”
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
Last week (Wednesday August 4th to be precise) when we sat down to dinner, Kurt turned on the show, “The Big Bang Theory” to which his friend, my apparent mortal enemy, introduced him. Yes, the show is hilarious, but sometimes I’d rather escape from reality and not live through the painful parts over and over again. I swear the writers of the show have been following Kurt throughout his life. By my estimation, the show is really a spinoff of the movie, “The Truman Show”.
In general, Kurt loves the technical accuracy of the jokes, but the episode we watched on that particular evening made a huge flaw. Really, it was a tiny flaw, but because it upset Kurt, we can both agree that it was a huge flaw. We were watching the second season episode, “The Dead Hooker Juxtaposition”. In that episode, Sheldon observes that Penny is mimicking the new tenant. Sheldon says, “Oh, mimicry. I enjoy mimicry. I’ve been working on Admiral Ackbar from Return of the Jedi. “It’s a trap!” You have to imagine me with a giant squid head.” At this point Kurt’s eyes became huge.
This was the first time he had ever noticed a “gross error” in one of their geek references. As Kurt continued to fill his lungs with air, thereby removing most of the oxygen from the room, even Sophia noticed that a lecture was fast approaching. Before he had fully recovered from the shock of such a grave mistake enough to begin speaking Sophia shushed him. “Shshshshsssshhh,” she said with her finger to her lips. All I can say is at least I have a little ally.
Even though I didn’t care Kurt, as usual, explained in even greater detail than necessary what horrible atrocity had occurred. Apparently Admiral Ackbar is a member of the Mon Calamari race, a race evolved from salmon. The other race natives to planet Mon Calamari, the Quarren, evolved from squid.
Sophia has problems pronouncing her “L’s”, and “R’s” but she can hear the difference in the way we say words and the way she says them. A few weeks ago before our July heat wave, which never hits on the weekend of the 4th, we did have a few nice days scattered around June. On one of those weekend days Kurt wore shorts with his motorcycle T-shirt. Sophia, displaying her powers of toddler observation pointed at Kurt’s black shirt and said, “bak shoot”.
“Yes, I’m wearing a black shirt” Kurt replied.
“gween shoots” She said pointing to his shorts.
“Close, sh-OR-tz. This is a black sh-IRT, and these are green sh-OR-tz.”
Sophia cocked her head like any confused pup, thought for a moment, furrowed her brows, and finally said, “gween PANTS” with attitude.
“What’s the special occasion?”
Dumbfounded he hesitantly said, “none”.
“I smell aftershave. You only shave on Sunday nights and it’s Wednesday.”
Laughing, “Tomorrow they’re taking pictures. I’m even going to wear my wedding tuxedo.”
“Did your boss tell you to not wear a t-shirt?”
“No, but he asked that I not wear a competitor’s shirt”
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
I received two prepaid postage envelops with the junk mail today. I use them to return junk mail. “Do you have anything you want to send back to Capital One?” I asked waving the envelopes.
“Yeah, I have to take a shit.”
“Ok but I’m going to make you the one to lick the envelope.”
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
Thursday last week, Kurt took Sophia for a walk around the block and at thirty-one months, she finally uttered her first three-word phrase. She said it four times on their walk. Kurt came home and asked me, “Have you been brainwashing our daughter?”
“Uh, no, why?”
Her first phrase was, “I want puppy.” And she really hasn’t let up on the topic either.
“What age did we stipulate for the trust fund?”
“Twenty-five, I remember because we wanted her to live a little before receiving money so she doesn’t just blow it on things like fur necklaces.”
*blink blink blink*
“Fur necklaces? It’s a good thing I’m not into jewelry. You would really suck at picking anything good.”
Flash Fiction Friday is hosted by g-man. You may also visit Flash Fiction Friday 55′s, a blog dedicated to hosting 55 Flash Fiction Friday posts.
Kurt made me promise that I wouldn’t blame him for the way Sophia was dressed since I told him to let her choose what she wanted to wear, so I won’t. It’s really my fault. I told him to let her choose her own clothes. I assumed that any normal human being would know that they need to select either the top or the bottom themselves and then give the toddler two or three choices of the other that are known to match. Kurt didn’t do that. He laid out three random bottoms and three random tops. I have pictures of the results. Please be warned that they my burn your eyes.
Sophia was oddly hyper that day (2/8/10). It may have been due to the bright color selection or it’s also possible that her selection was a reflection of her mood. I had such a hard time getting a good shot of her that I started running up and down the stairs hoping that would slow her down enough for me to focus on her. I put her hair up in a ponytail and wanted pictures of that, so Kurt tried to help me by holding her, and upside-down. Then she ran in and out of her room giggling as Kurt chased her. He finally caught the elusive toddler again to complete her look for the day. Those are dress shoes he’s putting on her, with socks, she insisted.
Yes, she actually went out in public looking like that. We aren’t cruel. It was her choice.
