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Another time, just a few weeks after we’d finished scraping plastic out of the burner, The Lovely Marianne sat on our living room rug and hemmed the new drapes while I sat, king-like, reading the paper in my new Lay-Z-Boy. I remember it was very quiet. Marianne stitched slowly and deliberately. Every now and then I glanced over the top of the paper and smiled at my bride. She smiled back.
Coming dead on the heels of the business with the coffeepot, this was too much for me to bear. I let loose a giggle from behind the newspaper. The Lovely Marianne walked from the room, saying nothing. Now, I knew very little of life or women back then so I told everyone I met about the Great Coffeepot Melt-Down and The Hemming of the Shag Rug. All in all, she took it pretty well. It became, after a few years of telling and retelling, a better and better story – part of Holohan family folklore. I’d bring it up to new friends as our lives cycled through phases of new neighbors and new neighborhoods. Every time I told THE STORY, it grew a few more details, finally making the subtle leap from bent-truth to legend. And all the while I was sculpting my tale, weaving in more and more fabricated detail, The Lovely Marianne smiled sweetly and said nothing. She was waiting.
I went to the lumberyard to get three, 80-pound bags of Sandmix. The price was higher than it was at the home center, but I wouldn’t have to lug the stuff to my car a quarter-mile away. I went to the counter and ordered the cement, paid for it, and went out to back to "See the yardman," who pointed me toward a pile of brown sacks.
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An hour went by. She got up, left the room and returned with something hidden against her thigh. I kept reading, letting a few minutes pass before I peeked over the top of the sports section to catch her using her secreted scissors to clip the drapes fee of the shag carpeting.
Years passed. One day I decided to do some concrete work in the backyard. It was just a small project, nothing I hadn’t tackled before.| Dan Holohan - [Intro] | [Email] | [Website] |
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