What Would You Say?

Just so you know how the mind of a writer works, here's this mornings vision of a conundrum.  I often find myself day-dreaming stories in my head since I've come to live alone.  No, it's not a lonliness kind of thing.  It's more of a "too much time on my hands" kind of experience.  This morning while reading a great set of short stories by David James Duncan titled; "River Teeth" I drifted off into my little corner of the ozone and here's what came to mind.
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It's a new day in Hamilton and I'm feeling some excitement about a get together with a woman I met while working on my Norman Maclean project.  We've decided to have a coffee together and enjoy some "well, who are you anyway" kind of conversation and maybe a bit of chatter about the weather if I turn out to be a bore.  She has decided to come by my place and we'll walk over to the coffee house just a block up the road for our visit.  River Rising Coffee, the same place a couple of us met the other day and played some cribbage to kill time and to help Colleen, a woman I met at the dog walking place, learn the card game.  It's all very Platonic these days you know.

I decide to get get the day underway after a couple good stories by Duncan.   The chores of the house come to mind since I've done a bit of writing  and Duncan's chapters have satisfied my reading for now.  I decide first to see what I might have for clean clothes to wear for the coffee klatch.  I'm in luck.  I have a decent pair of jeans and a shirt that looks only slightly out of date and containing only a smidge of wear on the collar.  So, I'm good to go.  Looking around though I see a pile of laundry on the floor in the corner by the dresser and decide I have plenty of time to wash and maybe get after the bathroom a bit just in case there is a call for the "ladies room" before my friend and I head out for coffee.  I grab at the clothes on the floor and realize there isn't really a load there.  Then I spy the bed flung open and think about filling the load with bedding.  There is no doubt based on conversations with my 'bed-buddy pillow' that its time to have some clean sheets and pillow cases for the coming weeks.  Now I have an arm load and after gathering a couple of far flung socks I head to the basement and conduct the tricky operation of an out of date, somewhat abused washing machine.

Back upstairs I tackle the bathroom and give it a 'lick and a promise' as mom used to always say.  Working through that I hear the washing machine give up with a "ding" and go down and transfer the load into the dryer.  A dryer that requires a mechanic to figure out how to set the dials just right so the clothes, no matter the size of the load, get dry in less than three resettings.  Back to the upstairs to finish some dishes and sit for a chapter of Duncan or maybe I'll try a 'coyote story' or who cares.

Finally I hear the dryer "gachunk" to a stop and it's unique 'dang' and head down with the basket to get the clothes.  Upstairs I place the basket in the chair and start folding clothes.  Time somehow gets away from me.  Well, I space out actually because my daily routine is scrambled with my coffee event and to be honest, I'm more nervous than I realized about going out for a coffee with someone other than Tess.  I get the clothes folded, stacked, put away and have a bundle of bedding left.  I manage the bundle and head into the bedroom to make the bed.

Pillow cases are always fun.  Do you bite the old pillow and then try to pull on the case from your waist up or do you try to stuff the pillow in the case opening while laying the case on the bed and pushing the pillow into the inside out case?  Okay, reverse the pillow case to outside out and get it done.  Next the fitted sheet.  Always my favorite since it just goes on and stays on and there is no measuring or anything as long as the tag is toward the feet, right?  Now the top sheet.  Just then the doorbell rings for the first time since I've moved into this place in Hamilton, Montana.    It dawns on me, it's Judy.  Where has the time gone?  So, I nervously broadcast the top sheet over the bed and head to the door.

"Hey, Judy.  How you doing?  Come on in.  I lost track of time and I need to get out of my house cleaning outfit."

"Hi, Ron.  No problem.  Neat old house you're renting here.  Pink walls.  That's a treat.  Well, maybe a guy would call them coral."

"Yeah.  Those are coral walls, but they could be purple since I hardly pay any attention to this place.  Here.  I'll show you around a bit then I'll get out of these sweats and throw on some jeans and we'll head over to River Rising for a coffee or tea; whichever you prefer."

I show her the living room.  A circular affair of a couch, my computer table, a reading chair, a light table I do my mapping project on and then semi-point into the kitchen while she leans around the entrance door to see inside.

"Ahh, your landlord is a 50s commercial Americana knick-knack collector I see." 

"Yup.  Want a Coca-Cola dinner plate with a sandwich", I reply.

"Funny," she chimes back.

We walk back through the small livingroom to the hall going into the bathroom.  I bow and offer "the ladies room", to which she just smiles and responds, "Sunflower yellow.  How cheery."

Then its three steps to my bedroom.  And there it is.  A bed with freshly washed sheets fitted or piled along with a stack of pillows nicely covered in their downy softened fragrance of pine stacked in the chair next to the bed.  I look at her and she is silently looking at me.

What would you say?