Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Jars and spiders

Love, Mike Queens thought between glancing behind him and not using his turn signal, was a very strange thing. It made a man do things, unmanly, unnecessary things, like buy flowers. Flowers. Dead plants. It was beyond him why dead plants were deemed necessary by love, but they were, and even an idiot like himself could look at flowers and say “I will buy these for Sadie” without having any comprehensive reason why.
And for some reason, dead plants made Sadie very happy with him. Sunflowers especially; roses seemed a little formal... How did he know this stuff?! He was male, for goodness sake. Men aren't supposed to think about roses and formality and piddly little stuff like that, they were supposed to think about guns, and lifting heavy things, and opening jars, and killing spiders, and other manly things.
But then, Sadie was his match with a gun any time, and heavy things were not his specialty.... But he was good with jars! And very good with spiders. Sadie didn't like spiders, and spiders didn't like rolled up newspaper. Mike glanced at the rolled up newspaper in the side pocket of his jeep door and smiled. Yes, he was good with spiders.
But then he glanced back at Sadie, sleeping peacefully through the bumpy jeep ride into the outback, and sighed again.
Why was he sighing? This was that whole love thing messing with his head again. It made him buy flowers, it made him sigh... What next, jewelry?
He glanced at Sadie again, then swerved slightly to miss an alarmed looking road-creature.
Ok, jewelry. Her ring size... seven maybe? Eight? What was the rule on this, guess high or guess low? But maybe rings were too formal, maybe he should start off with something less... committal.
Darnit, he was thinking about these things again! Jars and spiders, Mike, keep it together!
Bracelets... did she wear bracelets? Or earrings? Another glance in her direction made him almost hit a tree. Earrings. Small ones, maybe, she didn't seem like the type for big hoops or dangling things getting caught in her hair and in her way... Maybe just diamonds, set in...
Diamonds? No! Way too committal! What was he trying to do here, propose?
How the heck was he supposed to propose, anyway? The whole get down on one knee affair was a little... cliché, but a classic nonetheless. Maybe something a little more creative, like a scavenger hunt, or...
Good grief!
Mike shook his head in disbelief and pulled off. He didn't know whether it was love or just plain old lack of sleep that was making him think this stuff, but either way, he was in no condition to drive.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Remind me to think about these very important questions before I drive!

Good job summing up the frustration all men seem to go through, even better because it's so cute! ^^;

Anonymous said...

I love the cute coupley-ness of these two, while still having the totally incongruous setting of the hitman thing.

Also, the spiders and jars things is true. I'd love a companion piece to this from her perspective, but the voice is great all on its own in this one.