The Borrowed Comb

“Where’s the extension cord?” I asked. She was on the phone, but she heard me. She pointed to the kitchen junk drawer which was the top one just adjacent to the old green stove, battered with Lord only knows how many metal spatula miscues over the decades, that was wedged in place (probably since the structure’s construction) inside this two-bedroom, one-level townhome before we bought it in November of last year. The townhome was absent of any curb appeal to adults. Most children in the neighborhood believed it was haunted, which was okay by me. That meant none of them would be coming around trying to sell seed packets or economy sized chocolate bars at premium prices. Anyway, once the wedding is over, we plan to use some of the hotly anticipated gift money to fix the place up. First, we’ll do the floor in the front room. Next up will be the master bedroom and bathroom, then the kitchen. If there are any monies left, I’ll slap a coat of fresh paint on the outside and fix most of the busted windows. In this town we live in, Pelosiville, busted windows outnumber un-busted windows by a long shot. For the time being, it’s the only place we can afford. And my bride-to-be insisted on being “…within a two-cell phone tower drive” of her parents’ house. “Not that one—the big one—the fifty-footer,” I said. She rolled her eyes, covered her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, rolled her eyes again and asked, “Why?” in a soft, breathy, irritated voice. “I’m going to work on my novel.” Her face turned red, then blue, then red again. She returned to the phone conversation, briefly. “Can I call you back? I’m about to have a situation here.” Then she disconnected the call and set her phone down on the counter. She folded her arms across her chest while eyeballing our three-month old laptop computer I’d had tucked up into place beneath my left armpit. “And just where do you plan on doing this?” “In the tub. You know I do my best work when I’m naked and wet.” “You are not taking our nearly brand-new laptop computer near the bathtub. In the first place, I’ve got all of our wedding information on it. And in the second place, no. Just, no.” On the one hand, I’d had enough of her rules. Ever since we moved in together, it was nothing but a litany of rules with the goal posts constantly being moved. Before we moved in together, we dated for five weeks and there were no rules at all. It was akin to America in 1776 vs. America now. On the other hand, this was one battle I didn’t need to fight today. A battle would only serve to distract me from my goal of getting at least three-hundred solid words down before lunch. I finally had two weeks off from the day job, and I needed to get cracking. “And where do you get off thinking you can write a novel, anyway?” She said. “You have no life experience. You possess no skills. You’ve never had an original idea. Nothing you say is important to anybody. And, I still have all of the love notes you wrote me last year; you don’t even know the difference between ‘there,’ ‘their,’ ‘they’re,’ and ‘where’!”