Oh Dave! Now

He was a tough old Navy man from WWII. Divorced, never remarried, retired. Lived alone for the last 30 years. Liked his beer cold and his golf club hot.

So what was he doing serving breakfast to a couple of gays from California? In his own house no less, his castle, everything kept in a precise order. The world had changed since he had left a Wyoming farm at age 17 to fight the Germans and the Japanese (though in the heat of the day they had fought the Nazi Krauts and the Japs—now that the War was long over and mankind had evolved, those terms were offensive).

“How do you want your eggs?” he barked, an imaginary cigarette hanging from his lip. He had given up smoking cold turkey years ago—a bum ticker—but he never gave up the attitude.

“Over easy,” Eric and Dave intoned together in perfect fifths, Eric on the high note, Dave harmonizing on the low note.

Bacon, eggs, and toast were served. He poured cranberry juice into tall glasses for his two house guests. He rarely bought it for himself—too expensive. But he knew Dave drank it every morning so he got it special for their visit to Minneapolis.

“How was the bed last night in the guest room? It’s a small bed for two.”

“Fine,” Eric replied. “A little cozy but the mattress is good.”

He nodded in response.

Dave swallowed a bite of eggs. “We were warm so I cracked open the window.”

“I sleep with my window open most of the year, even in winter,” he revealed. “If I don’t have fresh air, I wake up with stuffed sinuses.”

And so mornings went in Minneapolis. Breakfast over, all three men helped clear the table. Dave rinsed his glass out and filled it with cool spring water from a jug in the refrigerator. He went to the bedroom and took his vitamins. When he returned to the kitchen/dining area, the other two were busy washing and drying dishes. Dave paused and set the empty glass down at his place at the table. Now there’s a sight—my dad and my lover getting all domestic. “Oh, lucky man,” he thought. “I am a lucky man.”

Moments later, the domestic bliss was shattered. Dave’s water glass was gone! Vanished into thin air!

He had stepped out onto the sun porch for mere seconds. A few deep yoga breaths. An appreciative look at Dad’s rhubarb patch. And poof! He turned around and it was gone.

“Where’s my glass? I was going to have some more water.”

“We washed and dried it. It was empty so we thought you were done with it.”

Dave has a dry constitution. Water is his beverage of choice. Except for a cup of coffee and juice in the morning, all he ever drinks is water.

“I put it at my place so I could reuse it.” Dave looked at Eric who should know better but he was busy reading the paper.

Dad had a solution. “Get another one.”

Dave did. He clung to that glass and filled and refilled it over the next couple of hours as they alternately visited and took turns taking showers. Clean, refreshed, and hydrated, they all went out together to visit Dave’s siblings in neighboring suburbs. The glass stayed home on the end table in the living room, touching the novel Dave was reading as if to say “This is Dave’s book and this is Dave’s water glass and never shall they be separated.” Dave had cleverly left about an inch of water in the glass to further drive home the point that his glass was still in use.

* * * *

Later that day they returned to Dad’s townhouse to relax before dinner. Dave used the bathroom to pee and then went to the living room to retrieve his glass. He gasped! GONE! He looked quickly from end table to kitchen. No sign of Dad. No sign of the glass. In less than five minutes! How was it possible? How and why? Why, oh, why?

* * * *

Meanwhile back at the California casa, Dave’s bitch Nia was literally caged in. The housekeeper, with her fast moves, unfamiliar commands (“Perrito loco!”), and noisy machines, had locked her up, gotten her out of the way. Nia was used to it. Other dames were threatened by her and the only way to stop her from jumping on anything in pants was to lock her up.

Nia sighed, her chin resting solemnly on her paw. She was powerless, could only watch, listen, sniff at the raping and pillaging of Dave and Eric’s prized possessions, entrusted to Nia for safekeeping on their trip away, which thankfully for her ended today.

That woman was in the kitchen now, just out of sight. As she emptied the dishwasher, Nia could hear the cries, the despair.

“Oh, help, Nia! I’m a pot—she’s putting me in the cake pan cupboard, not the pots and pans drawer.”

“Yeah, well tough tittie,” grumbled the aluminum gravy shaker. “They’re never going to find me! For some godforsaken reason, I’m stuck in with the Tupperware!”

Nia swallowed a helpless whine and thought, “Don’t lose my kong, don’t lose my kong. I’ll never get another piece of kibble again.” She rolled over so her rear was facing the kitchen and drifted into a restless beauty rest. It will be a bad fur day tomorrow.

* * * *

Dave and Eric returned home later that night and released Nia from bondage. After taking her outside to freshen up, Dave unpacked his bags and changed into sweats, his mind still reeling from the disappearance of water glass after water glass during their four-day visit.

He had an idea. He quickly traversed the two flight stairwell down to his office on the lowest level of the house. Nia followed panting, swaying her hips to a seductive rhythm. Dave made a beeline to his desk and pressed the ON button of his beat up medieval iMac. It was fancy in its day. Still gets the job done, Dave scoffed silently to the upgrade-obsessed masses.

Nia jumped up three feet onto the daybed and sighed. For a corgi with six-inch stiletto legs, the girl had spunk. She let out a little whimper that said, “Hey, Dave. I’m over here. Let’s play.” It got Dave’s attention. He turned to see her stretched out on her side, eyes glued to his manly frame. He grinned. She was fetching, everyone said so when they took walks together around town. Her brown eyes shone like wet pools of Welsh dew on the bogs. Those enigmatic eyes were circled in black, permanent eyeliner that drew you in. Nia smiled and showed her white teeth. Dave winced. Her teeth needed brushing—there was a dark smear on the left side, probably the remnants of a goat poop snack in the park. Dave turned back to the computer. Beneath Nia’s luxurious fur coat of auburn and white, that lady had some disgusting habits.

The internet. The world wide web. A pile of garbage, Dave thought, some of it years old and rotten, useless, that all the world’s rats had to burrow through to get to the caviar at the top of the heap. Google, my ass. He wanted a search engine called Marlowe or Ness that didn’t mess around, that got the job done fast, found the dirt and solved the crime in an hour or less.

He clicked and typed. Waited. Ads loading. He cringed. Strutting cyber chicks that Obama wants to go back to work. Creepy. He clicked, clicked, and clicked again. If he was a smoker, his mouse would be tobacco-stained from all this clicking. The sound must drive Nia crazy, awaken her primal instincts to shake, kill, and devour.

“Bingo,” Dave said out loud.

Nia’s ears perked up—she remembered Bingo. Tall, sturdy, lots of energy. Loved to run in circles and nibble the rough of her neck.

But no. It was a series of posts from 2006 about jerry-rigging a motion-activated Halloween haunted house speaker system. Just a year ago Dave had set up an audio loop on his MP3 player attached to a computer speaker for an office mini-golf course and it worked just fine. Surely technology had progressed since 2006.

He googled and googled. There were recordable greeting cards. A mirror that laughed whenever someone picked it up and looked in it. But what Dave wanted was a sound chip so he could record the phrase “This glass is still in use. Please leave it alone.”  He could affix it to the side of a glass and if anyone approached it, they would hear the warning, like on car alarms.

But apparently no one else cared about talking water glasses. He would have to get out the low-tech label maker.

Dave walked away from the computer. Nia immediately jumped to the floor. He knelt down and hugged Nia tightly. “As dog is my witness, I will never, ever go thirsty again!” His eyes teared up. He stood and reached for a tissue but the box was empty. He walked into the bathroom for a piece of toilet paper.

What he found was shocking! Someone had changed the TP to roll under, not over!

“Gadzooks, Nia,” he lamented. “Is my work never done?”

Nia squatted and peed on the carpet as if to answer, “No.”

In loving memory of
Delbert J. Marcus
1925-2008