Thursday, July 27, 2017

From the Five-Dollar Daughter to the Fifty-Cent Wife

I've come a long way, baby. The times, they are a-changin'. Used to be I was my mom's special daughter, worthy of a five-dollar bill every time I packed up a Walmart bag of treats like leftover fried rice, a couple of Little Caesar's cheese pizza slices, week-old tabloids, and, if she was lucky, an unopened box of Crunch N Munch that I bought at Save A Lot just for her. In return, after a 30-minute conversation, each of us sitting behind the wheel of our car on the bowling alley parking lot, Mom would give me five dollars. Yes. It gave me a sense of worth. Even though she might say, "For the boys. In case they want McDonalds."

Now I am searching for my identity. And I'm afraid I've found it. The Fifty-Cent Wife.

Yesterday I came upstairs to get supper ready, and talk to Hick over the back porch rail as he floated just below the surface of Poolio on a raft not quite rated for his weight.

"Did you see your present?"

"No. What present?"

"Well, you say I never bring you anything. It's on the table."

"I don't look on the table. That's your junk. And the stuff for Chex Mix that I'm making for you to take The Pony."

"Not on the table. On the counter. In that area you say I always pile everything. Where you get stuff ready."

"Oh. I didn't put your supper on yet. I didn't look."

"I got you a present. At Goodwill."

"Huh. I can't wait."

"Well...see? I brought you something. I think you'll get a kick out of it."


Yeah. Somebody should get a kick out of it, all right. It's not that I'm ungrateful. It's the though that counts. And Hick was definitely thinking of me when he spent that 50 cents. Assuming it wasn't a half-price sale again. He was thinking of me right after I pointedly told him that he never thinks of me, that I bring him treats all the time without him asking, and I couldn't think of the last time he brought ME anything. The little red horse and the lottery ticket from Sweden or Switzerland (I get them confused, they're pretty much the same place, aren't they) or Germany excluded, because they were from his work trip.

Let the record show that I have never consumed a cup of coffee in my life, yet Hick saw fit to bring me a double-sized coffee mug! Uh huh. Even though I don't drink coffee! But the previous owner of this gently-used treasure must have:


I don't know what I'm going to do with it. I'm certainly not going to take up coffee-drinking! I think it's more of a commemorative treasure. Perhaps Hick will volunteer to build a shack around it for me.

You know the best thing about this special loving present that my Sweet Baboo brought me? It almost made me believe that he has begun growing a rudimentary sense of humor!

18 comments:

  1. Well Val I'd say Hick has taken a liking to you, you could drink hot chocolate out of it, or in a pinch could even pour some of your 44oz Diet Coke into it just to show Hick how much you like it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mmm...that would be a LOT of hot chocolate! No to the Diet Coke. My magical elixir is meant to be sipped through a straw, or chugged from a bottle spout, NOT swilled like a common beverage from the rim of a mug.

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. Oh, I get it! So somebody might STEAL IT!

      Delete
  3. It should be good for your Diet Coke!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This proves that you are definitely not a Diet Coke drinker. That's no way to treat Diet Coke!

      Delete
  4. Replies
    1. You probably have a Goodwill Store nearby. In fact, I think I heard something a while back about you trying to CHEAT THEM on the price of a picture frame! So you might be able to find one of these mugs for yourself. If you pay a penny less than 50 cents for it, though, I WILL hear about it!

      Delete
  5. You could put rum in it Or pencils. Or Peeps.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not a drinker, but I went to college. I'm pretty sure from what I remember of those days that this would be A LOT of rum.

      Pencils? The Pony is the only person around this house who ever used PENCILS! Thanks for reminding me that he's gone. Now I need some rum.

      PEEPS? As if they would last long enough to fill this mug.

      Delete
  6. It's a great mug! And a good size for a hot chocolate with marshmallows. Or use it as a pencil cup, flower vase, something to trap spiders under. Pretty much anything that takes your fancy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's big enough to use the full size marshmallows, not just the miniatures! We don't have enough pencils to fill it, and the goats ate my lilac bushes and half the rose bush, so flowers are not abundant, unless you count those white stalks that grow out of the yucca plants. If I used it to trap a spider, then that mug would be thrown away after use.

      Delete
  7. Well, it is funny .... and true. I vote for a coffee shack.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm afraid trouble would be brewing if Hick built a coffee shack. Neither of us are coffee drinkers. Hick has no filter, and I shudder to think what ideas might be percolating in his noggin. He could be constructing a home for wayward baristas!

      Delete
  8. I can't stop laughing. This is a hoot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Be careful what you hoot at. There could be one in your future.

      Delete
  9. It's a container. Let it contain something.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If I was a crafty kind of person, I could cut up my losing scratch-off tickets, and make a colorful bouquet to fill my new used mug. But I'm not. So maybe I'll use it to eat Chex Mix out of.

      Delete