Western New York is a windy, windy place, especially in November. The grocery stores have high wind warning signs in the parking lot asking customers to corral their shopping carts, it’s not unusual to find your garbage can in your neighbors yard, and some days, it feels like the whole house might pick up and blow away.
After a morning of finishing up a bunch of odds and ends, I’d finally settled into writing. I had my coffee, water, and snacks lined up. The ringer was off on my phone, and the perfect writing music was playing on iTunes. Then I heard glass breaking in the garage.
I’d forgotten to close the back door to the garage when I let the dogs in after their morning outing. The wind was blowing so hard that the storm door must have come unhooked and when it slammed shut, the bottom panel broke, throwing slivers of shattered glass at least five feet in either direction onto the garage floor and the back patio. Since the wind was still blowing the broken glass around, and that’s the door the dogs use to go outside, there was no getting to it later. I said goodbye to my perfect cup of steaming hot coffee, threw on my big old baggy yard work jeans and my old running shoes and went to work. And it sucked. Hard.
I got glass in my shoe. I came face to face with a really big spider. The shop vac smelled like something had died in it. As I was gagging over the smell and trying to vacuum the glass out of the door frame, the storm door blew shut again and hit me in the head. Hard.
My big old baggy yard work jeans weren’t staying up without a belt, but since my hands were covered in disgusting shop vac dust, I didn’t want to touch anything, let alone hoist them up, so I was just short of mooning the garage door. I comforted myself with the thought that someone would actually have to be looking directly into our garage windows to see me, which I decided was highly unlikely . . . and then I heard the daily collection of bills and ad circulars fly through the mail slot (no pun intended) at the front of the garage. So if the mail lady happened to peek in the window while she was delivering the mail, I’m pretty sure she got a show. Then while I was making sure there weren’t any slivers of glass in the yard, I stepped in dog poop. And I couldn’t help but think, I’ve seen this movie before.
I would like Chevy Chase to play me. Or maybe Ben Stiller. . .
