2
The morning of Christmas Eve.
It was a perfect suburban house in a perfect suburban neighborhood. The Christmas lights were joyously (but tastefully) hung from the gutters. The picket fence was white and the lawn was green, despite the cold December weather. The house was painted pale yellow, not hot pink, or teal, or any other strange colors. There were no lawn gnomes or other signs of insanity.
But as the neighbors walked their dogs and fetched their papers that morning, it was a fairly common sound they heard: a man’s voice ringing loud and clear out of his bathroom window.
“DAAAAAAAAAAAAVEEEEEEEEEY!”
***
Jeff Tanner was a fairly good-looking man. He had nice brown hair and was handsome in a suit, and once upon a time, his eyes had twinkled…though that had been a long, long time ago.
At the moment, he was standing in his bathroom, dressed only in his boxers, staring at a mound of toilet paper on the tile floor. It stood three feet high, like a mini-Kilimanjaro, folded over and onto itself in a soft powdery mound.
Just then, a face appeared around the doorframe. A five year-old’s face, with a head covered in soft yellow fuzz. The rest of his body stayed out of sight.
“Yeah?”
Jeff pointed at the toilet paper.
“Did you do that, Davey?”
Davey looked down at the pile, and his eyes got big, like he’d never seen something that cool before. He looked up at Jeff, looked away like he was thinking about it…then shook his head.
“No.”
Jeff put his hands on his hips, trying to play the stern father. He didn’t do it very well, especially not in his underwear.
“Then who did?”
Davey looked at the pile, scrunched up his face in thought, and then said very, very innocently:
“Another little boy with my face.”
Jeff sighed and rubbed his closed eyes. “All right, points for originality. Go get dressed. And remember, pants before shoes.”
“Can I fix breakfast?”
“Do you remember last month and the toaster fire?”
“I just want cereal.”
“Do you remember last week and the raisin bran incident?”
Davey protested, “But Dad, I’m older now.”
“No. No more than one mess per morning. Now get.”
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Copyright © 2008 Darren Pillsbury. All rights reserved.
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