The Home Office
Riding home on my cruiser bike from a friend’s house, I was giving thanks and appreciating the beautiful warmth of the sun shining on my face on what I would consider a chilly, Florida day. Yes, 60 degrees is cold to this Floridian. I pedal hard to maintain a certain degree of heat in my muscles, pop up the curb onto my driveway and stop short of careening into my front door. The trash crew has come by and I need to pull the bin into my garage. Not wanting my bike to get full of cobwebs in the garage, I keep it inside my nice, spider-free home. All hunky-dory, I go in through the front door of my house, park my bike in the hallway and walk towards the other exit off the laundry room. That’s when I realize I am actually hot from my ride. Doing a one-eighty, I head towards my master bedroom at the rear of the house, to remove my jacket. This way, when I go back outside for the trash bin, it will be refreshing to feel the cool air zip through the knitted gaps in my sweater. I peel my windbreaker off, fling it onto the bed and freeze. A huge wasp is crawling on my bed. Inches away from my pillow. This is why I will now be promptly making my bed. EVERY DAY. Like the minute I wake up.
The wasp must have been on me from my bike ride, for who knows how long. But lucky for me, it’s now on my sheets. My shoes are still on. All I have to do is give it one good whack. What if I miss? Visions of childhood cartoons, where an angry looking hornet, smirks, gives me the stink eye and bee-lines towards me, runs through my head. I grab my jacket and toss it over the wasp trying to catch it. I pray it doesn’t have the sense to crawl out of it and bury into my pillowcase. Since I am at the furthest end of the house from my husband who is upstairs in his office, I take a huge breath and holler at the top of my lungs, “Honey, I need you, RIGHT NOW!” My eyes are fixated on the jacket, scanning it for any movement. I hear my husband’s calm footsteps as he comes down the stairs. “Get the Wasp spray!” I holler, hoping he now realizes the urgency of my situation. He comes in with a large folded mailer. I point to where I hope the wasp is still captured under my jacket and my husband takes care of it.
I give him a huge hug and we both walk out into our living room. “Thank you so much.” I say, squeezing him tight.
“Well,” he says chuckling, “It must have been something important for you to have called out like that.”
I cringe, “Sorry, I just needed you really fast.”
“Oh, I got that.” He mused, “So did everyone on my call.”
I clasp my hands over my mouth.
“They all heard you and one of them said, ‘um, do you need to go?’”
I try to justify my possible ridiculousness by saying, “Well, they were the ones with the idea of ‘the home office’” I say with air quotes, referring to his boss.
“I was on the phone with the client.”
