“Fuezle!”
I cried out, in the half-frantic, half-asleep way of someone just awoken. I had been awoken by my husband. He was trying to be quiet. Trying to be quiet is a pretty sure way to
wake someone up. I don’t know why.
“It’s
alright; I took care of it,” my husband assured me.
“What?”
I asked. I had been sneezing all day and
I couldn’t take it anymore and finally took an antihistamine. One little pink pill and I was knocked out
for hours. My husband came home from
work and saw me sleeping off the medicine.
He tried to be quiet and, consequently, woke me up from a very deep
sleep. I didn’t actually know any of this
at the time, as my head was still wrapped around the little pink pill, leading
me to ask my question.
“Hey,
you’re not sneezing,” my husband remarked.
No, no I wasn’t. Which meant that
I had taken an antihistamine. Which
meant I had been sleeping. Which meant
my husband had woken me up when he got home.
Suddenly, it all made so much sense.
I shook some more of the sleep out of my head and looked at my husband.
“Was
I saying something?”
Look,
nobody every said I was bright, even in my best moments. And this was not one of my best moments.
“You
asked about Fuezle. I said I took care
of it.”
“Oh,
that’s good! Oh, I’m so excited! Aren’t you excited, Kitty?” I asked the
bundle of fur on my legs. The cat
apparently had not been awoken by my husband coming in and she apparently was
not all that excited.
I
waited days for Fuezle. I didn’t know
what to do with myself. I was so
excited. I couldn’t focus on my work. I could barely sleep or eat. I just bounced around the house, making ready
for Fuezle. My husband was just as
excited, but he’s much more mellow than I.
He went to work everyday. I would
kiss him good-bye and then flutter around the house, a butterfly on its little
butterfly errands. The day would pass
slowly, until finally I would hear the front door open.
“Fuezle?”
I would scream to my husband from whatever part of the house I was in.
“Not
today, Dear,” he would say.
I
would be disappointed and mope all evening, while my husband would tell me I
couldn’t let all my emotions get wrapped up in this one thing.
“It’s
not a thing! Fuezle!”
“Yes,
Fuezle,” he would say, calmly.
But
his act wasn’t working on me. He was
trying to keep busy, trying to distract himself from the anticipation of
Fuezle. He would go to work early, work
hard and late, then he would come home and putter from project to project,
never finishing any of them. He started
to build a cat post with a little bed on the top for Kitty to use. He started to organize the front closet. He started to put in a new kitchen sink. As for me, I spent my days waiting and
cleaning up the messes of his half finished projects. I spent my evenings pacing and pouting. I spent my nights dreaming of Fuezle.
Finally,
a couple of weeks after my husband had woken me from a sound sleep, I heard the
front door open. Even before I could
call out what was now my traditional greeting, my husband yelled, “FUEZLE!”
I
came running, the cat at my heels. The
two of us lined up in front of my husband, who was holding a rather large
box. I smiled so hard my teeth
hurt. The three of us went to the dining
room table. My husband went to get
scissors, while the cat and I waited.
Kitty kept nuzzling the box, marking her territory.
“My
box. My Fuezle. Mine.”
When
my husband returned, he cut open the box and pulled out the packing
peanuts. There it was. It seemed like we had waited forever and now,
there it was. Right in the box. Fuezle.
The cat nuzzled some more while my husband and I exchanged gazes. Then the three of us stared into the
box. And all was good. Because of Fuezle.
