My dear, darling dude
doesnt snore. He takes out the trash most nights. Plus, when he gets
a certain look in his eyes, our time together becomes sweaty, and,
in other respects, blissfully eventful. The problem amid us is shoes. More
exactly, Im wearied by my partners unwillingness to ascribe my loss
of appendages coverings to certain make-believe fiends.
If we had dogs,
hed hold them responsible for enjoying the irresistible quality of my
footwears cowhide. If our children were still small, hed charge
those boys and girls with repurposing my pumps as dress-up gear and my lace-ups
as boats. Likewise, if he were into fetishes, then he would deny or otherwise
allude to his part in the disappearance of some of my rights and
lefts.
In spite of those
suppositions, we have no pets, except for the random geckos that slide between
our screened porch and our stairwell. No young children scamper around our
spaces, either, except when our grandkids visit. Further, while my husband is
possessed of ocular glimmers, he assigns no mystical qualities to my articles
of dress, discounting those occasions when the dryers gone bust and
hes tasked to hang up, outdoors, all of our goods (at such times, he
claims that my stockings breed and that my T-shirts multiply.) However, never
will that sweet lover declare that mystical wee creatures regularly cause my
apparel to go astray.
My man insists that
hes bereft of knowledge of the invisible hedgehogs, gelatinous
wildebeests, and pretend Komodo dragons, which I, contrariwise, recognize as
rocking and roaring through our living room in search of comestibles. In his
esteem, there are no indoor fauna that: eat up the leftover roast (he credits
our not-yet-married, twenty-something son for such deeds), play havoc with our
trash (Hubby says the neighborhood dumpster cats are culpable for flinging the
rubbish through our parking lot), or appropriate items from my wardrobe (my
husband smugly point outs that belonging to a writer of speculative fiction,
mines a turbulent imagination).
Hes wrong!
Its not so much my sightings of sauntering, outlandish menageries that
powers my allegations (mull over that Ive correspondingly spoken with
those hard-to-notice beasts) as it is the certainty with which I
place my clothes in drawers and on hangers many evening only to find a glove
here, and a sweater there, missing many mornings. Since Im neither
presently senile (I checked with my doc since I concede that I fabricate
worlds) nor any more absentminded than I was in my twenties, Im convinced
that the discourteous critters, the ones which ordinarily stay hidden in my
stories pages, are to blame.
My mates and my
respective rhetorical prowesses notwithstanding, our conflict, over aimlessly
wandering loafers and hair scrunchies seeking shelter in adjacent universes,
continues on unresolved. We just cant get the other one to budge from his
or her perspective.
For instance, on our
most recent anniversary, our thirty-fourth, Hubby bought me a rose and took me
out to dinner. I, on the other hand, bought him a spy glass capable of viewing
additional dimensions and a surveillance camera capable of astounding
magnification. I also screened an old video of Harvey, for us, back
home, after we wined and dined.
His anniversary
efforts at romance produced no result; I was too engrossed in trying to prove
certain bugs existence to heed his come hither glances. My
efforts, too, completely failed. My man, a technical genius, by day, could not
figure out how to make his gift gizmos operable and concurrently refused to
allow the possibility of marauding monsters.
Even so, all things
being discrete, I like to roll and roll with my other half. Additionally,
Im glad we raised a family together. I just wish hed stop thinking
of me as this side of daft and would acknowledge that small, sometimes
frightening beings, which go burp in the middle of the night, thieve footwear,
scarves, and earrings from me.
I would feel more
cherished by him if he acted in that way. Id also feel more validated
about todays search for my missing slipper and my absentee blazer.
See, little green men
are not blameworthy. Rather, something furry is askew in my closet. My chief
devotee, the one with whom Ive had the good fortune to spend decades,
could be upgraded to hero status if only hed admit that it was
diamond-encrusted Jupiter lobsters that took my clothing and that those same
aliens ate the leftover chicken he couldnt find for his lunch.
.