Someone For Everyone

The first thing Wilbur noticed was that his face seemed closer to the floor that would normally seem appropriate. The next things to find focus in his jumbled mind were the ringing in his ears and the throbbing pain that was spreading across the back of his head.

What happened? How did I get down here? Is my name really Wilbur?

He strained to recall recent events with little initial success. He remembered being in third grade when the school bully, a mammoth eight-year-old girl named Bertha used to push him down to the ground every chance she got. A more recent, yet fuzzy memory was of him apparently getting married to what appeared to be the domed state capitol building. I am married to a building? he thought dubiously.

Wilbur looked around tenderly and saw his eyeglasses a few feet away. They were slightly bent but probably still useful. He picked them up and placed them on his nose. The room came into focus, as did a couple of large tree-trunk like structures right in front of him. He slowly let his eyes crawl up these fat pillars until they came to rest on … a woman shaped like the state capitol building. It was his wife, Bertha.

It all came back to him in a rush.

She had been yelling, “Wilbur, you worthless worm of a man, take this shopping list and don’t come home until you have everything on it.”

“But Sweetness,” he had begun cautiously.

He should have known better than to not agree immediately. With surprising speed for someone of her size, she had grabbed up the metal coffee pot and whacked him good.

Now she picked him up like a rag doll and smothered him with apologetic kisses. God how he loved her.

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