Icing Her Out

“I guess I’m not girly enough to like butterflies,” her friend says as she buys a beautiful specimen.

“You know who really likes butterflies that I was surprised about, is little boys,” I say while ringing up her friend.

“Yeah, they probably want to pull their wings off,” she replies with a vicious grin.

I stop what I’m doing and fix her with my iciest gaze, saying, “I haven’t found that to be the case at all."

Forgiving

“More boxes, eh?” John says, as he wanders through the ruins of our living room with his morning coffee. A shipment of glass came in earlier this week, and while we have plans to reorganize the house into something livable in March, our current market schedule makes those plans impossible to implement right now, which leaves us surrounded by stacks of large cardboard boxes as tall as Katie.

“Yeah, sorry we wrecked the place,” I say apologetically.

“It’s okay, I mean, it is your house,” he says with a shrug.

To See What Other People Like

She’s buying a gift for her husband, who likes butterflies. She does not like butterflies, not in a nasty way, but in a freaked-out kind of way, which means that every minute in our booth is a tiny slice of torture for her.

But still she perseveres, going through each shelf, looking closely at the pieces, examining the butterflies and moths, considering the merits and drawbacks of each type of glass.

Finally, kneeling next to a shelf, she looks up at me with a genuine sad confusion, and asks, “What exactly do people like about these?"

Puddles

I liked these winter boots that Katie got me so much that, after the first pair wore out, I got another, identical pair. They’re thick-soled and have a woven insert made of some synthetic material that makes them impervious to cold down to (supposedly) negative forty degrees, which is a ridiculous temperature in any case.

My favorite thing to do in these boots is stride through the deep, slushy puddles that accumulate near the corners of the sidewalks without breaking stride, because it makes me feel like a badass.

But when I stepped in one today, the puddle splashed, and a guy attempting to walk around it got some on his shoes, and I felt a little bad, but I figured the best thing to do would be to keep walking, and try to do better next time.

Breaking the Law

Night - the sign on the opened gate to the darkened field behind the playground reads: “No Dogs On The Field.”

I hear laughing, and a sound like the jingling of keys. On the field are two people and two dogs, standing in the dark.

On no perceptible signal, both dogs simultaneously begin tearing in circles around the two humans, who are now doubling over with laughter, until the dogs suddenly stop, and in a spasm of ecstasy suddenly begin chasing each other up and down the length of the field, which only causes their humans to laugh harder.

Transform, But Not TOO Much

“I had something really transformative happen, so I wanted to buy a butterfly,” she says.

“You know, an interesting thing about butterflies,” I say, "is that when they transform from their caterpillar stage in the chrysalis into the butterfly, they dissolve completely. So there’s no structures left over from the caterpillar in the butterfly at all - the change is so complete.”

“A lot of people want transformation, but they don’t want to change anything that they are,” I finish as she smiles a sort of bewildered smile.

My Phone Needs a Therapist

My phone has been exhibiting signs of some sort of personality disorder lately.

When I was composing a text to Katie about some ordinary thing, I typed, “It doesn’t,” and the predictive text suggested, for the next word, “matter.” As if nothing mattered - clearly depressive.

And when she sent me a text complaining about cold toes while she was working, I replied with, “I don’t like you having c...,” upon which my phone, seeing the “c,” suggested “conversations” which seems a little possessive and maybe a trifle stalkerish?