Bath Time for Castro

I did not pick that fountain at random, or because I thought you’d be able to easily recognize it. I did not pick it because I knew I’d have several angles of approach where I’d be able to see you before you saw me, which meant that I wouldn't look silly if I didn't recognize you. I did not pick it because I was thinking that, if we didn’t hit it off, I’d use it as my meeting place for all of my future dates, too. All of those things are true, but that isn't why I decided on that spot. I picked it because of a dream I had eight years ago.

…

The sculpture is an inverted, rounded ziggurat with alternating layers of yellow and black, like a child’s drawing of a bumblebee. The water flows down from a pool at the top, forming a sheet that partially obscures the body of the fountain, and creates a rat-a-tat sound as it hits the lower pool. Everything else at the mall is Italianate cast concrete. This bright, modern piece stands out, even though it is tucked in behind the Starbucks and the California Pizza Kitchen. I’ve always loved it.

In my dream, the fountain had been elongated into a tub in a gorgeous bathroom suite. I was one of several personal advisers to the owner of said suite, and we were all standing around patiently, clipboards and notepads clasped to our chests, while he enjoyed an afternoon soak. His name was Fidel Castro.

He was sitting in the bathtub, wearing an olive green cap and a pair of swim trunks. He had a rubber frog in one hand and a loaded revolver in the other, and he was happily playing with both, splashing them through the water and covering them with bubbles. We watched with amusement as he had a sing-song dialogue with the frog while pressing the gun muzzle to its bulging eye. He must have then decided that they’d reached a truce, his amphibian captive and he, because he made a beard and bushy eyebrows for it out of the suds. “¡Viva la rana Castro!” He was having a ball.

We’d let him stay in there for as long as we could, but time was running short. “Fidel, you have an appearance in a few minutes, and your fingers are going to prune. C’mon, jefe. Time to get out.”

The shot startled us all, but none more than Castro himself. We all jumped, then froze in place for several seconds, nobody sure who had fired or who had been hit. Castro had many enemies, but there was no sight line from outside the palace into his bathroom.

His advisers stared wide-eyed at him, and he stared back at us, suds clinging to his eyelashes and the end of his nose. He looked comical, but we were all too shocked to laugh.

The ringing in my ears went away after a few seconds, allowing me to hear the steady stream of bath water hitting the floor. I looked from Castro’s blank, stunned face to the small, round hole in the lower left corner of the tub wall. I looked back at Castro and saw that the gun was still in his hand, pointing down between his shriveled feet.

“What did you do, Fidel? What have I told you about guns in the bathtub?!”

I don’t know how the gun - steeped in a warm froth of Calgon and scoured by bath salts – was able to fire. I don’t know how he didn’t shoot one of us, or shoot himself in the foot. We all knew that we had quite literally dodged a bullet. The tub had not been so lucky.

For a brief moment, I thought that it would be possible to plug the hole with a towel, just to hold the water in long enough to drain the basin. Before I could even move to reach for the towel bar, the crazing around the hole spread wider, and the structure failed under the pressure. The stream turned into a deluge as the tub wall gave way. A wave of soapy water surged across the slate grey floor, breaking over our feet and flowing out of the doorway behind us to flood the Turkish rug in the hallway. Bits of black and gold ceramic littered the ground like broken shells on a beach at low tide. I was wearing a pair of leather and suede pumps, and I was furious that they were now ruined.

Castro was still seated in what remained of the bathtub, clutching his revolver. He hunched his shoulders and looked up at us sheepishly from under the brim of his cap, runnels of water flowing off of his scraggly beard onto his round belly.

“Dammit, Fidel!” I yelled. “Who’s going to clean this mess up? This was a custom-made tub. Do you know how much it’s going to cost to get a mason in here to rebuild it? Do you?! Dammit!”

Huge tears welled up in his dark eyes and rolled down his broad, flat cheeks. His toy frog let out a long, pathetic squeak as he squeezed it, its soapy beard dissolving into a stream that ran down his forearm.

“Squeeeeeeeeeaaakkkkththththtpffffft…”

Exasperated, one of the other aids sighed deeply. “Oh, Fidel…”

And then I woke up.

…

I was chuckling to myself about this dream as we were strolling down the sidewalk. I was debating telling you about it, wondering if it would make me seem too strange for you to like, if you’d take your hand from mine and wish me goodbye and good luck now that we were back at the place where we’d started. I was afraid that you, too, would think that you’d dodged a bullet. “Weird girl. At least she didn’t eat much, so I’m not out a ton of money for lunch.”

Then you said, “I want to kiss you, but not here.” All I could think of was how very perfect it would be to kiss you right there, in front of that fountain.

“Why not here?” I turned toward you, and you leaned into me and kissed me, and then I wasn’t thinking about the dream at all anymore, lost as I was in the feel and the taste of you, and hearing only the staccato rhythm of the water hitting the tiles in the shallow pool behind us.

Two Bits

The question wasn't whether or not I was going to lie. The question was whether or not I gave a damn. The answer was no.

Whether Balloon

Not the company in question.

I have a note at the top of one of my to-do lists in my phone. It reads:

Vodka. Blimp

The short phrase is written that way - capital-V-vodka-period-space-capital-B-blimp-no-ending-punctuation - because I tapped it into Evernote with my right thumb while I was driving down the freeway.

Now, I'm pretty anti-texting when I'm on the road. The reason I don't drive my beloved silver Volkswagen anymore is that I sold it to my friend. She'd crashed her convertible into a creek on her way home from a party. By the time she regained consciousness and climbed up the bank, emergency vehicles were waiting for her. She knew what they must have thought. It was late in the evening, hers was the only car involved in the accident on a fairly straight road, and she was staggering unsteadily toward a phalanx of police and EMTs. "It's not what you think! I'm not drunk!" She held up her phone, still dripping from its dunking in the muddy water. "I was TEXTING!"

I hadn't had a smartphone for that long back then, so I didn't understand how easy it is to get sucked into doing things that are just a little careless. "Just put your phone in the trunk if you can't keep your hands off of it. You're not crashing MY car into a river, sister! Besides, you aren't the only person on the road, you know." It sounds funny to me now.

Anyway, I was driving home from work earlier this week, and my phone was on my lap, since it's also my music when I'm in the car. Don't judge. I set up playlists before I put it into gear.

Just to the west of the freeway, something was drifting a few hundred feet above the trees. I kept glancing over to see what it was, but it was a little too far ahead of me to be able to make out the shape. It looked like an ad balloon suspended above a new housing development, but I didn't get any closer to it as I drove up the road. When I got near enough to see that it was a blimp, moving along with the flow of traffic, I tried to figure out what it was advertising. I spent a lot of time squinting up and to the left.

I wasn't alone. I could see drivers in the cars around me doing the same thing. We were all more interested in the blimp than in our regular commute.

Here's what I don't understand about blimp advertising. Why is it targeting drivers on the freeway? Doesn't that seem inherently unsafe? Shouldn't we all be focused on the road instead of trying to figure out what's floating around at NewsCopter 7 level? I thought on that for a few minutes, while still transfixed by dirigible billboard.

That's about the time that I got close enough to read side of the airship. "(name withheld to protect the company) Vodka." Not only was this thing distracting thousands of drivers after their long workdays, but it was also making all of them think about drinking. Hell, for all I know, some of them might have pulled off the freeway and bought a fifth of (name withheld to protect the company) Vodka. At best, it's creating a legion of distracted drivers. At worst, it's creating a legion of distracted drivers unable to see that they're sharing the road with a bunch of drunks. Who thought this branch of the ad campaign was anything less than foolhardy and dangerous?

I wanted to remember to be thoroughly outraged once I got home, so that I could contact the distillery and give them a piece of my mind. "I'll forget all about it if I don't have some kind of reminder. Rubber band around my wrist? Move my purse to a different seat? What if I don't recall what those things are supposed to remind me to do? Dammit! If only I had a way to make a note. If only..."

And that's how I ended up texting while driving down the freeway, and almost ramming into the back of a Ford Focus. I was doing it for all of us, for our safety. Maybe a little bit so that the company in question would try to pay for my silence with cases of sweet, sweet liquor, sure, but mostly for our safety. You're welcome.

Does the Hole Define the Donut, or the Donut Describe the Hole?

People expect this kind of thing from me, and I like to deliver.

"I don't want to give you my trash, now..."

"Anita, I promise that none of them will see a bin liner."

All three donuts were gone within five minutes. It was as though the Help Desk kids could smell them from fifty yards away.

Cameo

First, I saw splotches. Then I saw Jesus. Then I saw an Afghan hound wearing earrmuffs. Earmuffs with Jesus on them. Wasted several minutes guessing at Christ's merch and licensing deal. Then I ate the apple.