Unexpected Visitors

 

Unexpected Visitors

 

The email was succinct.  “We are coming a little south of you to visit our grandchildren, and were wondering if we might stop in for a couple of days to see how you’re doing.  Should be there tomorrow morning.”

 

Clora and Alfred Wiggins were old friends, at least friends of my former wife.  They’d been our neighbors when we lived in the part of the country where snow was thought of as so beautiful!and interminable winters a gift from the creator of all things large and small.  My wife had shared that view, until we moved to the land of sunshine and sunrises over the Atlantic.  Then she suddenly developed a keen yen for golf and an even keener yen for the golf instructor, Jack “Wizard” Campbell.  

 

Clora and Alfred still lived in the land of the eternal snowplow, and had for almost sixty years. Both are older than I, but also have personalities and dispositions that are more suited to hibernating bears than more social animals.

 

He was a retired tree surgeon and she had been president of the garden club for a short while.  Not sure what they do now.  Probably putting a keen edge on insufferability, and adding to their list of suspicions.

 

My first question I asked myself was, how long did they plan to stay and the second was why after years of silence did they want to see how I was doing?

 

But no matter the answers, I couldn’t turn them away.  I could withstand almost anything for just a couple of days.

 

They pulled into my driveway in their RV on Wednesday, with their Irish Wolf hound, Vagabond.  You only need to know a few things about Vagabond, besides his immensity.  First off, his nose is a crotch rocket. Steel cups mandatory for those things you hold dear.  He also requires four or five square meals a day, and thinks of a yard as a port-a-potty that goes where he goes.  Clora and Alfred don’t seem to mind the mounds that looked like African warrior ants built their dream castles on my lawn.  I do mind.

 

“Oh, he’s just in a new place,” Clora says.  I’d like to send him to a better place.

 

Yes, and he finds a new place every time the front door opens, if he makes it that far.  The porch and my welcome mat will do in a pinch.

 

“What do you have planned for us to do while we’re here?” asked Alfred, showing the same smile he’d use if he held a winning ticket at The Kentucky Derby.

 

I wanted to say, “Well, the first thing is a game of dog shit removal. Sorry I don’t have a shovel. You’ll have to use your hands. ”  But, I didn’t say that.  I could have said, “Let’s try your sniper skills with a game of put the dog down.”  But, I didn’t say that either.

 

I’d previously suggested they keep their mucus mutt in the RV, but Clora must have heard that suggestion before and was ready for it.  “Vagabond thinks he’s a human and I just can’t bare not to have him where we are.  He gets so lonely.”

 

Why oh why can’t he get lonely for the RV and hump the built in sofa instead of mine? 

 

I haven’t told you what Clora and Alfred look like.  Clora has short, rather unkempt gray hair, wears rimless spectacles and has a body that last exercised toward the final stages of the Civil War.  I’ve begun to think the name Clora was her mother’s little joke, short for chloroform.  Her endless opinions could make lemmings take another stab at cliff jumping.  She can begin a reasonable, if useless story about nothing and still manage to tag on a recounting of each and every cousin’s marriage, the good and bad of society and why foreigners should learn English before they dare… etc, etc, etc.  I sat quietly and was quickly striding toward dreamland when Alfred dared to disagree. “All foreigners aren’t bad.  At least some of them.”

 

Clora’s look of damnation shut him up like a well hit one iron to the forehead.

 

Alfred is not a bad guy, as tree surgeons go. He does shave and has clean fingernails, and unlike his darling wife, he is razor thin, and keeps tidy what’s left of gray, wispy hair short.  He does follow his wife into the world of rimless spectacles, last purchased at a discount during the great depression. 

 

They finally got down to brass tacks over dinner at the Golden Diner Buffet.  “It’s my darling’s favorite,” said Alfred.  “She really likes the custard pie, don’t you sweetie?”

 

Like it? This woman’s appetite could scare pastry chefs.  I’m surprised the desert server didn’t say, “Sorry ma’am, only one pie to a trough.”

 

Oh, well, I told myself, just one more day and good god almighty, free at last.

 

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Alfred begin, “and if it’s ok, our son has gotten a bad cold and we’d like to stay another few nights.  You know my Clora has a heart condition and type 2 diabetes, plus high blood pressure.  We just can’t take a chance.”

 

Damn, doctor, this sure is puzzling, especially the part about the diabetes.  Yes, why don’t we start her on two packs of Marlboros a day and keep an eye on her.

 

“Goodness, I wish I could say yes, but Local 151 Bearers of Bad News has it’s reunion tomorrow.”  Once again, I forfeited the right to sanity and didn’t say it.

 

I nodded a simple yes and even managed a smile.  Not my best smile, certainly, but weak and mournful fit the occasion. 

 

“Oh, wonderful,” Alfred said.  “Tonight we’d like to take you out to dinner at the Lickin’ Chicken.”

 

“Do they have a full service bar?”

 

“My Clora and I don’t drink.”  He gave me a pious glance.  “Our savior doesn’t approve.”

 

Lots of different thoughts on that.  Jesus didn’t turn the water into grape juice.  Would have been a different outcome, possibly involving violence. Once again I held my tongue, except to offer a suggestion.

 

“You ought to try it.  Really helps with pain and stress and boredom.”