Hot Pursuit

We all react if someone yells “FIRE!” ... right? We stop what we’re doing ... we look around ... decide which way to run ... either to lend a hand ... or to save our own hides.


Equally galvanizing ... for me, at least ... is the quietly spoken phrase: “Company’s coming.”


I know exactly what that means ... and what I must do. I start shifting those teetering stacks of things in the study ... tidy up my portion(s) of the basement ... 


But mostly I’ve learned just to stay out of the way while Phyllis attends to the details ... occasionally, perhaps, pointing out some other way in which I might help.


-S&G-


LOREE (Kansas) recently got word that company was coming in her direction ... in the form of a couple of e-mail friends who, after corresponding for a few years, decided they had to make the pilgrimage to meet their poet friend. 


“Of course, that threw me into high-level panic mode,” Loree says. (Having known Loree myself ... via e-mail, for a few years ... I know that she was kidding about “panic” ... I see it more like moving into high gear).


Fortunately, Loree continues, “My daughter bought me a lighter weight vacuum sweeper for my birthday, which just happened to be two days before the company arrived.” (Belated Happy Birthday, Loree).


And ... “this sweeper has no need for those hard-to-install paper bags. Nosiree, Bob! It had this spotlessly clean canister in it” ... none of those mysterious clangs and bangs as things are sucked into a hidden paper bag ... everything is going to be in full view.


“Well, we get the sweeper in my big living room ... it’s plugged in and I’m ready to ROLL! But there ensues a tug-of-war ... with my daughter saying, ‘Let ME do it!’ and me hanging on ... I WANT to try this out!”


“The back and forth is short,” Loree reports, since her daughter is in much better physical shape than she is.


The scene shifts as Loree concedes and leaves the room ... then, in short order, hears her daughter saying, “Oh, MY GAWD!”


Loree quickly returns ... finds her daughter pointing to the canister ... and, nope, she hadn’t sucked Loree’s “Psycho Dog” into the canister ... but there is a white swirling mass in the canister, which had filled in record time.


“Good suction, evidently,” Loree observed.


“Do you realize what that is in there?” her daughter responded. At that point she shut off the machine ... and they emptied the canister ... of DOG HAIR!


Evidently it’s from her daughter’s canine friend, Sammi, who comes and goes now, but, as a puppy a few years ago, developed a taste for sleeping inside at night at Loree’s ... 


None of the just scooped-up hair had been visible to anyone ... but it appears that not one hair escaped the vacuum ... beneath the sofa and loveseat cushions, along the baseboards ... and the dark depths of the carpet.


“The carpet feels like it HASN’T felt in years,” Loree reports, adding that she got to try out her present after her daughter went home ... “and I have to admit it has a lot more zip and grip than the old (now retired) Hoover.”


-S&G-


SPEAKING OF FEAR ... that’s the best way to describe the reaction I got from Professor Squigglee when I showed him how Loree’s e-mail concluded.


“In fact,” Loree said, “I was wondering what might happen if I put on that wand attachment and stood close to Professor Squigglee. It would probably suck that thing on top of his head (no, not his eyeglasses) off at ten yards. Whatcha think?”


Well, I think I just saw Professor Squigglee slipping out of the room.


-S&G-


TODAY’S POEM ... It may not be the perfect match ... or even a good match ... for Loree’s account of her introduction to that new vacuum ... but it came to mind ... mainly a reminder of my own reaction to those motivating words: “Company’s coming.” 


HOT PURSUIT


I go tramping
the echoing stairs
of this old house
pursuing things
forgotten here,
remembered there,
getting exercise
enough for two.


(originally published in Capper's)


-S&G-


COMMENT? Feel free ... below, if you like. 


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-S&G-


Oh, and if you’d like to see what’s up with my other ... DAILY blog ... here’s a link to it:


http://rbrimm.blogspot.com/


Thanks for paying a visit.




-S&G-


UNTIL NEXT TIME ... take care ... see ya!


-S&G-
© 2009