Little One
by Eric Miller
It landed on
our front porch with a thud. I ran to the
door to see what it was, but all I saw was a
large box and the back of the UPS truck pulling
away. The box and I wrestled with each other like
two sumo wrestlers, and I declared myself the
victor when I finally put the box down in the
corner of the play room and freed the contents.
“What is
it?,” my wife asked.
“I
didn’t order it,” I replied. “So I
sure do hope you know what it is.”
“I
didn’t order it either.”
I picked up
the thick instruction pamphlet and began to read
the first page.
“Wake up,
wake up,” my wife screamed as she shook me
violently while I slept standing with the
instructions in hand.
“What
happened?,” I mumbled, confused and
disoriented.
“You fell
asleep, standing, before you even finished the
first page of the instruction book.”
“Here,
you read it and tell me what it says.”
“You are
so pathetic,” she cried, as she took it from
me with a look of disdain.
She began to
scan the opening page, but her eyes glazed over
and closed, accompanied by a whistling snore.
“Wake up, wake up,” I cried, shaking
her to and fro.
“What
happened?, she mumbled, confused and disoriented.
“You fell
asleep, standing, before your eyes reached the
bottom of the first page,” I said with
delight.
“What the
devil are they talking about? This isn’t
even written in English.”
“Au
contraire, ma femme, but it looks like the
King’s English to me,” I replied with
glee.
“Oh, wow,
it’s here!”
“I turned
to see our eight year old grandson, whom we
called “Little One.”
“What
exactly is this that is ‘oh, wow, here’
Little One,” I asked.
“This is
a ‘Super Voltage, Wango, Wizzmeree,
Florelified, Mussgong,” he said.
“That’s
right,” I said. “Do you know how it got
here?”
“Of
course, I ordered it,” Little One replied.
“How did
you do that?”
“Duh! The
same way you order stuff.”
“Oh, so
you have the credit card that I reported missing.”
“Somewhere.”
“Grandpa
can’t figure out how to make the Mussgong
work,” Grandma blurted out before I could
speak.
“Here,
let me show you Grandpa.”
“Oh thank
you, Little One, you have saved my life.”
“Are you
being sarcastic?,” Grandpa, he asked.
I looked at
him. He looked at me. We both looked at Grandma.
“Do you
know what sarcastic means?,” we both asked
him in unison.
“Yeah,
that you didn’t really mean what you said.”
We stood
silently as he bent over and ran his fingers over
the buttons, knobs, and switches. A motor started,
lights blinked, bells rang, and whistles blew.
Little One
looked up. “It works fine.”
“What?,”
he asked, as Grandma and I stared in wonder.
“Good job,”
I replied. “I couldn’t have done it any
better.”
“Yeah, I
know. Don’t you think it’s about time
that you both start to call me “Big Guy?”
|
