Small Talk

Small Talk

Ann had the day off. It was a fine April morning, and she took her bowl of cereal and her prayer book to the back deck to sit in the sun. The birds were singing a thousand choruses, and the bulbs she’d bought in Amsterdam were all in bloom. The tall red tulips in the planter almost screened her from view. She read the daily office and sipped her coffee with joy in her heart.

Relishing the fact that she had nothing that had to be attended to, she eased her way into a few household chores. In the bedroom she stripped the sheets and covers from the bed and gathered them up in a big armful to take downstairs. A squawk and a struggle erupted from the middle of the bundle. She’d accidentally captured the cat.

“Oops, caught you napping! Out you go,” she said, propelling him toward the open door.

Ann had picked up the habit of talking to herself as she worked around the house. If anyone were to accuse her of it, she would deny it, saying that it was only because no one happened to be listening. She didn’t count talking to the animals of course; everybody did that. The cat never listened anyway, and the dog came in to chat only when she was cooking.

On her way to the laundry she stopped in the bathroom for towels and washcloths—and whatever else might be there in need. Sure enough, a nightshirt hung on the hook on the back of the door. “Ha! I found you lurking there!” she said. “And what about you, you scruffy rug. I think today’s your day too!”

“It’s past my day, if you ask me,” said the rug. “I’m a mess! I get all the backyard traffic, you know. You’re lucky I’m such a dark green that the stuff doesn’t show.”

Having never been scolded by a rug before, Ann took a step backwards. Adjusting her bifocals—she needed to get that prescription changed!—she saw that indeed the rug showed lots of use. She took it out the door and gave it a good shaking.

“Whoa! I must have made you mad!” declared the rug.

Ann said nothing. She rolled up the rug and laid it on top of the sheets in the hamper. Finally she spoke. “ I guess I’m getting old. I hadn’t noticed how dirty you were, and that’s embarrassing. What else am I leaving undone that I should be doing?”

There was silence in the room, then a sound like someone clearing his throat.

“Ahem. Um…”

Ann turned her gaze on a row of eight light bulbs that ran across the top of the bathroom mirror. “What is it?”

“Well, it's just that Dimwatt next to me has been burnt out for months,” the little voice said.

“Oh. I’d better take care of that. Anything else?”

“And…achooo! The dust up here is ferocious!”

“Okay,” said Ann grimly. “Is that all?”

“There is this little problem I’ve been having,” said a voice from the shower.

Flinging back the curtain, Ann saw the faucet’s slow drip. Sighing, because she knew it had been going on for a long time, Ann said, “Noted.” Then she said, “I’ll be right back,” and she left the room. Returning with a pad and pencil, she wrote, ‘Replace light bulb. Dust medicine cabinet. Fix leaky faucet in shower.’

“Is that about it?” she asked, clearly irritated. Hearing no response, she said, “Good!” and marched out the door. “That means I can get on with the laundry.”

Ann shoved the bulky load ahead of her and then swung it down the basement stairs three steps at a time. Laying the rug to one side, she emptied the hamper, sorting the things into darks and lights. As the washer filled, she added the detergent, the ball full of softener, and the stack of light clothes.

“Oops, get back out here,” she said, rescuing one of her white t-shirts before it submerged. “I know you’ve got some stains on your crumb-catcher that need special treatment.”

“Thank you, m’am,” said a gentle voice. “I don’t like to look sloppy.”

Ann paused and reflected that this certainly was a strange day. “Well, I want to do good by you,” she answered, thinking it a little peculiar to build a relationship with a garment.

The dryer still held a load from last night, so she put it into her basket to take back upstairs. She would get the mail and then start folding.

Stepping out the front door, Ann hopped anxiously around what she took to be swarming ants. She’d seen a pool of them yesterday out on the walk. Whew, this was just thistle seed that her husband Bill must have spilled as he filled the bird feeders. She pulled the notepad out of her pocket and wrote, “Sweep front steps.”

The mail held four catalogs, more than some days. She used to really enjoy them, but since retirement she had tried not to indulge. She had enough clothes to last for years and wanted her savings to do so too. There was probably a good way to get the catalogs stopped, but she didn’t know what it was. The notepad came out again. “Check internet for ways to stop catalogs.” Even as she wrote it, she knew she wouldn’t bother. If she didn’t buy, they’d stop soon enough; but this list-making was habit forming.

Depositing the rest of the mail on the kitchen table, Ann stepped into the living room, pad in hand. As her eyes traversed the room, so many things stood out that she felt a little overwhelmed. Nothing looked simple: everything required some preliminary steps. Before she could move the skeins of yarn for the afghan she’d started and then put down as the weather warmed, she’d have to find a place to put them. And so on and so forth.

“I don’t even know where to begin!” she said, and realized instantly that she’d spoken aloud again.

Three little voices cried out, “Here, right here!”

She turned her gaze to the table by the east window, an oasis in the morning sunshine where her houseplants thrived.

“Bless your hearts, don’t you look lovely!” she said to the three little violet plants she’d divided from the overgrown plant from her office. Two had clusters of dark pink blossoms, and the third, the one in the wicker basket, would probably do so soon. “I’m so proud of you,” she said, feeling very satisfied. They were her first attempt, and they’d all survived. “Is there something you need?”

“We’re fine, but some of the other plants don’t look good and we thought you ought to know.”

Anxiously she looked them over. The Christmas cactus that had bloomed so heartily last year was looking peaked and puckery. The three cactus plants from New Mexico looked like they hadn’t seen water in years.

“Oh dear, have I neglected you?” she fretted. “You aren’t on the same schedule as the rest of the girls, and I must have forgotten you!” She hurried to the kitchen for her watering can.

After giving the succulents their good drinks, she turned her attention to the hoya which she’d recently tamed. Its branches had shot out over the lamp and through the shade, down to the floor and up toward the ceiling. And now, for the first time in over six years in this new house, it had a cluster of buds, small porcelain berries that would open into velvety, chocolate smelling flowers. “Oh, look,” she said with glee, “you’re going to have flowers!” She couldn’t have sounded happier if she’d heard she was going to be a grandmother again.

Humming to herself, she glanced at her notepad and headed to the broom closet. "A list makes everything so much easier," she said, "especially when I can count on my house to cooperate." The violets nodded.