I was in the kitchen washing dishes when my front door blew open Wednesday morning. The wind had been fierce so I thought a particularly intense gust had sprung it.
When I got into the living room, the door was already closed. The intense gust turned out to be Meat, who was sitting on the couch. His girlfriend, Tater tornado, was by his side.
"Hello Tater, great to have you back in paradise!"
For those of you with short memories, Tater took off last Thanksgiving. The weight of the election in a freshly crimson state wore her out. She might have fallen for a hillbilly, but she knows she's not cut out for the lifestyle. He does too, so they're good.
"Good to be here SJ. When Meat showed up at the Women's March in DC I knew I'd be visiting before long. But we had so much road to cover first, this boy's one of the best paid protesters I've got."
Meat let out a stream of colorfully descriptive verbiage that roughly translated to "anything for my Tater". He stood up and pulled his jeans pockets out like rabbit ears, either empty but for lint. There was a smile on his face and one on hers.
Love is a strange and wondrous thing.
"Good to see you in a good mood," I said to them. He looked down at her and said "that's the truth."
She shot him the look and he quickly sat back down. A thunderclap drowned the roar of the wind for an instant and her smile returned.
"Here comes the rain," she said. Dime sized raindrops fell right on cue, quickly gaining momentum. Soon the rain fell in buckets, like the proverbial cow peeing on a flat rock. The kind of rain you need a helmet to stand in.
"It's raining like a Bob Dylan song," Meat blurted. Tater hooted and cackled like someone who listens to lots of Bob Dylan.
"And an idiot wind last night" she added before collapsing in a fit of laughter.
Meat winced and looked at me. He shook his head and shrugged.
"Tell SJ what we saw Sunday."
Tater gathered herself and wiped her eyes. "O yes, we saw 'To Kill a Mockingbird' over at the Artists Collaborative Theatre. You know that's still my favorite book. It was fantastic...you guys are lucky to have a theater like that around here."
I nodded in agreement. It's one of the good things around here a lot of us overlook. Meat rolled his eyes at me.
"You know I was so inspired by the play," she went on, "I think I had an epiphany later that night."
Meat and I both looked at her. Meat looked a little worried, but I couldn't wait to hear what it might be. She smiled back at Meat.
"No matter how much you think you've got it together, no matter how smart or rich or prepared you are, it all boils down to whether or not somebody hands you the right envelope."