Doris pulled up to her house, tired from her long day at work, already dreading trying to figure out what to cook for dinner. It didn’t matter what she cooked really, someone one would complain about something no matter what she fixed.
As she slumped up the driveway, the sun caught all the fine wrinkles in her face that time had engraved. The bags that laid under her eyes resembled something more like luggage and her make up routine was a short swipe of the frosty pink lipstick from Avon. Her brown hair was always parted on the side and left down, slightly stringy and oily, highlighting the gray hair that she didn’t bother to even try and cover up. Her clothes were from a decade before, as Doris was not much about fashion trends, so her blue checkered seersucker skirt blew slightly in the breeze as she plodded up the driveway in her old soft penny loafers. The white shirt she wore had a mustard stain on it, that closely resembled Italy, right between her sagging boobs.
Upon entering the house, she was greeted at the front door by shoes laying in the middle of the floor and a backpack half dumped along the wall. She sighed as she placed her purse on the hallway table and made her way into the kitchen.
“Every dish we own must be dirty!” she scolded to no one in particular. The kitchen was a complete disaster. Dishes piled in the sink and pans on the stove were a signal to Doris that the dishwasher was full of clean dishes. Not only were the dirty dishes a problem, but no one wanted to put the clean ones away.
Doris cleaned the kitchen and then rooted around in her freezer for some sort of dinner idea. Just as she was about to weigh the pro’s and con’s of chicken or pork, her cell phone rang.
The caller ID read “Crystal”.
“Damn, what does she want now?” Doris asked herself.
Doris answered the phone and listened for 45 minutes as Crystal spewed the latest gossip about people they knew and who was sleeping with who and who wasn’t sleeping at all. Crystal was one of those people who meant no harm but did no good either. None the less, in their 5 years of friendship, Doris had come to learn to just listen and not speak during these soap box sessions.
“Oh and next week since you are one of the room mothers for the middle school, don’t forget we are having a get together about this years fundraiser for the junior football team. It’s your turn to host! Talk to you later!” Click.
“Fuck.” said Doris as she ended the call. She didn’t like many of the other mothers on this school committee as they were stuck up and acted better than her. She didn’t know much about hosting get-together's, she wasn’t one of these tea-party-pintrest-type moms.
After she cleaned up the kitchen of course, and in between flipping the pork chops over, she managed to throw a load of laundry in the washer and vacuum the living room floor. Not that anyone would notice.
After dinner, her family retired in the living room for their routine evening TV watching until bedtime. Doris dried and folded the load she had just washed in between commercials. She wanted to take a quick shower before retiring for the evening. Tomorrow was Saturday and that meant antique shopping!
The next morning, Doris drank a cup of coffee and scoped out a few places to go visit in search of anything old that might catch her eye. She gave orders to her two kids to clean their rooms while she was gone and to get all their dirty dishes out. She then kissed her husband goodbye and backed out of the driveway hoping he would mow the grass today.
Antique shopping can be tricky. You have to be careful with antiques…..sometimes things that look old are just replica’s. Sometimes things are way over priced, and then there are things you find that have no price on them. That’s usually a sign for Doris that she can’t afford them.
After traveling most of the morning from place to place, and driving home empty handed, she passed a little sign along side the road that said “Garage Sale – Antiques!”. Doris was not usually a garage sale person, but something about the sign really caught her attention. It wasn’t a big sign, it wasn’t a bright sign. Just a white sign with black letters that seem to wave to her as she drove by.
“Oh what the hell, I’ll make this my last stop for the day.” she said to herself as she whipped her car around to drive up to the driveway.
It looked like a typical garage sale. A few tables with old books, and toys sat out in the drive way. A clothing rack dangled .50 cent price tags off clothes that were so outdated, even .50 cents seemed a little steep.
There was only one other person shopping when Doris made her way through all the junk. She hadn’t see anything that remotely looked antique, and just as she was about to turn and walk away, she heard a little old sweet voice say “looking for something special young lady?”
Doris turned to see a little old woman with gray hair pulled back, smiling at her. She had a kind face, and a smile that was full of warmth.
“Nothing special, I just saw your sign that said ‘antiques’ and figured I’d stop to check it out real quick” Doris said.
“Well I have a few old sewing machines over here” the little old lady replied. “There’s also an encyclopedia collection, tupperware containers and an old cast iron pot that used to be my great grandfathers”.
Unfortunately none of that interested Doris. “Oh those are lovely!” she lied. “Unfortunately, I won’t have time to sit and take a look at them all. I have to be heading back home, it’s starting to get a little late”.
“Well if you have just a minute, I might be able to dig out some old records that I have stashed away. They’re really old...you’ll like them dear”.
“Oh no, thank you, but I need to be heading home now. I have dinner to start” Doris said apologetically.
“Have a family dear?” the old lady quizzed.
“I do.” Doris smiled. “I have two sons and a husband. Oh and two dogs and a cat.”
“You must really have your hands full my love” said the lady.
“Yeah, it can be a lot, being a mother and wife….but I’m sure you already know what that’s all about.” Doris said warmly.
“Yes, I certainly remember those days. I would have given anything for a little extra help”
It was about that time that Doris thought she was in the clear to end this conversation so she could head back home to her own chores, when the lady caught her attention.
“I wasn’t putting this out on display, simply because I don’t feel that just anyone should get this” the old lady whispered as she reached under the table and pulled out a crate with more junk in it. She then began to start going through it.
“Holy shit” Doris though to herself. She just wanted to get the hell out of there and head back home. It was starting to get really late and pretty dark by now.
“Ah! Here we are!” the old lady sang.
She was holding a lamp. It looked to be very old, very antique.
“This lamp is just what you need my love.” the old lady said as she handed the lamp to Doris.
“Oh no, thank you but I probably couldn’t afford a lamp that old.” Doris said
“No my love, this lamp isn’t for sale. I’m not selling it to you, I’m passing it on.” the old lady said with a very deep raspy voice and making a hissing sound as she spoke. Her yellow crooked teeth showing as she curled her thin wrinkled lips.
“Passing it on?” Doris now knew this woman was nuts.
“Yes, I don’t need it anymore and I don’t have anyone to give it to….I have all boys ya know, and they don’t get into antiques much” she said.
“Well okay” Doris said hesitantly as she took the lamp from the old lady who was practically shoving at her. “But I really didn’t expect you to just give me this without paying-"
But before Doris could finish, she was cut off. “Enjoy it deary. Its been a damn good lamp.” the old lady chimed, and she slowly walked off in to her garage.
Doris put the lamp in the front seat of her car and began the drive back to her own personal hell hole. It’s not that home life was bad, Doris had a good marriage and she did love her kids. However, sometimes she felt like she was the only one that put any effort into things at home. Everyone enjoyed their evening watching TV or playing on the Xbox. Doris never got to clock out like that in the evening. When she got home from work, the real work began. There was laundry to be done, dinner to be cooked, groceries to get, homework, lunches for the next day, dishes, and the list went on and on. She was resentful sometimes because she envied the fact that she couldn’t just end her day at 5:00 too.
Pulling into the driveway, she sighed as she noticed the grass still hadn’t been cut. It had been two weeks, and in this hot Georgia heat, grass can get out of control. It was getting really high and the weeds were tall against the house.
“Belt on the mower is broke again” her husband said as Doris walked up the driveway.
“How come we always have to fix everything around here before we can use it?” Doris moaned.
“I dunno babe, but I’ll get it fixed” her husband said matter-of-factly.
She walked inside to find the kitchen table covered with piles of things that didn’t belong in the kitchen. A laptop, ear plugs, a glass of watery coke with a straw in it, a black sock, a roll of paper towels and a paper plate with crumbs on it.
Doris pushed the laptop over and sat the lamp on the table. It was a big lamp made of iron. It was painted gray at one time, but the paint has chipped off and you could see the black underneath it. It had scrolled ironwork up and down it that was probably one of a kind. The lamp shade was rectangle and dark red.
She plugged it in expecting the bulb to be burned out, but to her surprise the lamp came on.
“Well look at that, the damn thing actually works.” Doris mumbled.
Doris left the lamp on as she made her way to the refrigerator to find what tonight’s meal might be. She fumbled through frozen packs of ground beef, some chicken breasts, a few pork chops…..and finally dug out a frozen pizza.
“I shouldn’t have stopped at that garage sale. I would have had more time to cook dinner and I’ll be up all hours now finishing the damn laundry” Doris lectured herself.
“It sure would be nice for me to come home and someone have dinner all ready to go when I walk through the door” she stated out loud.
She continued to talk to herself while she preheated the oven and poured herself a glass of wine. She made the lives of her two teenage boys even more miserable than they already were by asking them to please pick up their shit in the kitchen. The onset of eye rolling and loud moans of protest proved the cleaning request to be painful.
As the night wore on, Doris had accomplished very little. She decided to take a hot shower and just go to bed and call it a night.
As she drug herself up the stairs to her bedroom, she went over the checklist in her head. “Back door is locked, front door is locked, kids are in bed, dogs have been out, and I will clean up the kitchen mess tomorrow.”
Doris had made sure she took care of everything before retiring for the night. Except for one thing...the lamp. She accidentally left it on. It remained lit in the kitchen with a red hue of light coming from the lampshade.
The next morning Doris woke up and realized it was Sunday. “Thank God!” she said as she stretched and reveled in the fact that she didn’t have to get up and go anywhere.
She sat up in bed and read her phone, looking through the usual important sources for information….Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. After scrolling she slowly got up out of bed to make her way downstairs for a much needed cup of coffee.
Doris wobbled into the kitchen, trying to be quiet as to not wake up the rest of the household. Sunday mornings were her peace and quiet time and damn it she wasn’t going to waste it!
As she opened the cabinet up to get a coffee cup out, she caught something out of the corner of her eye. Something she had never really seen before. She was certain it wasn’t like that last night before she went to bed…..who or what in the world?
At the same spot where Doris had left a sink full of dirty dishes now stood an empty sink. The dishes were gone. She was confused.
She whipped the door to the dishwasher open, only to find that the top and bottom rack were completely empty. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had seen the dishwasher completely empty…..it must have been the day she bought it.
She began opening cabinets to check her sanity. Every dish was in its place, clean and stacked neatly. All the lids to the Tupperware were placed underneath their right containers, every glass was lined up perfectly in rows, all the silverware was neatly in the drawer.
“What in the hell….” Doris said quite puzzled.
She opened up the pantry to find it completely stocked from top to bottom shelf. There was plenty of everything and it was all neatly organized.
Surely someone was playing a trick on her, she thought. This was not like this the night before.
She wanted to ask her husband right away if he knew anything about the midnight cleaning party, but she didn’t want to end her quiet time. So for the rest of the morning, Doris enjoyed her cup of coffee and her clean kitchen.
The rest of the day went on uneventful and by evening time, the dreaded Monday blues had already begun to sink in. The thought of her weekend ending and the work week beginning really killed Doris’ Sunday buzz.
She went to bed, leaving the lamp on in the kitchen again.
Submitted July 24, 2017 at 11:11PM by cleavergirl007 http://ift.tt/2v14oXr shortstories
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