I plodded upstairs this morning to where Kevin was taking a shower and said gloomily “So it finally happened.”
KEVIN: Oh dear…
URSULA: I need more mulch.
KEVIN: …how much are we getting delivered?
URSULA: No! Just five or six bags. Maybe eight. Not a delivery. No.
KEVIN: Uh-huh.
URSULA: Really.
KEVIN: And how many cubic yards will you need delivered NEXT year?
URSULA: Seven was plenty! I had stuff left over! Just…err…now I need eight. To cover the beds I had to make with the leftover mulch from the seven.
KEVIN: AND the bed that didn’t need mulching this year?
URSULA: …nine. Not more than nine.
KEVIN: Uh-huh.
URSULA: And if you’re wondering why I didn’t use the mulch on the side of the house, I tried.
KEVIN: Started to cook?
URSULA: Errr…well, sort of, but no. I started to use it, and now there’s a very traumatized garter snake.
KEVIN: *leans against shower wall, laughing*
URSULA: I didn’t mean to scare him! He’s very pretty! He has gray racing stripes! Only he was in the mulch, and you know…
KEVIN: Did you fling him?
URSULA: No!
KEVIN: …
URSULA: …maybe a little. A small fling. Barely a flinglet, really…anyway he’s playing dead right now, and I felt terrible, and now we have to go get more mulch because I accidentally made a snake sad.
There is a highly specific silence that occurs as a man in the shower realizes that he is going to spend part of the day hauling bags of mulch because his girlfriend is insane. Part of the reason that I love Kevin is because he will accept this reason as completely valid. One cannot have sad snakes. No.
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