Quarantined at Bob Orrick's

 

It was during the early part of the pandemic, and stay at home orders were being issued with the rapidity of an auctioneer MCing a game of musical chairs. One minute you were visiting relatives, and the next thing you knew, you were stuck there for 14 days with whatever random group of visitors happened to be there at the time. I was at my father-in-law's house in Paradise, when the music stopped and the edict crackled over the radio:

"Farn barnest, pononetrast, gom-dom, a tomma-tom tom, pen-om, pendeericast, penontium," the announcer's voice said in unintelligible Gibberish. Not even Pig-Latin, this was some kind of underwater adult-speak from the Peanut-verse. Being the only person over seventy, only Bob could understand what was being said.

"All person's regardless of age and/or religious affiliation are hereby ordered to remain in their current location for the next 14 days consecutively and without exception," Bob translated.

Well, that put a crimp in everyone's dinner plans. I guessed we'd be enduring Bob's veganism and repetitive dinner stories for the foreseeable future. We all looked around for things with which to busy ourselves as we settled in for the long haul.

Richard AC started cleaning the hallway walls with a dirty mop bucket containing red Kool-aid. His first couple of broad strokes with the mop left a bright red stripe in the white porous texture-coated paint. He left the scene, and I inspected the mess, cringing at what I knew was going to evoke a poor reaction from Bob. I found Richard AC in a side bedroom down the hall, sitting atop a shiny new John Deer lawn tractor.

"What were you thinking?" I asked him, as he fondled the controls. "Are you just going to sit there on your big boy tractor and wait for Bob to show up? You know what he's going to say, don't you? 'You know...'" I imitated the stern grandfatherly tone that always accompanied one of his lectures beginning with the phrase "you know." 

"Why don't you go back and look at it?" Richard said, nonplussed.  

I went and examined the area where the big red stripe had been and found that it was barely visible. Apparently, the Kool-Aid hadn't stained the stucco after all. It had an invisible ink-like quality and became colorless and transparent when fully dry. 

"Well, I'll be," I conceded. "I guess you saved yourself an hour long lecture after all."

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That's about it, folks. Sorry, but you can blame the telemarketing industry for my rude awakening, and consequent poor recall of events.