“Midge – commeer…” Harold
called excitedly from the computer room.
I rolled my eyes because I just knew that whatever had excited him was
likely not going to excite me. But,
being a dutiful wife, I leaned forward in my recliner and pulled myself out of
the comfortable abyss… Then it started…
It all started with the photo of Palmer Lake and the rainbow
that my friend Steve put on the internet.
It seemed innocent…right? Who
hasn’t seen a gazillion photos of a rainbow on the internet??? Well, I have to admit that it was the most
beautiful rainbow photo that I had ever seen, but it certainly didn’t set me in
a mood to pack up for a move to Palmer, Alaska.
You see, Harold is what I call a “Rainbow Chaser”. I don’t mean that in the literal sense of the
word… Well…except in this case. Harold’s search for utopia has moved me all
around the world. When he was in the
army, he was stationed in Germany for three years. After we were married, he decided to move us
to Germany because he loved it while stationed there. After a couple of years, Harold decided that
it would be great to live in Atlanta. I
enjoyed Atlanta, but eventually the traffic and the hubbub got to him, so he
decided that it would be nice to live in Florida. So, Orlando was our next home. It seemed that we no sooner got settled when
he saw an advertisement in the newspaper for “country living”. He was excited to purchase an acre of land in
Okeechobee, FL, covered in palmetto and scrub oaks for only $10,000. He didn’t consider the cost of new home
construction, so he settled for drilling a well, dropping a septic tank,
installing a power pole, then having a dilapidated old trailer towed to the
property. He said we would only live in
that trailer until the new house was built.
Yeah… Right… We lived in that trailer for 7 years before
Harold was lured to New Orleans by a television documentary about the Mardi Gras
and Cajun food. Yup…you guessed it…I was
packing again…
Let me tell you…I lived in 18 different places in the 40 years
of our marriage. The 7 years in that
hell hole of a trailer, in the middle of a pasture and heated to unreasonable
temperatures in the summer, was the longest we lived anywhere. That certainly wasn’t the utopia Harold
imagined, nor was anywhere else that we lived.
Me? I made the best of life where
ever we landed. A documentary of my life
would rightfully be titled “Steady She Goes”.
While Harold was chasing rainbows, I was never with any one employer
long enough to be vested in any retirement plans. Did I mention that I am adept and near
psychic in financial matters? It wasn’t
hard to see the writing on the wall early in our marriage. I foresaw a lifetime of poverty and misspent
savings with Harold, so I quietly squirreled away first small, then larger
chunks of my income from one after another of my minimum wage jobs. When my savings became too large to be
stashed around the house, I opened a Roth account, an IRA and a money market
account. I even dabbled in the stock
market a bit. Of course, I had to have a
post office box everywhere we lived, or I would have been found out quickly. If Harold had known that I was amassing a small
fortune, he would not have been satisfied until he had drained every account
for whatever it would take for immediate gratification. Nope…that was my own little secret between
me, myself and I.
Harold and I have been living in Tennessee for the past 5
years. He seemed to have finally settled
down into reality. So much so that I became
confidant enough to finally reveal the savings so carefully hidden from him
over the years. For me, it seemed that
we had finally found utopia and that the rainbow chasing was over. Our home was built at the end of a country
road with no near neighbors, which is MY idea of utopia. It’s not that I don’t like people. It’s just that I like my privacy and solitary
time better. Harold had a small building
erected that he quickly turned into a man cave. He enjoyed light wood work, specializing in
folk type construction. His birdhouses
are beautiful. The sales of his birdhouses at a local flea market substantially subsidized our retirement income. I had a rather large vegetable garden, a rose
garden and a shed of laying hens to keep me busy. Honestly…what more could we want??? Gazing into my retirement future looked quite
comfortable and carefree. Yes…I have
Utopia, indeed!
Then Harold saw that picture of the beautiful rainbow in Palmer,
Alaska, which stirred his usual discontent with our current life and I knew
that his itchy feet would soon carry us away and over yet another rainbow
to his next Utopia that somehow he never finds.
Dread began to creep into my stomach to tie the usual knots…
My heart grew heavy with the knowledge that Harold was once
again going to uproot our lives while spending a significant portion of our
retirement nest egg that I worked so hard to save. It was more than I could bear… It was that exact moment when I made a
decision that no one and certainly not Harold would ever make me unhappy
again. I had to act fast before my whole
world came tumbling down.
“Harold… I need to go out
to the garden, and then gather the eggs.
I’ll be back in a few…” Then, I
tiptoed out to the man cave and selected just the right tool to secure my
retirement years. Quick as a wink, I
took care of my problem and planted him right smack in the middle of my rose
garden. Carefully, I covered the whole
garden in cypress chips until the garden did not appear to have been disturbed
at all…just a well cared for rose garden…
When I was done, I attached the sprinkler to the old hose to give my
thirsty rose garden a nice drenching drink of water.
Later, I glanced out my kitchen window to see that the sprinkler
and a delightfully sunny day had created a beautiful rainbow over my rose
garden. I might have been a little smug
when I said…”There’s your damn rainbow, Harold!”
Then I lived happily ever after….
The End
(For the record…this is a fiction story. My husband is way smarter than Harold! LOL)
Written by
Darlene Cirinna
© September 17, 2011
All rights reserved. Do not use
without
author’s permission.
