Well Water...Part One

It was a Tuesday morning, just like any other Tuesday morning at the Davisson household. In the master bedroom, darkened only by the thick drawn drapes covering the windows, an alarm signaled the start of the day. The clock, which was set to go off at 6:20 am, turned on and a soft muffle of country music caused the occupants of the room to stir. Shonda, reached over and hit the snooze button, just like every other Tuesday morning. In reality, it was only 6:10 am. Shonda was one of those people who liked to set the bedroom clock ahead about ten minutes. Her husband, Chris, never really understood why but guessed it had to do with some sort of psychological effect.

They both lay snoozing for another half hour. Then Shonda, who was usually the first to rise, willed herself awake and got out of bed. Chris, who usually lay in bed for another 15 minutes while Shonda got ready, could hear the shuffle of her feet on the hardwood floor as she made her way across their bedroom and into the walk-in closet. After choosing her wardrobe for the day, a pair of khaki Capri pants and a light colored tee shirt and a pair of pink flip-flops, she quickly got dressed and went into the bathroom to finish getting ready.

From his cocoon of sheets, pillows and comforter, Chris could hear her in the bathroom. The sound of running water indicated that she was either brushing her teeth, or washing her face….typical morning ritual stuff. He continued to lay with his eyes closed, not really sleeping but not fully awake yet, desperately trying to catch those last few moments of peace and quiet before having to face the day. When he heard Shonda pull the bedroom door closed, he sighed and hopped out of bed to begin his own version of the morning ritual.

Chris, at the ripe old age of 36, was a man of a little less than medium height and a little bit more than average weight. His father was well over six feet, but his mother and her entire family only topped out at five feet. So he made himself feel better about his lack of stature by blaming it on them. The latter, his packing on of pounds over the years, stemmed from the fact that he imbibed his fair share of Budweiser product and didn’t really count calories on a daily basis the way he probably should and didn’t have the energy to exercise.

As he reached the bathroom, he flicked on the light and stood peering with one eye closed at his blurry reflection in the mirror. For reasons he never really understood, every morning his eyes were so heavy with the sleep from the night before, he could never fully open them until he had put in his contacts.

He turned around and relieved himself at the commode and flushed. Step one of the morning ritual was complete.

He turned back around, washed his hands and dried both of his middle fingers on a nearby towel. Being very careful not to touch his index fingers to the cloth and thereby contaminate his fingers with bits of dust and towel particles that would inevitably end up on his contacts. He opened his contact case, right side first, and plopped his finger into the reservoir. As he pulled his finger out, he placed it about two inches from his eyeball so that he could see if his fishing expedition was successful. It was, and he proceeded to insert his “catch” into his eye. The shock of the cold contact solution was rather refreshing and he was able to open his eye just a little bit more. He repeated the process for his left eye and stood peering at his much clearer reflection in the mirror. Step two of the morning ritual was complete.

He rubbed his hands quickly through his short cropped brown hair, which was only lightly spattered with gray at the temples. Years earlier, when the first few gray hairs had sprouted out of his head, Shonda used to amuse herself by plucking them out with tweezers. Only she wasn’t very good at it and usually ended up taking quite a few non-gray hairs as well. Chris was glad that she had discontinued this pastime. Satisfied with his hair, he started for the closet.

He sighed deeply and started steps three and four of his morning ritual. This involved brushing his teeth while at the same time putting on deodorant. It was a complicated procedure that involved a one armed application technique. Sometimes, although he would never admit it publicly, when step one involved “sitting down” he could combine steps 1, 3 and 4. And while that may sound gross, he was always extremely careful to avoid any chances for “cross contamination”. And, it was a time saver.

With steps 3 and 4 out of the way, it was time for a quick “head under the sink” maneuver that had a two-fold purpose: to shock his still groggy head with some cold water, therefore waking him up completely and allowing his hair to be styled for the day. For Chris, whose hair was only about half an inch long at the most, “styling” consisted mainly of a small amount of a hair product quickly run through his hair and then spiking his bangs. It wasn’t a salon quality styling, but it got the job done. With step five of the morning ritual completed, it was time for wardrobe.

Chris was almost ashamed to admit it, considering he was in his mid thirties, a husband and a father of three, but he still lived like he was in college with regards to the clothing he wore and how he treated it. If his work clothes weren’t visibly dirty and they passed a smell test, then he was going to wear them. Granted, Shonda, his beautiful bride of over eight years, did all of the family laundry on a weekly if not daily basis. But he felt as if he was lessening her load by doing this. He was sure that by recycling his clothing until the last possible day, that he was saving her huge amounts of time that was better spent on other issues. Plus, he had an off the wall theory that your clothes would last longer if you didn’t wash them all the time. And, since Chris hated shopping for clothes, this little quirk of his was a “win win” situation for everyone. However, before you judge him as some fat, dirty smelly guy; please know that he has never applied this theory to underwear, because that would just be gross. Even Chris realized that applying the smell test to one’s own drawers was probably not going to be a pleasant experience.

He made his way into the walk-in and surveyed his side of the closet. He wore his clothes on a rotational basis. That meant that he had about three pairs of dress pants and a finite number of dress shirts and ties. His pants were all colors that you could wear with either a blue or white dress shirt. And his ties were all colors that would match any of his shirt/pant combinations. For example, he could wear his dark green pants with his white shirt and maroon tie. And then turn around two days later and wear the same shirt and tie combo with his khaki or brown pants. By mixing and matching these various combinations, he could get the equivalent of five or six business days before he really needed the wife to do some of his laundry.

While Chris’ place of employment requires a business dress code (shirt and tie) on a Monday through Thursday basis, during the summer months it was business casual five days a week. What this meant for him, was that instead of having to wear a tie that started to choke the life out of him by 5 o’clock, he was free to wear any of the several colored polo type shirts he’d collected over the years. He loved business casual summertime, because that meant that his wardrobe choices increased exponentially and his rotation lasted for about ten business days before laundry was a necessity. He could literally mix and match and not have to wear the same thing twice within a five day period.

Today he decided on fresh clothing: khaki pants and a salmon colored shirt that he looked quite good in when he was tan, and he had the picture to prove it.

He had purchased the shirt a year earlier in preparation for their first real vacation since their honeymoon. Chris and Shonda had booked a cruise on the Caribbean and he knew that he would need some decent summer threads to lounge around in. He had selected this shirt on the next to last day of their trip, which was also about the time that the initial third degree tropical sunburn he got from the first day had worn off. For some idiotic reason he felt the need for a good “base” coat before applying the SPF 50 and he paid for it for the next three days. However, after the redness (and the pain) had worn off, his skin was about as tan as it had ever been and it offset the pink color of the shirt quite nicely. During that leg of their trip they had just left a port of call and were sailing back to the starting point of their ocean voyage. They had just passed through a late afternoon/early evening thunderstorm which had left the sky smattered with various clouds of all shapes and sizes. They were still about an hour from their pre-determined dinner reservation and we were wasting time on the Promenade deck waiting for the sun to set. Chris wasn’t a very poetic individual, but even he had to admit that watching the sun set in the middle of the ocean in this particular setting was quite a spectacular sight to behold. He and Shonda stood staring out to sea, watching the sun’s last rays of the day poke through the assortment of clouds left behind by the storm. With great anticipation, they watched and waited as the blazing orange globe sunk further and further down into the waiting sea. Chris found himself watching so intently that he half expected to hear a loud “hiss” when it finally did touch the blue waters of the Caribbean.

They were so caught up in the moment of it all, that Shonda asked a fellow passenger to take their picture as the last few bits of the sun sank into its nightly resting place. The resulting photo was quite nice and both subjects looked extremely “vacationy” and happy. Shonda, who always took a great picture, was stunning in her blue satin dress. Of course, if you asked Chris, Shonda always looked stunning. That stemmed from the fact that she had a natural beauty and didn’t really require much of the maintenance that some women do.

Shonda had long auburn brown hair that fell passed her shoulders. She had beautiful brown doe-like eyes, was tall and slender and there was a “girl next door” quality to her that made more than a few members of the opposite sex turn their heads to look. On this day, she had her hair pulled back in a pony tail with a few locks falling about her face. She was also tanned and looked great, especially against the back drop of a blazing sunset.

Chris, on the other hand, rarely took a good photo. While he still considered himself to be a least somewhat handsome, in most of the photos he was in, he felt as if he looked like a fat pasty white boy. So because the setting and subjects were just right in this particular shot, it turned out to be a nice little vacation memory. So nice, in fact, that when they returned home from their trip Shonda had the print enlarged and framed. It was now hanging in their living room right next to their wedding day photo.

He reached up and grabbed hold of the shirt by one of the sleeves and gave it a pull. As it came free, the hanger which had held it popped up into the air and for a split second held an Olympic gymnast type of pose. Like that moment on the parallel bar right before the athlete goes from a hand stand into some acrobatic flipping, turning, dismount. To Chris’ dismay the hanger just fell back down and rocked back and forth a few times before finally stopping.

With shirt in hand, he grabbed his khaki Dockers from the hook on the back of the closet door, bent down to the shoe rack and picked up his brown shoes and snatched his belt off the shelf. With his arms full of clothing, he walked out and made his way back out into the bedroom, pausing just long enough to use his elbow to turn off the closet light. He shuffled back across the floor to the bed and flopped back in, clothes and all. For a split second, as he lay in bed and watching the blades of the overhead ceiling fan go round and round, he considered taking a vacation day. He peered out of the window which was directly behind where his head usually rested on his side of the bed. It appeared as if it was going to be a very nice day. He decided against calling in because he only had five vacation days left, and then slowly sat up and got dressed.