It Also Rises...

The rum drips slowly through my day and menial tasks seem like an eternity.  I've realized at age 25, that I can't do much of anything in the house on my own.  I'm like a freshman college student who cheated his way through high school and is now being forced to learn the material on his own.

It took me three hours to put up a set of curtains today, two hours to put together a coffee table
yesterday and last week I had to ask my friend where they keep the sugar in the supermarket.  I know it's hard to believe but yes, I am really that inept.

But there is hope.  My neighbors knocked at my door this afternoon to retrieve the strainer I borrowed
from them earlier in the day.  They did so together, as they always do when they come to my apartment.  The short one always does the talking and the tall one always does the laughing.  Together they're a good team and I can see why they'd come as a unit.

"I'm going to make macaroni and cheese."

"Right, here's the thing, I still have the rigatoni that I made in the strainer because I don't have any
Tupperware.  Do you have Tupperware?  We can make a trade."

"Yeah I've got Tupperware hold..."

"Actually, if you want you can just have the rigatoni. I made enough for five but it's only me."

The tall one laughed.  The short one looked at me with skepticism.

"You're Italian right?"

"Yes, yes I am, but that doesn't mean I made the rigatoni from scratch."

"Alright we'll take it."

I went to the fridge and grabbed the strainer with the rigatoni and the jar of Prego.  The look I received
when I got to the door was a mix of disgust and disappointment.  Disgust at the bottle of Prego and
disappointment in the sorry 25 year old Italian boy that stood in front of her that did not know how to
make his own sauce.

"You know what.  That's okay.  I make my own sauce and I...  just forget it."

"I know, I know, it's bad, I know.  I, well to tell you the truth I'm kind of new to all of this.  Look at
these jeans.  You see those holes?  You know why they are there?  Because in the seven years or so that my mother has stopped doing my laundry, I haven't learned how to do it on my own."

"Sad."

"I know, I'll be like 40 when I learn how to cook."

The tall girl laughed.

"I'll tell you what.  I hate taking out the garbage.  You see that pile right there?  I loathe the time when
I have to take that to the dumpster.  If you take out our garbage, I'll do your laundry."

"Will you fold them?"

"Yeah...but I'm not touching your underwear."

"That's... you know that's, I'm, I'm fine with that.  BUT, you also have to teach me how to cook.  I'll buy
all the stuff but you have to teach me."

"Okay."

I bid them farewell and the short one pointed out that there was garbage outside their door when I was ready to take it.  I almost tripped over the step as I peered my head out the door to take a gander.  The
tall one laughed and I finished getting ready for work.

"It's beginning to feel like a real home", I thought, as I cleared the beer bottles away from the counter to make way for my coffee cup.  i finished getting ready for work while staring outside my window.  The sun was fading but I had enough sunshine within to light my way to work.  I smiled a little when I thought about just how right Hemingway was.