Timeout

By Curt Swarm

Everybody needs a timeout. When I was a kid, “timeout” was just becoming fashionable, like when the hula hoop took the country by swirl. Instead of a spanking, a “timeout” might be awarded to a misbehaving child (like me), where I was assigned to go stand in a corner or be sent off into another room by myself where I was to “think about” what I had done. To spank or not to spank was the big controversy like it was with bottle feeding a newborn or breastfeeding. The benefits or adverse effects of corporal punishment are still debated today, whether it be child or adult.

Today, a “timeout” might carry a different meaning like, “Let’s have a timeout from each other,” where two people decide to spend some time apart to see if they miss one another or not. Ginnie and I are in a brief timeout, although not for adverse reasons. Once a year, usually about this time, midsummer, she goes to spend time with her three sisters in Missouri. They goof around, shop, eat good food, and visit their 97-year-old father in assisted living. It’s a “timeout” for them, away from their husbands and families, sister time to spend together. This means I’m home alone for three days, or in a “timeout” that I sort of enjoy, because I know it’s temporary. I isolate, read, sleep a lot, get a few projects done, and generally enjoy the peace and quiet.

Ginnie has ensured I have plenty to eat. She spent the day before she left in a tizzy preparing food. There’s breakfast casserole, sloppy Joes, chicken enchiladas, leftover potato salad, and death-by-chocolate brownies. Dang! I’m trying to keep the food in order: breakfast casserole for breakfast, obviously; sloppy Joes for lunch; and chicken enchiladas for supper. The death-by-chocolate brownies are fill-in as needed. Poor me.

You might know the garden is hitting hard while Ginnie is gone. The cucumbers are multiplying like rabbits, the green beans are elongating like earthworms, and the tomatoes are blushing brides. Vegetables are so life-like. Thank goodness we have friends like the Snavelys who are delighted to take excess produce off our hands. Of course, I know how to cook fresh green beans and bacon better’n Ginnie. I don’t spare the bacon or onions, like Ginnie does. All of these fresh garden vegetables, plus the pre-prepared food, and I may gain weight while Ginnie’s gone. I plan to sweat it off in the exercise room.

Stormy, our tomcat, has mixed feelings about Ginnie’s absence. She spoils him to no end by constantly giving him treats, something I won’t do. But she shuts him out of our bedroom at night because she doesn’t like him sleeping on our bed. I sort of enjoy the company of Stormy on the bed in Ginnie’s absence, so the bedroom door is wide open. Stormy doesn’t know what to think about his new privilege but complains anyway.

The chipmunks wish Ginnie had not left. Our yard is riddled with chipmunk holes and pathways. The best way to get rid of them, I’ve determined, is to shoot them with a small caliber rifle. Ginnie hates for me to do this, thinking the poor little chipmunks are cute. With her gone, I’m free to open fire. So it’s a three-day open season on chipmunks.

I sit in my recliner with a Kindle book in my hands. I just completed something I have never done before. I read three of Abraham Verghese’s books, “The Covenant of Water,” “Cutting for Stone” and “The Tennis Partner” back-to-back, twice. They are that intriguing and well-written, and are influencing my writing. I look out the picture window and see the BNSF freight train heading east full of coal. The hump of coal is barely visible above the tall corn. There’s a sadness to it. I’m ready for the “timeout” to be over.

Contact Curt Swarm at curtswarm@yahoo.com