writing doodle - day 11 - word count 593

Years ago, my grandfather lived on the bleeding edge of technology; he always looked for the next big thing.  When he found it, he invested heavily.  His garage could have outfitted an entire museum exhibit on how technology had changed over sixty years.  He held on to everything because he had a full barn, two outbuildings, and a garage.  When an item went to reside in an outbuilding, it was indexed into several spreadsheets for quick location.  Just in case.

Grandpa owned his own chain of craft and fabric stores because his first wife had a love of quilting.  If he had to support her habit, he figured he'd do it at wholesale and make a profit on it.  You might even say that they blanketed lower Kentucky with their tiny storefronts.

When we had our talk about the drive to his class reunion, he insisted we take Velma and Emily.  Velma was a Winnebago which had been state of the art in 1974.  Velma got six miles to the gallon when going down hill, if the wind was with you.  The three years he took Velma on the road, she, yes she, towed Emily, my grandmother's 19XX Thunderbird convertible.  

"We could rent any kind of car you want and stay in some nice hotels," I said.  "We can take our time and see things in comfort."

"Comfort, schmufort.  This is about arriving in style," Grandpa said. He coughed a little and said, "Sometimes you do things right so you don't have to do them over. I should know, I was married five times and should have done what it took to get the right one the first time." 

I could just imagine him running his fingers around the neck on his Hawaiian shirt that was covered in hula girls.  When he sold the businesses to his children, he insisted they do things right.  

It was my turn to cough.  I had been married three times and lived with several women, only one of them had ever been right and it hadn't lasted near to long enough.  My education and subsequent performance on various jobs had always been right, but I never carried it forward to my personal life.

"I'm bringing Hazel," I said.  Hazel had prevented me from moving forward with more than one inappropriate woman, impressive since we had only been together for three months. Before I could get the words out about dog sitting to Manny, his wife said no.  Something about a dog in the house interrupting their sex life.  Please.  They'd been married less than two years and were on each other like stink on shit most of the time.  One medium sized dog wouldn't be a disruption, not much of a disruption.  

"Is she good at cleaning? We're gonna be living in tight quarters," he said.  "Can't let things go for very long or we'll have to take a full day to shovel shit and start over."

"She's an expert at the dishes."  Due to her enthusiasm at 'doing' the dishes, I changed to paper plates and took out the trash every night.  "And she's great at dusting."  Hazel's tail was low table height and when she was enthusiastic could clear the magazines and books from a cocktail table in under three seconds.

"Does she snore?"

Yes.  All of the time, especially after she has gone for a run.  If you take out your hearing aid, she won't bother you. And she didn't bother me when I put a pillow over my head. "No sweat, Grandpa."

~~
OK, so I'm low on word count, but I'm working on consistency ... and have far and away deviated from the original plan (surprised? you shouldn't be).

please accept this as my apology for the evening ...