Tuesday, April 15, 2008

What would Dante have done? (Part II) Dear Readers, please read the previous blog first--Dante in Paradise--4 14 08--for optimum sequential enjoyment


“Have you seen the Pool Key?” PP shrieked, gritting her teeth as she rifled through Cindy’s various containers full of stuff. Coffee cans full of receipts, Cosco cards, pencils, Hello Kitty note pads.

Alas, no Pool Key. Damn!

“You can’t find the key?” Dashingly Handsome BF scratched his head in bemused jet lag wonder.
“No. I can’t find the key. And I need to go to the pool!”

PP turned upside down the flat basket on the kitchen counter. Tossed aside all the stuff that was not a pool key. “Where the hell is it?” she demanded. “I can’t believe it’s not here! Cindy knows how important it is. It’s not like her to not leave it. Usually it’s right here….and….” PP started to run out of complaining steam, the jet lag, lack of coffee and Pool Access Frustration taking their toll.

“Are you sure that it’s not here?”
“YES! I’m sure it’s not here. And I need to…..”
“I know I know. You need to go to the pool. Well, you may just have to go later and….”
“I DO NOT WANT TO GO LATER! I WANT TO GO NOW! I CAME ALL THE WAY HERE TO SWIM IN CINDY’S POOL AND NOW I CAN’T BECAUSE THE GODDAMN KEY IS NOWHERE TO BE FOUND! SHIT!!!!”

“Calm down…”
PP glared at him.
“OK, don’t calm down. Let me help you…..”
“Can you just call Cindy and find out where she put it?”
”Sure, sure, I can do that. Maybe I should make some coffee first. We didn’t get much sleep last night….”
PP glared at him again.
“Okay okay, I’ll call her.”


PP nodded before heading back out the door and making her way back to the pool. Why she didn’t really know. It wasn’t like she had the key now and could get in. And it wasn’t like Gramps was gonna let her in. Though maybe he would?

Sighing, she ignored the coo coos of the sweet doves and the fragrant trade winds blowing in the palm fronds.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.
How the hell could this be happening?
Yes PP knows she’s repeating herself. But. One must understand the depth of her frustration.

Or must one?

Suffice it to say that she found herself, once again, on the wrong side of the pool fence staring mournfully as Gramps and Jr. toweled off in jolly post pool good humor, completely ignoring her, before heading out of the pool compound through the gate opposite her.

Shit. She couldn’t even try a smile sneak-in since they’d gone out the opposite way. Though she doubted it would have worked.

The pool taunted her, glistening in a perfect golden turquoise tease.





Sighing, PP turned and made her way back down the hill. Of course, it did occur to her that she could try climbing the fence, but now it was after 10 am and the sun factor was in full play. No swimming between 10 a.m. and 4 pm—doctor’s orders.

But she was in Hawaii! Couldn’t she take a vacation from the doc’s orders for just one week?

PP wishes she could, but the fear of more melanoma, though probably mostly unfounded, still permeated her being. She could not ignore the fact that she was very near the equator in a blazing sun filled tropic. Her powers of Denial were just not that strong.

Damn.

Sighing deeply, she trudged back down the stairs to the condo, the sweet doves mocking her. “Where you going? Where you going? Where you going?”
Stupid birds. They had it easy. They could just fly over the fence and go for a swim. A lack of key would be no obstacle for a dove, would it?




“I talked to Cindy,” DHBF was at the sink, making coffee.
“And?”
“She said that her friend Julianna (PP is NOT gonna change her name—you’ll see why! Julianna deserves to be outed!) probably has the key since she’s been here before us feeding the cat and going to the pool. Cindy said that she’s kinda flaky….”
“KINDA FLAKY!!!! That STUPID BITCH! I cannot believe that she didn’t leave the key for us!”
“I’m sure it was just an honest mistake….” DHBF was often infuriatingly right.
“I don’t care! I HATE HER! Did you call her?”
He shook his head. “No, Cindy said she’d call and work it out with her. Here. Have some coffee.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, PP plopped down at the table and stared at the steaming brew. How the hell could someone borrow the pool key and then not leave it for the next person? What kind of IDIOT did such a thing?

Obviously someone who was not a Pool Fanatic!

Or, someone that deserved to burn for eternity in Dante’s Hell!





Of course, PP did calm down. Eventually. DHBF took her to her favorite Kailua Beach where she had a most delicious ocean swim in the bluey warmth of Hawaii’s sea. DHBF even said that she was swimming over a turtle. That he saw its shadow.




This lie made PP feel a little better, esp. when later that evening, after FLAKY Julianna the Key Keeping Bitch returned the pool key and PP was able to go for swim in the dusky balmy twilight.





Fortunately for Julianna, PP never saw her.

Otherwise, who knows what would have happened.

Dante’s hell would pale in comparison to what PP might have done had Julianna had the misfortune of meeting her ire!

1 comment:

Ian said...

"Lie"? Would I lie to make you feel better? The idea!!! No, no, I did, I did, I did see the turtle shape... not exactly a shadow since it was wider than you and lighter colored than the blue water (though I may have used the word shadow to indicate blurry vagueness)... and I didn't say under you either, but between us about half way... and when I did later swim with a turtle it confirmed the veracity of this first sighting. You know how much I like veracity. But really, the idea that I would make up a half-truth to diminish your... um, to bring out that adorable smile, or to... placate the princess? What an idea!!!
Now that I ponder the idea, maybe I should chuck some of the pointless veracity attachment in favor of convenient or even frolicsome fictions and happy placations. Ah, these picky moral dilemmas in someone who claims to have gotten me some aging cab-driver-type street smarts.. this fool needs another vacation (with princess).

BEAUTY

  “For me, it’s all about Beauty. About being one with the water….” LS’s voice drifts off, lost in thought?  Our small after swim group ...