"What a treat to have a personal day," Jack thought before even opening his eyes. "Sarah's probably fixing me something great in the kitchen to celebrate my surprise day off."
When he finally opened his eyes, the room was bright and quiet. Unusually quiet. Eerily quiet. It felt less like Jack had taken a day off and more like Sarah, his wife, had.
Growing uneasy, he rolled out of bed and hurried toward the kitchen, glancing at the clock on his way. It was already nine in the morning.
There was no breakfast on the table. After a quick sweep of the house, Jack realized his wife wasn't home at all.
"What gives?" he muttered, annoyed. "Did she really run out to the mall first thing this morning?"
He found his phone and dialed her number.
Sarah didn't pick up immediately, and when she did, she sounded frazzled and impatient.
"Why are you calling me right now?"
"Are you kidding?" Jack exclaimed. "You could've at least made your husband a bite to eat before vanishing. When I'm rushing off to work, breakfast is always ready, but the second I decide to take a breather, there's nothing."
"Look, I really can't talk to you right now," she said, her tone oddly sharp.
"Where even are you?" Jack pressed.
"Look out the window at the park," Sarah said. "Hurry up. People are starting to stare at me."
Jack went to the window and looked down at the street. Sure enough, a crowd of women was huddled around the picnic tables at the edge of the playground—the spot where the local guys usually sat around to play cards or chess.
"What are you all doing out there?" Jack shouted into the phone. "Are you playing bridge or something?"
"Yeah... bridge... exactly," his wife muttered crossly.
"Are you serious?!"
He didn't get an answer; she had already hung up.
"Unbelievable." Jack's head was spinning. "Is this what it's come to?" he thought. "Women taking over the card tables? Since when? What kind of nonsense is this?"
He dialed her again, almost yelling into the receiver this time.
"Sarah, get home this instant! Stop messing around!"
"I'd love to, but these women won't let me leave!" she snapped back. "And don't you dare yell at me!"
"Sarah, are you my wife or what? I'm hungry," Jack said, dialing back the volume slightly. "Why do you think I took the day off? To spend time with you. And instead, you're out there fooling around with the girls."
"Jack, stop shouting," Sarah said, her voice leveling out. "We're in the middle of a serious battle here. If you're that hungry, grab some eggs from the fridge and make an omelet. And start the laundry while you're at it. I already loaded the machine."
She hung up again.
"Right..." the husband grumbled. "Mutiny on the bounty. So this is what she does while I'm at work? And then I come home and it's always: 'Oh, I didn't have time for this, I didn't finish that.' No wonder she doesn't have time... she's out there playing games all day."
Jack felt a sudden, burning desire to march out to the courtyard, walk up to that table, and break up the whole party.
But his stomach rumbled; the hunger was winning.
He hurried to the kitchen, flicked on the stove, and slammed a frying pan onto the burner. He splashed some oil in and nervously cracked a few eggs into the pan.
As the eggs began to sizzle, he dashed to the laundry room to start the wash.
That part didn't go quite as smoothly. He hit the power button, but the machine refused to budge. He tried fiddling with the other dials on the console, but the washer remained stubbornly silent.
He had to go hunting for the manual. While he was searching, he caught the faint scent of something burning.
Jack sprinted back to the kitchen only to find his breakfast looking like a charred piece of leather.
Cursing under his breath, he scraped the burnt mess onto a plate and, biting his lip in frustration, went back to searching for the instructions.
The washing machine finally hummed to life half an hour later, and only then because he'd accidentally bumped a button he hadn't noticed before.
Sarah still wasn't back.
Jack remembered his eggs, went back to the kitchen, glared at his culinary disaster, and decided not to risk it. He dumped the whole thing straight into the trash.
He went back to the window. The women were still at the table.
That was the last straw. He headed outside.
***
As Jack approached the table, he imagined himself simply grabbing Sarah by the hand like a child, pulling her away from the group, and leading his guilty wife back to the apartment. But suddenly, he heard a woman sitting at the table exclaim in an exhausted voice:
"How much longer are we going to argue about this? Are we ever going to pick a new President for the Homeowners Association? Why aren't any of the men at this meeting? If we could just get one man out here, we could dump this thankless job on him. We could make it all his responsibility!"
Hearing that, Jack slammed on the brakes. He spun around, tucked his head into his shoulders, and started walking the other way.
Voices trailed after him:
"Hey, sir! Do you live in this building? Wait a second, sir!"
Jack picked up the pace and... vanished into his entryway.
Back in the apartment, Jack let out a sigh of relief. Feeling much more cheerful, he headed back to the refrigerator and began, quite unhurriedly, to fix himself some breakfast.
0 comments