He called to say he was going to be out of work a little late. That's okay because she was late to start on dinner. Escaping from coloring with her son she noticed the clock and realized she had exactly 20 minutes to make the "home cooked" meal she had promised that morning. They had both agreed that it would be nice to have something that wasn't fresh out of a box with preprinted directions for dinner, and she had forgotten. Groaning, she got up from the floor, promising her son, before he could start complaining, that he could watch Sesame Street until she came back. Heading into the kitchen she mentally ran down the list of things that she could make with the defrosted chicken that could be considered "homemade" without a recipe.
Struck with inspiration, she grabbed a pot, filled it with hot water, and placed it on the stove. Taking the chicken out, she heard the echos of "Sunny Days" coming from the living room. Humming along she sliced the chicken, put it in a bowl and dumped some marinade on it. Then she waited, watching the pot, waiting for it to boil. She dumped the rice in as it began to bubble and got the skillet for the chicken, snagging a bag of veggies from the frezer along the way. She glanced at the clock, he should be home any minute, but the rice will be at least 15. Maybe he will hit traffic on the way. She hated to be rushing around when he got home, when all she wanted to do was relax with him for a few minutes. She heard the car, the rice was boiling along, the chicken was sizzling in the pan, and the veggies were waiting patiently for their turn. Damn, so close to being done, just 5 more minutes.
The cry from the living room distracted her, rushing in, she found no one murdered but that Sesame was over. Turning back to the kitchen she saw the door open and he walked in. Looking past him she could see the rice boiling over and the chicken starting to give off smoke. She smiled at him and started to say how nice it was to see him as she headed toward the stove, but at that same moment he took an ungainly step towards her and kneeled down on one knee - and landed directly on her bare foot. She screeched and jumped back, rescuing her toe from his workboots and glared down at him. With a rather sheepish smile on his face, he held up a box to her, "Should I say I'm sorry or ask you to marry me first?"
Aw, this can't be a true story--or can it!
ReplyDelete;)
I wish I had a vignette checklist that everyone could see and work off of insteaf of having to say, 'I know a vignette when I see one and I'll tell you, by golly, if you have or haven't written one.'
I'd say no. But just the last graf, now look at that--just that alone covers everything in the first two grafs, but covers it in rapid-fire code; we get the child, the nice dinner, the man, the moment, the irony.... Perfect vignette!