The Bench

I had a video shoot in the business district in downtown Toronto, just like every Wednesday. It was an early affair, and lasted about an hour, so I was back home around 1:30 PM. Since I had to pick Maggie up at 4:30, I changed into my in-house shorts, kicked the legs up and read the book. I'm laboring through Ann-Marie MacDonald's "The Way the Crow Flies". It's a big book, some 800 pages. MacDonald is setting up the plot for so long that I left and re-started the book twice. By the page 300 nothing really happened. My eyes slipped and stumbled across the pages. Slowly, I dozed off. When my eyes sprung open the digital display of the clock was laughing at me: 4:15. I rushed out in my house wear. Of course, as it happens in such situations, the traffic was worse than usual. After several of Maggie's exasperate phone calls, I was finally there half an hour late, with a shamed smile and lowered eyes. Maggie made me go with her to a nursery, as a punishment. And so I went. I successfully dodged buying more plants, but capitulated when we came across a garden bench. It seemed to have been made for our porch.
"Imagine having our nightcap drinks sitting on it on our porch," said Maggie.
We assembled it as soon as we came home.
It was a very costly punishment for oversleeping. I'll make sure the alarm is set next time I feel relaxed with a book.