On the first day, Didge and Mister raked an acre's worth of leaves. Mom and I ran errands (translation: went shopping) while they worked, and were honestly amazed at what we returned to. I've never seen so many leaves. Bag upon bag upon bag - once collected curbside for trash pickup, all those bags looked like a colony of refugees awaiting transport. They seemed so proud of their work, and Didge made the remark that they really got a lot accomplished. He also mentioned that he hadn't worked his muscles like that in a while, and was certain he'd be sore. I agreed, and very intentionally opted to not ask the question I'd been about to ask:
"What are all those flagstones in the back of Mister's truck for?"
Mister has a small, black pickup truck that he uses to tote and haul all things totable and haulable. It was parked at the very end of the driveway, and in the back, secured by a ring of chicken wire, was an approximately four foot tall stack of flagstone. Something in the combination and position of those two things held such meaning that no one, not even Mister, mentioned the issue.
And on the second day, the mystery was revealed. Didge came home yesterday walking like tiptoe Frankenstein. His shoes had rubbed his heels a bit raw the day before, and his already-sore muscles had evidently been taken their edge and beyond. He looked bemusedly crazed, and was smirking a bit as he asked, "Do you know what those rocks were for in Mister's truck?" He flopped down on the sofa and wheezed while wiggling - I think he was trying to wring out the ache. "Those rocks. In his truck. Did you see them?"
"Yeah, I saw them.", I answered. "Did you do something with them today?" Didge stared at me very intently for a moment, like he was accusing me of something, and told me to make a pitcher of lemonade. I asked again if the rocks had been part of that day's task set. He stared some more before spitting out, "We built a sidewalk - - like, a long one."
He didn't give me a chance to ask where they'd built it. Shifting his gaze to the ceiling, he told me they had taken load by little load of what Mister told him was 1,000 pounds of flagstone (it was a *lot*) out of the back of the truck, all the way over to where the sidewalk was being built, where they had placed stone by stone in careful place. For transport, they used a wheelbarrow and a little red Radio Flyer wagon. (Hell to the ever living yes.) At one point, Mister told Didge not to scratch the wheelbarrow - which Didge pointed out had a flat tire. They decided to put cardboard into the bottom of the wagon to avoid scratching it. And so they trucked, wheelbarrow and little red wagon, back and forth, forth and back, all day long. One behind the other.
I know you're hearing it with as much clarity as I am. Don't even try to deny it, baby.
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