Just Another Day

She looked over at him and gave a silent look of reproach. He saw the look; he always saw the look. He asked her “What?”   And she told him, “you’re a little too close to the line. You always park a little too close to the line.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” He said to her; at which point she simply opened her door and pointed to the painted line that delineated the edge of that particular parking spot.

“If you’re going to do something you may as well do it right”. This was something she would often offer to him when he didn’t do something just quite right.

He told her ”my parking is perfection, like my love for you”. She smiled at that; as she always did. “But really my love”, which is what he almost always called her; “when was the last time we saw another car?” “Does it even matter if I park in a parking spot? I may as well park on the lawn”.

“No you won’t” she told him; “you have to obey the rules of the road, even if we haven’t seen another working car for almost 3 years.”

He cringed involuntarily because he knew what she was going to say next. “And what happened to that other working car?” she asked him; and when he didn’t answer right away, she offered, “did someone make it crash?”

“You know they startled me my love”, he explained for he couldn’t remember how many times this would make it. “We hadn’t seen another moving vehicle for more than a year before that, and they were driving like a bat out of hell”. 

“Babe”, she told him; “we were just lucky that they swerved to avoid us since you were in the middle of the road. “My love”, he offered, “you know that the GPS was acting all weird, and I was trying to get us to that grocery store”. His expression darkened a bit as he remembered that other vehicle swerving and crashing.

She saw his troubled look and put her hand gently on his arm as he turned their solar car off. “Babe; you know that man saved our lives by swerving like he did”. She continued, “if he had hit us at that speed he would have killed you and maybe me”. He could see tears glisten at the edge of her eyes, and he told her “you know I’m not going anywhere my love. You have me for another 20 to 40 years based on my family history and barring any accident or infection or something else unforeseen”.

“I know that all of your family lived into their 80’s and your grandmother lived to one hundred and one”. She had learned that about him by their 4^th date and honestly was a little sad that she had never met his grandmother: she sounded like a hell of a woman.

“Let’s get inside before the cyclone gets here” he told her while pointing over to the east towards the dark clouds and large funnel cloud. “Babe, I think it’s a tornado” she offered, “I think a cyclone is when that sort of thing happens over water”. “My love, you’re thinking water spout”.

“Either way Babe, let’s get underground before it gets here” They both took a few minutes grabbing packs and supplies before they went indoors and into the basement.   

After they had settled in for the evening in the underground bunker portion of their house she asked him; “Babe why do you always bring that gun with you”?  She was referring to his Colt m1911. It sat securely in it’s holster on his utility belt. The pistol was a family heirloom really: it was 70 years old and had been to war with his father in south east Asia.

“It’s for bears” he assured her. To this her response was “there haven’t been any bears for years”; and of course his response was, “you’re welcome!”. She asked him about the pistol at least once a week and his response was always like that. The reason changed every time: among the reasons he posited were, Zombies, Aliens –extra terrestrial, not illegal, wild dogs, gators-always in his version of a southern accent for some reason- bunnies, etc. His real reason was actually for other survivors; just in case they tried to harm him or worse, her. He never voiced that reason to her because she always saw the good in people even after everything went to hell.

Not literal hell of course; and he knew there were no such things as zombies outside of stories, but that was his favorite reason to tell her he needed the weapon. And he also liked to tell her not to worry; that if she ever became zombified he would put her down right away. In truth he would be much more likely to keep her chained up in the back shed so he could visit her occasionally and she could keep him company despite wanting to chow down on his gizzards. After all she was his spinach and kryptonite; and he couldn’t imagine any sort of life without her.

Once in the underground portion of their future home they could not hear a thing from outside. Even though the winds from the tornado were in excess of 100 mph they heard nothing. They were 25 feet underground after all so that made sense. He hummed to himself as he prepared their evening meal. He often hummed or sang to himself and his lovely wife. Mostly 80’s music because that is in fact the best music ever; but he had a wide range of stuff he would perform for himself or her, or anyone who was in auditory range.

On the menu tonight; as on many a night, was Spam. Last year he had discovered the Spam factory and made multiple trips towing a medium sized trailer and as a result he had several thousand tins of Spam. In spite of popular belief; Spam was not a contraction for Special Processed American Meat. That was what it became known as in the U.K. after the 2^nd World War. He actually knew someone when he was in high school who told him that her grandfather worked in the Hormel factory before the war and it was a contraction of Spiced Ham; the original flavor. 

He was never a particular fan of the meat product before but it had actually come to grow on him. Tonight would be the 89^th different recipe/preparation of the canned meat. He was looking forward to trying it stir fried. Like they used to say; “don’t knock it, its’ got its’ own key.”

“Hey babe”, she called out from the front of the shelter, “what did you want to watch tonight”? Early last year they had gone on a mission over several weeks and scrounged through multiple abandoned warehouses and stores to build a vast collection of DVDs’ and Blu Ray discs.

He considered his options mentally as he poured oil in the pan and turned up the heat: “what about one of the Stars”? She answered his question with some questions of her own. “Do you mean Wars or Trek”? She continued with “Movies, or TV, or animation or Pre-quel”? “You decide my love”, he told her.

30 minutes later they were sitting in front of the 146 inch flat screen and starting their nightly movie marathon while enjoying a zesty stir fried meat product dish. 

As the movie started he was already planning where to go tomorrow to look for supplies. And tomorrow would be just another day as today had been just another day.