Essay: Predictions for 2013

Predictions for 2013
(Scheduled for Chum for Thought #2: Blood in the Water, 2014)

This was written in the final days of 2012. You lose some; you win some; some just keep on stalking you through the night.

[This column was published in the Dayton Review in 2012. You can look it up. Somehow, I missed plugging it into the original Chum For Thought. No, I didn’t have any regrets about flubbing some predictions. I just screwed up. I wish I could have predicted that. It’s grievously outdated now, but some of our problems, like pulling dandelions, may be intractable. Enjoy.]

 THE END OF THE WORLD? – So, the end of the Mayan calendar last December was not the end of the world and the Age of Aquarius has been a wash so far. So, that leaves us with…

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The Hanging Offense

from the book: Life Will Get You in the End:
Short stories by David Satterlee

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Life Will Get You in the End:
Short Stories by David Satterlee

His wife has undertaken a new hobby and involved him in foraging for materials. What could be better than an activity that brings the whole family together? What happens when a patient, tolerant, and supportive husband reaches his limit?

The Hanging Offense

Don and Bev were an unlikely couple. He was as tall as she was short. He always knew which direction was north and she always knew when he didn’t, actually. He was a disorderly neat-freak to her orderly clutter. They both claimed to have a personally satisfying “piling system.” They had learned to compromise where consensus was impossible and bicker gently when personal territory needed defending.

Don and Bev had met rather late-ish in life. They were already past their prime when they met. Let us say that they were on the trailing edge of homemaking, child-raising, and career-building, They were both divorced after almost three decades of difficult first marriages. They were both lonely but skeptical of ever trying again. They had both given up on finding someone who met their standards – they both quoted Groucho Marx: “I would never join a club that would accept me as a member.” Naturally, they fell deliriously and deliciously in love – for better and for worse.

And so, it eventually happened that Bev took an interest in the art of rug-making. Don was amused but tolerant. Lord knows, Bev had been patient when he thought he was going to learn to play the piano. Did I say rug-making? To be specific, it turns out that Bev started ordering books on rug hooking and, after a while, bought a machine for cutting wool fabric into narrow strips. Don trotted out the pro-forma puns about her becoming a hooker and stripper and Bev offered that pained little smile that told him that yes, he was clever but