The Birthday
Gift
by April Winters
I’d had
my nose pressed against the window at
Picker’s Corner for, apparently, quite some
time. The owner’s wife came out and said,
“Be a sport and raise your arms so I can
dust your nooks and crannies, would ya Hon?”
In my defense,
they’d put a Gibson Custom ES-335 Satin
Finish Electric Guitar in their window display
case. Who wouldn’t press their nose
to get a better look?
That was a few
months ago. Earlier this morning I counted and
stacked my savings neatly on the bed. I let out a
war hoop that sent my pudgy white feline, Fat Cat,
scampering toward the aquarium. “Today is
the day,” I said to her vanishing hind end,
“that I buy my birthday present to me. Sure,
Jittery Java’s sales took the hit, but now
that I’ve stopped spending a fortune on
their Early Grave Espressos, I have enough to buy
my guitar!”
An hour
ago I headed straight into Picker’s Corner,
bypassing their window. Mr. Picker’s bushy
eyebrows nearly flew off his forehead. His mouth
opened wide, sort of like a baby bird waiting for
food from its mama. I pointed to the Gibson and
said, “I want it!”
“Um,”
Mr. Picker said, shaking his head as if he
didn’t know how to break it to me,
“that’s a pretty pricey guitar.” I
plopped my money on the counter. He looked at the
wad, gave me a crooked-toothed grin, and made a
beeline for the Gibson. I was right on his heels.
He was very
careful getting that instrument out of the window
display for me … well, until he raised the
guitar too high off the stand and whacked the
handle into the overhead light bulb. Glass went
flying every which way. I don’t think it was
the first time he’d done that. When he
yelled for his wife to bring him a light bulb,
she yelled back, "What, again?"
Later, inside
my apartment, I couldn’t wipe the silly grin
off my face. As I bent to plug in my prized
possession, shards of Picker’s Corner light
bulb sprinkled out of my hair like granules from
a Morton Salt box. They landed on my always
underfoot Fat Cat. She let out a startled meee-oww
and went airborne. Paws flailing as if she was
doing a quick calculation of how many lives she
had left, she finally gained traction … up
my arm and onto my face.
So here I sit
on the sofa with my shiny guitar in hand, a pain
killer sliding down my throat, and enough Charmin
stuck to my face to look as if I shaved myself
cutting. Ah, life is good … well, except for
that yellow-eyed glare Fat Cat keeps tossing me
from the depths of her Kitty Kondo.
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