Clean Up Time

Tuesday night

I was cleaning up my boss'es large office, straightening up a glass curio shelf that stood in front of her large desk. The shelf contained many vintage plastic Halloween candy containers and lanterns, in orange and black, dating back to the 1940s or 1950s. Next, I moved behind her desk, and made two neat stacks of her record albums, leaning them against the wall. One stack had a Jackson 5 album in front, the other displayed an LP by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. The sound quality of the records wasn't perfect, but the nostalgia more than made up for it. My boss walked in with another manager, and the two women complimented me on the job I was doing, remarking that the place hadn't looked that good in ages. At that point I happened to look out through a window, to an adjacent swimming pool. I saw a cat, standing on his hind legs, balancing on a yellow volley ball, cleverly riding it back and forth, back and forth, between the edge of the pool (to his right) and the edge of the patio (to his left). I called out, "Look At That!" My boss looked outside and smiled, but expressed no surprise. She said, "Oh. He does that alot."

*****

The vintage orange and black Halloween collectibles are mine, as were the albums, once upon a time. I don't have my LPs any more.