South Beach Google

“Forget about diets. If you really want to get rid of the weight, then it’s all about portion control.”

Max had written those words on the back of his check-out form as soon as he got inside his car.
When he got home, he took down the Chinese delivery menu from the fridge and stuck the doctor’s advice in its place with a Papa John’s magnet.

“Medically obese,” he said solemnly to the sink full of dirty dishes.

He stared at the bigger heap of dishes on the counter and intoned, “Health risks.”

He took stock of the cryptic Styrofoam boxes in the fridge. He counted the mostly empty boxes of cereal and the dusty cans of random vegetables in the pantry. He noted the trash can full of coke cans and fast food bags. “Cholesterol and trans-fats!” he said to the room at large.

He walked out of the kitchen and down the hall.

In the bathroom he stood in front of the mirror, first straight on, then in profile, then straight on again. He stuck a thumb below his belly button and into the waistline of his jeans. He tugged. “Magic Button Pants Expander!” he shouted at his own reflection.

In the den he spent a few minutes fishing his scale out from under the entertainment center. Finding two working batteries for it took even longer. Finally getting the LED display to light up, he put it down next to his bedroom door but didn’t step onto it. Instead, he walked back to the kitchen and stared at the doctor’s words he’d stuck on the fridge.

“Portion control,” he whispered to the folded piece of paper.

At his feet, his dog, who’d been patiently following him the entire time through, whined.

Max smiled and leaned to scruff the dog’s head. “Not for you, Sharkey. Just me.” The dog whined again and cocked his head at the mention of his name. “In fact, buddy. You’re getting ready to have a buffet. One of those taste adventures – food from just about every restaurant within driving range.”

Sharkey wagged his tail and barked even though he didn’t know what Max was talking about. But when the take-home boxes started coming out of the fridge and lining the floor, the little mutt’s tail just couldn’t keep still.

Cleaning out the fridge was the easy part, Max learned. Avoiding fast food and sit-down places was much harder, since not eating out meant cooking at home and cooking at home wouldn’t happen without clean dishes. Max tackled the counters and sink next, before he even thought about going to the grocery to make some healthy choices. Only after the counters were clean and the dishes were put away did he sit down to make a list, with the help of the internet of course. After every thing else, shopping was a breeze.

Cooking, he discovered, wasn’t that bad either. Sharkey was always willing to eat whatever he made, and as it turned out, eating at home really was a lot cheaper. He had extra money to spend on cook books and more exotic recipes. The weight started to slip off. The Magic Button retired to the top of his dresser. The Papa John’s magnet disappeared, and a cooking measurements one took its place.

All in all, Max was a changed man. From time to time, though, when he fumbled with the miniature cooking equipment that he had to special order from the dollhouse manufacturer, he would shake his fist at the words still stuck up on his fridge and curse, “Portion control!”

Kittens Who Googled Their Mittens

“Can you believe it? Just when things were looking good for Kitten and Scout, the Stones go and mess it all up! They always do that! God, I hate that family! I can’t stand watching it when it gets like this.”

“Then don’t Tivo the show!”

That’s what I wanted to say, but I wasn’t that mean. Or that brave. So I settled on something more diplomatic.

“Well, you could always watch something else or maybe get online and –”

“Watch something else? You’re kidding, right? I grew up watching Burning Bright! I never miss an episode! I can’t just stop watching! I mean I can remember when Kitten was born and the doctors accidentally switched the…”

She went on about all the horrible complications of being born into the affluent Hart family of North Hatton Bay and about how they suffered daily from the evil machinations of the corrupt Stone clan. I switched the phone to my other shoulder and turned the volume up on my computer speakers just loud enough to hear my game.

I had been in the middle of a quest when she called, and I really needed to finish it before it got too late. I tried to keep playing without her knowing. If she thought that I wasn’t listening, she’d pout until I apologized at least five times and then she’d start the whole story over again.

Now, if only somebody would come up with a caller ID that told you what the call was about in addition to the who! Maybe pop up some general phrase beneath the name about the subject of the call – like “Mom – Invite to dinner” or “Jerry – talk about movie” or “DirectCast – pay your bill” – something to let you know if there’s a good reason to talk to whoever’s calling. I mean, normally, I loved talking to Tina – she was my girlfriend after all, but if I’d have seen “soap opera” on the ID box, I sure would have let the machine get it and pretended to be in the shower long enough to get this quest done.

After I had moved my guy to a safe spot, I focused on what Tina was saying.

“—and Storm’s back from Iraq with horrible burns across his entire body. Of course, they had to do total reconstructive surgery, so now no one recognizes him, not even his sister, who really needs his kidney so that…”

“I thought his sister was dead,” I interjected. I’d learned that asking a question was always more convincing that periodically grunting “uh-huh” – and assuming someone was dead was always a safe bet. Most of the people on that show had died at one time or another. “Sleeping with” was my second favorite, followed by “arrested for” and then “kidnapped” – apparently, life in North Hatton Bay was pretty complicated, even with all the champagne and dinner parties.

Mentally, I imagined Tina’s brain shifting gears as it started down a different storyline.

“No, silly! She’s not dead – I mean, not anymore. They found her in that cave, remember? I bet you’re thinking of his cousin Shelby. That was last month when she took all those sleeping pills after she was paralyzed in that plane crash – and right before her wedding to Tonio! He disappeared, and I cried for a week. And their poor baby! Left with only that coldhearted Pearl Stone to raise her. She is just so vile! I hate the Stones! And now they’re …”

I glanced at the clock. I should have enough time to do the next leg of this quest line without tipping her off. I killed a few monsters, found what I needed behind a fallen log, and then looked at the time again. Six minutes. I’d been quiet for too long, but Tina hadn’t noticed. She was still going strong about the Stones.

“…and you know the labs under their summer house? The ones where they cloned Willow and gave Onyx those experimental drugs? Well, that’s where they have the body of Kitten’s ex – well, just the head and shoulders really, but it’s cryogenically frozen, so the Stones are going to thaw him out and then force Dr. Julie to transplant him onto that homeless guy that Nemo found...”

I jumped in when she took a breath. “Hey, isn’t Nemo sleeping with Dr. Julie?” I held my breath.

Tina made a gagging noise. “Yeah. It’s so gross. She’s twice his age, and he’s just using her to make her do what his uncle wants. And he’s the one who kidnapped her to boot!. Can you believe it? I hate the way she’s betraying the Harts. And she basically is a Hart, you know. Her aunt was Kitten’s grandfather’s twin sister, and she was even married to a Hart for a while. Spade. He was strangled by that serial killer while they were on their honeymoon in the Caribbean. The Stones were part of that, too, of course. They wanted his shares of…”

Tina’s voice continued in my ear. I shifted the phone to my other shoulder, my brain registering the names as I clicked my way closer to finishing my quest. Only a few more bars to go before I hit the next level!

“…and now Scout’s been arrested because the police think he kidnapped Tonio’s baby, but it’s really Ivy because she she hopes to bait the Stones into revealing where they’re keeping Dr. Julie and Trick’s frozen body. Torso really. Or bust, I guess? Whatever. Anyway, it’ll never work because the Stones have figured out that Onyx and the ambassador are really…”

Googling By a Thread

“This study session today is going to suck,” I’d told my roommate this morning.

“Then don’t go,” he’d said without even looking away from his game. I couldn’t see the screen but knew from the way he was hunching his shoulders and clicking furiously on the mouse that he must be deep in some battle.

“Yeah, yeah, ‘don’t go.’ That’s easy for you to say – you’re already failing all your classes. I actually got a chance in this one if I do well on the exam.”

He just grunted and kept clicking, so I grabbed my chem. notebook and left. For April, the day was really hot, and I started sweating as soon as I stepped out of my dorm. I worried a bit on the walk across campus if the shirt I’d grabbed a shirt was too dirty and kept sniffing my shoulders in a way that I hoped wasn’t too obvious.

What am I doing? I asked myself finally. This is a study session, not a date. If I stink, I stink. All these guys care about are grades anyway.

Still, though, I stood for a few minutes in the thankfully air-conditioned lobby of Duggan Hall before I signed in. No harm in airing out a bit, I thought, as I waited for one of the eggheads to come down and get me. The girls’ dorms always required an escort for male visitors and had even given me a lanyard with the word blazoned across it. A safety precaution that made sense to me, but it kind of rankled that the guys’ dorms followed an open door policy. Maybe admin figured us guys might be happy if some crazy woman barged into our room. Hmmm. Maybe they were right.

I was smiling at my own thought when Alicia stepped out of the elevator. She sat in the row ahead of my in chem. class, but I’d only gotten to know her in the past week. For an egghead, she was actually kind of cute. She had her blonde hair up in a ponytail and wore white sweats cut off just at the calves and a gray thin-strapped tank with a faded maroon football across the chest. Her figure was nice, and she had a way of bouncing when she walked that was distracting, but I knew she was all business. All I’d ever heard her talk about was class work, grades, and the library. Not my type at all, but my type would more likely be at a frat party than a study group.

After clearing me with the stern-faced RA behind the front desk, she waved me into the elevator. “We’ve already started. But you really haven’t missed much.” She hit the 4th floor button and crossed her arms. I noticed that she smelled really good – kind of like oranges or something citrusy. Mentally, I cussed myself for not at least putting on some cologne.

“Cool. I mean, um, sorry. For being late. I didn’t mean to be. It’s really hot outside.”

Like that was a reason. God, I’m an idiot around girls, even dumb ones. And Alicia wasn’t. She’d done well on all the chem tests – I knew because I’d heard her squeal with delight when we’d gotten each one back. Last week, I’d finally stopped rolling my eyes behind her back and instead leaned forward and asked her how she did it.

“A great study group!” she’d gushed. That’s when I literally begged for the invite. I had to pass chem or I couldn’t get into the Early Entry program. Pre-Vet was a tough major, and I’d been too lazy this semester. What can I say? I’m a typical college freshman, at least typical for my circle of friends – most had already broken the bad news to their parents about grades and scholarships. One had even signed up for the Marines already.

Not me though. There was some light at the end of my tunnel. I had some hope, but I needed to ace this last chem. test.

That’s where the eggheads came in.

“We’re in Tally’s room. She’s in our class, but she says you don’t know her. I know you’ve seen her though. Dark hair, pretty, tall? Sits up front?”

“Sure,” I nodded, watching the lights on the panel tick slowly from number to number. Great. Probably that skinny girl with big eyes. Or the fat goth chick. They both sat up front and looked like they’d be in a study group. Always answering the professor questions or worse asking him stuff. They just made class last even longer than it had to. I wouldn’t say that either of them was pretty though, but in nerd circles, who knows?

“Anyway, Tally’s leading the group today, since my roommate’s got her boyfriend over. We usually meet in my room over in Hamlin, even though Tally’s room is bigger. I’ve got better snacks.”

“Cool,” I said brightly just as the elevator light dinged on the number 4 and the doors slid open.

Alicia laughed and waved me through first. I stepped out and immediately stopped worrying about my shirt stinking.

There was such a cloud of incense, perfume, and something that could only mean someone was cooking Chinese food that a dog could have taken a dump right on my foot and I couldn’t have smelled it. I followed Alicia down the spotless, carpeted hall -- another difference between girls’ and guys’ dorms that I’d noticed. Each door was heavily decorated with ribbons, flowers, and all kinds of cutesy signs , and from behind I could hear the mixed sounds of music, tvs, and muffled laughter. Of course, we stopped outside the one door that was the least feminine. It had only a whiteboard with “Tally” neatly written on it in cursive and a little tray holding markers and an eraser. An RA placard hung just above that. The reason for the private room, I noted. Alicia kept talking rather than knocking at the door, which I thought was strange, but chalked it up to her being an egghead.

“Anyway, Tally’s leading the group. She’s aced every test. Every class actually. 4.0 average.”

I hid a grimace behind what I hoped was an eager smile. You’ve got to pass this class, I told myself, and if it means spending time with Big-eyes or Gothzilla, then that’s what you’re going to do.

“And you already know Roger of course.” I nodded. The gay guy who sat next to her in class and listened to her go on about her grades. “And you’ll meet Jess and Susie – they’re in a different section but same prof. They all know you’re coming. Just remember that we move fast, so you’re going to have to ask questions if you’re serious about doing well on this last test. We’ll help, but we aren’t going to feed it to you.”

She looked me dead in the eyes, hesitated noticeably, and then added, “Don’t let yourself get distracted.”

“Okay. Ask questions. Don’t get distracted.” I parroted back, wondering why she tagged that last bit on. She nodded approvingly, not knowing that I mentally added, ‘Stay awake,’ as she turned to knock on the naked-looking door.

This is like going to the doctor, I told myself. It’s not going to be fun, but I have to do it if I wanted to pass… I kept preaching these things to myself as the door opened and Alicia bounced in, announcing that she’d found me and that I’d even brought my books, which must have been a surprise.

I didn’t have time to feel insulted because I knew that I was screwed the second I walked into the room. I knew now why Alicia had added the ‘Don’t get distracted’ warning to her little pep talk.

“I’m so going to flunk this class,” I murmured to myself as Alicia introduced them to me one by one, even Roger whom I’d already met. I barely even noticed the two girls from the other section – I wouldn’t recognize them again if my life depended on it. And Roger and Alicia pretty much fell off the face of the earth. My earth anyway. And so did chemistry and the big final and even the basic things, like sitting down and opening a book.

That is, until she said my name and patted a spot on the bed next to her. Her bed. Her. The girl I’d been fantasizing about all semester instead of listening to the chem. lectures. The tanned, dark-haired goddess in the sundresses that breezed into class late and was always texting in her lap where the prof couldn’t see. She was an egghead? The gorgeous babe that was surrounded by all the jocks as soon as every class ended? She aced every test? Every class? My world flipped not only upside down but inside out and sideways. I eased down onto her bed and looked everywhere but at her. I think I even held my breath, but somehow I inhaled some of her perfume. Vanilla.

She pulled her legs up onto the bed, grazing my leg with one bare foot. I thought I was going to faint.

They started talking chemistry right away – elements and catalysts and moles. Tally knew her stuff, but all I could think about was how sexy her voice sounded. And about how I could still feel the heat on my leg where her foot had touched me. I couldn’t look at her, the rest of the group didn’t exist. I looked at the Monet posters over her bed and the mostly naked guy tacked on the back of her door. I looked at the desk covered with tidy stacks of binders and notebooks and the dresser littered with lip gloss and lotion bottles. I looked at her bookshelf full of fashion magazines and textbooks. I looked at her laptop with the volleyball background. I looked at the chain of high-heel sandals and boots cleverly strung up from the ceiling. I looked at the closet overflowing with string tops, jeans, and – God help me – sundresses. I even looked at my chem. book.

I was staring at it, when an orange highlighter plopped down onto the open page. Startled, I picked it up and looked up into her blue eyes for the first time.

“Don’t just sit there. Start highlighting!” Tally scolded and smacked me on the shoulder playfully. It stung just enough to make me jump. I suddenly noticed the rest of the group staring at me like I was the weirdo, and I opened my mouth but couldn’t think of anything to say.

The goddess laughed and suddenly leaned over to snatch my book out of my lap. I sat open-mouthed, as she flipped through the near-mint condition book with a scowl on her perfect face. She shook her head sadly at me and then waved my book in front of the others. “Look, guys! Can you believe it? Almost finals, and his book’s still a virgin! Not a mark in it!”

The rest of the study group laughed, as she sadly patted my book like it was some kind of pathetic reject. I started to say something that I hoped would be witty just as she chucked the book back down in my lap. She tossed it hard, and I wasn’t ready. Somehow, I managed to keep from curling up in the fetal position.

“See what happens when you don’t pay attention!” She warned with a friendly laugh echoed by the rest of the group. To take away the sting in her words, she poked my thigh with her foot again. Gently though, and she held it there a second longer before she pulled it away.

“Yes, m’am,” I gasped between clenched teeth and uncapped the highlighter. I shifted a little, trying to get more comfortable and felt my thigh touch her foot again. She didn’t pull away, and even through my khakis, I could feel the heat radiating from her skin.

“Um, what page are we on again?” I mumbled.

Her toes wiggled a bit against my leg as she laughed and told me the chapter. Then, the study group began in earnest. They talked, and I highlighted like a crazy person. When I stopped them to ask a question, Alicia tossed me a pen and Tally wiggled her toes again. I made sure to ask a lot of questions after that, being sure to scribble down the answers because that earned me an extra long wiggle.

When one of my questions started a heated debate in the group, Tally leaned over to pat me on the shoulder and cheered, “You got ‘em stirred up! Way to go, Egghead!” She wiggled her toes slowly against my leg for a long time after that.

You know, this study group thing just might work after all.

With Liberty and Google For All

No one believed me until I brought back the antlers.

Then, it was question after question. I just smiled and nodded and said what I’d been saying all along: “My tool shed is a doorway to another world.”

It all started when I bought an old mower at an estate sale down in Humphries. When I brought it home, I dropped the tailgate and backed my truck up to unload it at the tool shed back of my house. I didn’t gauge the distance right and put my tail gate right in themiddle of the shed door. It split right open. Well, after I got the mower situated, I did a quick fix with some scrap wood I had in the junk pile. It didn’t look pretty, but it would do to keep out the elements. Satisfied, I went on and did a few more things that needed doing around the property, so it wasn’t until the next day that I came back to the shed to try out the mower.

Now, I don’t know exactly why or how, but when I opened up that patched shed door, my tool shed was gone. The insides anyway. The roof and walls were still there. I remember stepping back to check. The work bench, the shelving, the mowers, the tools – everything I had squirreled away in that 8 x 10 shed was gone. And in their place? A forest. An actual forest with all the noises and smells and everything that told my senses that I wasn’t having a stroke or falling for some buddy’s practical joke. This was the real deal.

Well, I’d read all those books when I was a kid. You know the ones about magical doors to other worlds? I didn’t remember anything about toolsheds, but I remembered something about wolves and witches, so I ran up to the house to grab my hunting rifle and some supplies. My wife thought I had gone crazy and called 9-1-1 on the phone. She followed me down to shed, the whole way calling our kids and everyone on the cell phone. I kept laughing and telling her to wait and see, but wouldn’t you know it though, when I got back to the shed and opened it up, everything was back to normal. There sat my new mower, right next to my old one. Work bench, tool racks, weed eater – everything was back. I was so upset that I had a hard time convincing the paramedics that I was okay. They actually made me go in to the hospital and get hooked up to all kinds of machines for some “observation.”

I wasn’t too happy about all of that, especially when the observation turned into a few days. Turns out my blood pressure was too high and I had some blockage. The doctors fixed it all though, and once I stopped talking about the forest in my tool shed, everything started to quieten down. I checked the shed first thing when I got home, even though my wife fussed about me pushing myself too hard. To my disappointment, the inside was just a shed.

Nothing magical happened for several weeks. First chance I got, I hid my rifle and some hunting supplies in a storage bin down by the shed without my wife knowing. I was going to be ready the next time. But the shed stayed what it was supposed to be, and things slowly got back to normal. I kept busy with the yard and the garden. My wife started canning and putting up vegetables. Then, one day, right after I’d finished weedeating along the fence row, I slid that patched shed door open and saw that forest again. I could smell the pine and the musky moss smell of the deep woods just as thick as though I were up on a trail in the Smokies.

I didn’t waste any time. I snatched my gear, popped in the shed fast as I could, and slid the door closed behind me. When I got back, I was filthy and dog-tired, but my wife wasn’t none the wiser. I knew that next time, I needed more gear, maybe even a tent, so I snuck some more stuff down to the shed and waited for chance.

It came again in a few days, and this time I stayed in my forest for over a week. I came back, scared a little of who my wife might have called, but everything was fine. It was still the evening that I’d left. Time just didn’t act the same once I was through the shed, just like in those stories I remembered as a kid.

I moved more stuff down by the shed. I even built a little garage of sorts next to it, so I could keep my four-wheeler handy. My wife and even my kids came down to see what I was doing but didn’t see any harm in it, I guess. They just shook their heads and asked why I hadn’t bothered to fix that shed door yet. I told them it was on my list but I had bigger fish to fry just yet. They laughed and left me alone then.

They didn’t laugh though when I showed up one evening a few minutes late to family dinner with three of the biggest rabbits they’d ever seen, four giant wild turkeys, and a whole mess of trout. I’d been gone for over a month and smelled to high heaven, but they said that they’d just seen me in the garden not half an hour earlier. They dialed 9-1-1, of course, once I started in on the forest, but they couldn’t explain where all the game came from. They even called the police – guess they thought some hunter was poaching on our land, and I found his secret cache.

The doctors gave me a good bill of health. They even praised me, they said, because I must have exercising and eating healthy to get my pressure and cholesterol so much better. My wife and kids just couldn’t understand what was going on. All their watching meant that I couldn’t get all the gear together the next time the shed opened up, but I still came back with a huge raccoon, the biggest, according to the taxidermist, ever found in these parts. I just laughed and put it in a place of honor in our living room.

Well, I finally got my four-wheeler gassed up and plenty of supplies squirreled away in its trailer, so the next chance I got, I popped into the shed and was gone. From what I’ve heard, my wife and kids scoured the whole property and even had the neighbors out looking for me. After I’d been missing for a day, the police showed up, and then I popped out of the shed, right in the middle of all this hoopla, with a load of skins, fresh game, and a full beard to boot. To say they were floored would be an understatement!

They could explain away the meat and fish, even though they were bigger than anything ever found around here, but the beard almost cinched it. I just kept laughing and hooking my thumb back at the shed. The police called the gamewarden and walked all inside the shed, shaking their heads and taking pictures of everything. They opened and closed that shed door probably a million times. What really got them was the giant antlers. The police swore that it couldn’t be from any deer native to this state. They called in an expert, and he came all the way from the university once he saw the picture they sent him, said something about Ireland and Megalosasomething. If I could have bagged that big white stag that shed them, they would have passed out, I’m sure. I hit it once in the shoulder with my rifle, but it had just cussed at me and bounded away. I chased it all over the forest till my four-wheeler got low on fuel and made me head back. I found the antlers though and thought they’d make a nice trophy till I got the ones the stag was wearing.

I needed a bigger gun though, and more gasoline for the four-wheeler, and some powerful ammo. That’s why I came back so soon. Might be nice to get some building material, too – make something a little more permanent than the lean-to I’d put together over there. If only these policemen and wildlife agents would stop asking me questions. And the paramedics going on and on about how fit I was and my wife crying and looking at me all strange. It was all just too much of a distraction. I had to get back to the woods and get that stag. I’d seen some wolf tracks, too, on the other side of that river from where I caught the trout, and heard what I thought had to be some bears singing off in the distance one night. Their voices were much deeper than the raccoons and they were singing about berries and trout, so it had to be bears. What I wouldn’t give for a nice bearskin rug!

Now, if only these people would stop with their foolish questions and let me get my stuff together! Lord knows I don’t want to take too long and show up in the wood in the dead of winter. Maybe I could even talk one of my sons into going . . . but then again, they’ve got jobs and responsibilities. They wouldn’t be much fun…

Google is the Magic Number

I was glad that the house hadn’t changed. So much in the town had disappeared. Farms, fields, entire streets – all razed and replaced to make life easier and faster for the people who still lived here.

I’d moved away. Not by choice, I’d loved this house – it looked like one of those that had a magic wardrobe or a secret room under the staircase. I’d never found one. I’d never seen a ghost either, but I was still looking when my father announced that he was taking a job in another state. It wasn’t our first move – by the time I was in high school, we’ve lived in eight different neighborhoods – but this time was the first that made me go to my room and pound the pillows and fight back tears.

As I looked at the house now, I remembered how awful I felt seeing it disappear from the back of my mom’s van. My mom had sensed how I felt and stopped at the Dairy Queen to get me a cone. As I’d eaten it, she’d told me how I would make lots of new friends at my new school and about how sixth grade was going to be so much fun. She didn’t know that my quiet tears were all about the house. Friends pretty much were the same from town to town, and schools all were pretty much alike. Different faces, different names, but they all felt the same to me. This house, though, was different. I felt something here. Something that nagged and gnawed at me over the years and made me seek it out now that I didn’t have to follow my parents across the country.

I was here now, and the house was the same. It didn’t seem smaller or older or any of the things that had annoyed me about the rest of the town as I’d driven through. It was exactly the same, and it made me feel exactly the same as it had ten years ago.

I was home.

Big Girls Don't Google

From the very first moment that our little Melanie ripped away the ribbons and tissues and saw the pink and blue Crystal Cottage DreamTube TM , we knew that we had scored with the best Christmas present ever.

“Beebee!” she squealed and smacked both hands together over and over in such a cute frenzy that we couldn’t stop smiling at each other. She knew what it was. Even though it wasn’t activated, she recognized it from the commercials.

“Beebee! Beebee!” She just kept clapping and jumping and shouting. She had forgotten already about all of the other presents that she had opened. She didn’t care about the wrapping paper or the ribbons or even on the plate of still-warm cookies.

“Beebee!” Melanie banged her hands on top of the little house and tugged on it – it was no higher than her knee but much too heavy for her to lift. “Beebee!” she yelled and banged on the roof a few more times. Then, she looked at us with a cute little frown. “Beebee?”

Cooing at her comfortingly, we jumped up from the sofa and moved all the earlier presents aside. Her newest toy, we put in a place of honor on the coffee table. Melanie squealed in excitement even louder and would have climbed up on the table with it, but my wife pulled her into her lap and motioned for me to start videoing again. I moved around to the other side so that I could zoomed in on the present and get Melanie’s face at the same time. I wanted to make sure that I caught her reaction when my wife pushed the switch.

The Crystal Cottage DreamTube was a perfect miniature of our house, but done in translucent pink plastic. Exquisitely filigreed blue ridges on the plastic traced the doors and windows and even suggested the stucco exterior and textured shingles and skylights of our rooftop. Below the plastic, multicolored bits of glitter floated and sparkled in a thick pink liquid, slowly forming recognizable shapes – our kitchen, our dining room, the family room. Melanie squealed loudest when an image of her bedroom took shape in the crystal cottage. My wife and I laughed happily.

The manufacturer had done a marvelous job with the specs and image files that I had sent in with the order back in the summer. The little house was perfect, and very durable, too. Strong enough, according to the Sugar & Snips Labs website, to withstand even the roughest toddler. We were glad of that. Melanie had broken a few things around the house since she had become so confidently mobile, and we didn’t want this broken and the contents spilled all over the place. It would be much too messy to clean up, not to mention expensive and time-consuming to replace, if Melanie pitched a fit over it.

So we didn’t flinch while Melanie happily pounded on the little house. My wife and I just smiled at each other, proud to have made this Christmas so special for our little angel. I hoped that the contents would prove to be as well-crafted. I’d had to send the samples in for that even earlier than the architectural data.

“Go ahead, Mommy. Turn it on so Mel can see ‘Beebee’!” I finally said in a mock gruff voice that startled Melanie and made her stop pounding and stare quizzically at me.

“So we’ve found a name for it already, I see?” My wife laughed as she leaned over and thumbed the charming little doorbell three times – twice down, once up – to deactivate the interior décor simulation. The glitter stopped forming shapes and spread. Once it was completely diffused in the thick liquid, it slowly began to flow clockwise. So far, it was working exactly like it was supposed to. I sighed in relief. There had been no time to test it when the techs delivered it yesterday.

“Not found, dear. Given, by our little angel, right, sweetie?” I focused the cam on Melanie, but she didn’t look up at me. All she cared about was what was inside of the house, not visible yet, but she knew it from watching her videos.

“Beebee!” she yelled and poked a chubby little finger at the cottage door, trying to do what my wife had done but not knowing the proper sequence. The viewing mode had already been activated anyway, and she didn’t even have time to fuss before the glitter started to swirl rapidly, round and round the insides of the house. The sparkly motes began to spread apart and the pink liquid lightened, becoming clearer. A bubbly little lullaby began to play.

Our daughter yelled in joy. The tune was just like the one in the ads. She knew it instantly and pressed her little face against the plastic, her nose right against a tiny front window. The glitter was settling now. The liquid was such a faint pink that the house’s contents were almost visible. She started squealing “Beebee” over and over, so jammed together that it would have sounded like gibberish to anyone but us.

We knew what she was saying, and when the contents finally came into view, I heaved a sigh of relief. It looked fine, at just the right stage according to the instructions. A little more time in the DreamTube would accelerate its growth to just the right stage for Melanie. Right now, floating there in its crystalline incubator, it looked perfect – a perfect six-month old fetus, exactly like the sonograms in our baby book, just much smaller. It would be exactly the right size when it was ready to release. I heaved another sigh in relief and smiled as I let the cam record the moment.

Everything was perfect. Melanie was babbling and hugging the little house as hard as she could.

“Just think, Mel! A few more days, and you’ll be able to dress it and rock it and feed it its very own little bottle! What do you think, Mel! Do you like it?”

“Beebee!” she squealed and pounded the cottage. At its center, her InstaTwin PlaymateTM fluttered its eyelids and clenched a tiny fist around its UmbilicordTN a few times as the glitter slowly stopped swirling and settled to a stop.

Where's the Google?

Bernice was waiting when Edwin came down to the kitchen.

“Morning, lazybones! I thought you were going to stay in bed all day.” Her smile was wide and cheery, but she didn’t get up from her chair at the counter. She had a bunch of vegetables and ingredients laid out in front of her but obviously hadn’t done any cooking yet. The only smell to the room was the coffee brewing next to the stove. It was what had lured Ed downstairs in the first place.

“You should feel all rested and ready to take on the world,” Bernice continued, still with that same broad smile. She laid her right hand on the counter next to a bottle of cooking oil and tapped her fingers too loudly. Her smile got even wider.

Ed grimaced but didn’t say anything. He moved toward the coffee, filled his favorite cup, dropped in the sweetener that wouldn’t cause cancer. For the spoon, he had to crowd her to get it out of the silverware drawer, but he didn’t say a word about the set-up on the counter. When he carried his cup to the fridge and opened the door, he stood there for a long moment. He moved a few things around, juice, milk, bottles of water. Looking back at his wife, she still was smiling and had both hands tapping on the counter now. Finally, he had to break his silence.

“Where’s the good creamer, B?”

“Early bird got it, Ed – hours ago,” she laughed as he grunted and closed the fridge. “There’s the powdered kind in the cabinet. You like the hazelnut. It’s in the brown wrapper. And I’ve already added creamer to the grocery list.”

“I know, B,” he moved to the cabinet and shoved stuff aside until he found the brown plastic jar. It was brand new, of course, so he had to set down his coffee to rip off the protective seal. He wanted to use his teeth to get a good grip but knew that she would fuss. Finally, he got it off and glared at the dust inside. He needed to get a new spoon but decided to just pour some of the powder in. He poured too much and cursed under his breath.

“Ah, ah, Ed! You’ll have to put a quarter in the cuss jar!” She laughed and scooted the kitchen chair closer to the counter. The legs squeaked loudly against the yellow linoleum. She giggled and grinned just like she did back when they were dating. As he stirred the lump of creamer around in his cup, she started shifting the vegetable arrangement on the counter with busy little movements that brought wrinkles to his own face, but on his forehead instead of around his mouth and eyes.

The first sip wasn’t entirely satisfying, but he let out a long sign anyway. She looked up, winked at him, giggled again, and kept moving things around. He banged his spoon around in the coffee and took another sip. It was getting better.

“Hazelnut’s not too bad,” he grunted. He leaned his back against the far counter and took his third sip. He stared at his wife’s white hair as she pretended to be busy. He remembered when it was brunette and curled on her shoulders. She caught him looking and winked a second time.

“Okay, B, what’s with the vegetables and the oil? You setting up shop?”

She laughed. A full-on laugh that shook her shoulders and closed her eyes. Their grandkids liked to play grocery when they visited and would spend hours in the kitchen shuffling cans and produce back and forth. Ed knew that she loved that time with the kids. He liked to sit on the deck and listen to their fun when they visited. Tom had taken the family to Florida though, so he knew that wasn’t it.

“Not shop, Ed,” Bernice said, still laughing. “Even better – it’s Soup Day! And I want you to take the pictures!”

Ed covered his grimace with another sip of coffee. Now, the whole day was shot. Darn Bernice and her Cooking Blog!