Playful Poppy #2

In college...well, in college it was easy. Even during finals, midterms or a fight with my roommate, I could always find an escape to the stresses of my life. It's amazing how a tiny campus could have so many relaxing nooks and crannies. It was like a giant, stress-relieving, Thomas's English Muffin. My favorite spot was, by far, the third floor laundry room. Maybe it was the sound of the washing machines churning...or the noise of change left in someone's jeans clanging around the dryer. Most likely though, it was the ice cream vending machine.

After graduation, things inevitably changed. There was no third floor laundry room with an ice cream machine. Instead, there was just my house filled with my parents, my younger siblings, three hamsters, a parakeet and a very fat cat.

I soon realized that even though I was now devoid of midterms, drunken coeds screaming and laughing throughout the dorm every night and a mildly insane roommate who brushed her teeth seven to ten times a day, the stress seemed to actually increase. I looked everywhere for my own spot, my own stress-free happy place.

Logically, I started in my own bedroom. While I was away at school, however, all three of my younger siblings had managed to develop a mysterious allergy to that woodchip litter stuff people keep on the bottom of hamster and gerbil cages. So, their cage was now being kept in my room...along with the dreaded hamster wheel.

"Squeak!”

“Squeak!”

“ Squeeeeaaaak!" is all I heard...all day and often times, all night. Let me tell you, that "squeak" was not soothing. That "squeak" was seriously making my hair go grey and I could swear that it was starting to make my eardrums bleed. I needed to move onward.

"The attic?" That was my next thought. I mean, come on, nobody goes in the attic unless it is my dad trying to drag out tattered old boxes of Christmas decorations. Since it was nowhere near December, I assumed it was a safe bet. I climbed up the tiny, yet steep, staircase, turned on the single hanging light bulb, which seemed about ready to burn out, and glanced around for the most stable looking box, which happened to be marked "Light up Naivety Scene."

"Sorry, baby Jesus," I thought as I sat down.

I smiled to myself after a few minutes. Sure it was dim and dusty. And sure, the box I was sitting on might collapse at any moment and cause me to crush one of the Three Wise Men, but it was quiet and it was calm. It was, in fact, exactly what I---

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!" four little feet suddenly came running up the stairs. It was my two youngest brothers. One was holding a fishing net and the other a jump rope.

"What are you two up to?" I asked. I could already feel the stress returning.

"On safari," they answered. "Wanna play?"

Here is where I made my mistake. I figured that maybe I should play, that maybe a little game of make-believe could ease the stress. So, stupidly, I said "sure."

"It's King Kong!" one of my brothers suddenly screamed. Within seconds, both were on top of me, trying to tie me up with the jump rope. The fishing net was over my head and it smelled like Moby Dick's armpits on a hot day...well, how it would smell if whales had armpits.

I escaped easily, and stormed out. Yes, I did eat a little too much vending machine ice cream while at college, but I seriously did not think that deeming me as the "King Kong" of my household was at all fair.

“The kitchen,” I thought. “That might work.” The only one ever there for too long was my mother and she didn’t bother me, not much anway. I took a seat on the nice, cool tile floor next to the refrigerator and listened to the hum of its engine. I knew, deep down, that this peace wouldn’t last long, so I tried to make the best of it.

“Some ice cream,” I thought, trying to push the idea of me exploding to the size of King Kong out of my mind. “Ice cream fixes everything.”

Of course, there was no ice cream. There was never ice cream because my older sister (who moved out nearly a year before I came home from school, I might add) is, and has been, on a diet since the dawn of time. And despite the fact that she was gone, my mother would still not buy ice cream (or regular soda) because she wouldn’t want my sister to be “tempted to eat it when she visits.”

I had to leave that kitchen. No one was there to bother me, except for my own mind, which was worse than anything else. I stared at the fridge and thought of my sister wearing her size 0 pants whining “Mom, how could you buy cookies! You know I’m on a diet.” I tried to take a deep breath. I was failing in my mission. I would never find a place to escape my stress. Then I saw it, well rather, I saw her. My cat. I saw my fat, my super fat, orange tabby cat slinking by me.

I had a thought just then…my fat cat was always peaceful looking…fat, furry and fully content with life.

“She knows the secret!” I said to myself excitedly. And yes, I know full well that thinking my cat somehow knew the secret to a stress free life was crazy, thank you very much, but I was out of options. I followed her as she left the kitchen and went to the basement.

Some might say my basement was clammy, dank and dark, but as soon as I went down there I knew this was the place and it was perfect. In fact, it was a little bit of heaven.

I heard a familiar sound echoing. It was the washer and dryer. I should have thought of that earlier. This was good, but I needed something more. There was no glorious vending machine that would supply me with tasty and refreshing treats without passing judgment hidden in my basement. I needed another release, so I watched my fat cat some more.

On the floor, across from the basement’s only window (and it was only half a window at that), I saw her climb onto a cloud…well, it was a laundry basket full of cleans whites, but it might as well have been a cloud. The basket was perfectly placed. A single sunbeam poured itself directly onto the back of the fat cat from the window as she settled down into some towels and a few pairs of my father’s underwear.

I had an idea.

“Sorry cat,” I said as I shook the basket. I felt momentarily guilty, but my needs were more important. She hissed at me and ran up of the stairs. I was much too big to fit in the basket, so I tipped it over. I smiled to myself as I let my body fall onto the soft pile. That is, after I kicked aside all of my father’s underwear because, let’s face it, that would be weird. I felt the warm sunbeam hit the back of my neck as I closed my eyes and daydreamed about icecream and the day I would get my own apartment. I wouldn't need a oven or a microwave, just a freezer full of Ben and Jerry's.

As I drifted off into a nice cat nap I thought dreamily, “I should start my own a Laundromat.”