DEADLINES

Sorry folks, forgot to go back and check and the post was still in draft instead of publish.


This last week has been a real scorcher here, how about where you are?  It's the dog days of August and it's not even August.  Ray's birthday turned out okay, my brother convinced him to go out to dinner, so we did and had lots of fun.  Later in the week a friend visited and it was good to catch up.   Saturday night was a hoot.  We went to the local cantina. After a couple of pitchers of margueritas with my brother and his girlfriend, and lots of laughs,  both Ray and I slept very well after we were able to get back into our inadvertently locked house with all the keys safe inside.  Fun, but a story for another time.  Have a great week.  Parts of this story may or may not be autobiographical.  lol

Deadlines

Okay, it’s almost Sunday afternoon, and I have a deadline of 11:00 PM to get this done. What am I going to write today?  I’ve been wracking my brain and putting this off for days, and now it’s down to the wire and there’s not a thought it my head.  I’m in big trouble.

Wayne has been reminding me for days, and I keep telling him, “Yeah, I know,” but I haven’t done a thing about it.  Two days ago he told me again and instead of telling him my usual I told him ‘to go to hell, I knew what I was doing and what I had to do and I didn’t need his always harping on me.”  

Well you know how well that went over, don’t you.  I found myself upended in a heartbeat, and he was beating out a tempo on my backside that resembled the music they played at a 4th of July Fireworks show.  We were having a fireworks show of our own. His hand slapping my behind, me begging him to stop and the dog barking and howling and nipping at Wayne’s bare feet and Wayne telling the dog to back off.  Anyone watching would think it funny – actually if I weren't the one being assaulted, I would think it funny.  Wayne usually contained Pepper is a room before he spanked me, but this time it happened so quickly, he never even gave it a thought.  At any rate, when Wayne thought he had property chastised me, he let me up but not before telling me that I had to go write a 250-word essay on respect now.  ‘Hell, if I knew what to write I wouldn’t have been in this situation in the first place.  Plus now,  I had to write an assignment on respect.'

I trudged over to my laptop to begin.  Respect.  Wow, could I write down the words to Aretha Franklin’s song.  Maybe I could get two hundred and fifty words out of that.  Okay, let’s do a little research here.  I found out that the song was written by Otis Redding, of Sitting on the Dock of the Bay Fame, in 1965.  He based his version of the song on man’s viewpoint and sung to his woman saying he would give her everything if she would just give him a little respect.  Aretha Franklin came along in 1967, changed the lyrics just a bit.  Her version reflected a strong, confident woman’s viewpoint, and it became an instant hit.  ‘Is that two hundred fifty words?  Not even close.’

Okay, let’s see what Mr. Webster has to say about respect.  Respect can be a noun or a verb.  As a noun, it is a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities or achievements.  As a verb, it means to admire (someone or something) for their abilities, qualities or achievements.  Somehow, I don’t think this is what Wayne is looking for in my essay.  I think he wants me to acknowledge that I was a little snarky when all he was doing was being helpful.  I don’t mind saying I’m sorry, but I hate like hell to have it in writing where he could pull it up at any time to remind me of my failings. ‘Stop stalling and get this done, you still have your post to write,’ my brain is telling me, and still I’m sitting here thinking of what else I could be doing.  

Lately, writing has been a chore. I sit down with high intentions and the ‘and then’ syndrome takes over.  I suddenly remember I need to respond to an email, order something online, do the laundry, make a list for something or other.  And then, the phone rings,  I chat for a while, remember I owe someone a return call, by then it’s almost lunchtime, and I have to fix something for lunch because Wayne will be home.  But first, I have to go make the bed, tidy up the kitchen, get in the shower and get dressed.  AND SO IT GOES.

ENOUGH  Respect, the art of always being kind (isn’t that so Katie?) and treating others as you want to be treated.  I honestly believe this, and I do try.  Most of the time, I do succeed especially to everyone outside of my inner circle.  To those in my inner circle, snarky comments spill out of my mouth unfiltered and sometimes hurtful.  Do I mean them, maybe sometimes, but most of the time it only reflects my mood at the moment.  Many times, it’s a reminder of my own shortcoming that makes me lash out, and I don't need a reminder.  Certainly not me, little Ms. Perfect.  

Wayne is usually the recipient of my sarcasm and most of the time it rolls off his shoulders like water off a duck.  Other times, his mood dictates that his skin is a little thin at the moment, and when hit with one of my outbursts, his reaction is to take me over his knee.  I really don’t mind.  He’s been doing it most of our married life.  

Early in our marriage, he came home one day and was hit by a barrage of foul language and comments about his heritage because he had the temerity to forget to close the gate and Pepper ran out of the yard.  After about fifteen minutes of my harangue, he calmly walked over to me, put his foot up on the chair rung, pulled me over his hip and whacked my behind.  I was sputtering and carrying on as if he was killing me but when he pulled down my jeans and panties and really reddened my behind, I began to realize that the spanking relieved my tension.  My ass might have been smarting, but my mood was much better.  Of course, that might have had something to do with the sex that followed.

Sex doesn’t always follow spankings anymore, but when it does, it is hot and heavy.   The kind you read about in steamy romance novels. I guess that’s not going to happen today.  Instead, I have to write this essay on respect.

Back to the drawing board.  Respect.  I do respect and love Wayne and like doing things to please him.  Most of the time, I do that.  Making the bed is a good example.  Before I married Wayne, I would merely pull up the covers.  Wayne has a thing about a made bed, so now I will always put on the bedspread.  There are more and more things I have found myself doing over the years that I never did before.  Things that matter to him, not to me, but if it keeps him happy, so be it.  Isn’t that a sign of respect?  

My butt is no longer stinging, and I still haven’t written this damn essay.  If I don’t finish it soon, I’ll be getting another reminder.  Maybe, I need another reminder; maybe some hot sex will spur me along even quicker.  Yeah, I think that may be the answer considering what I have to have posted by the morning.

The phone rings and I hear Wayne telling my friend that I’m busy at the moment, and he’ll have me call her back.  ‘Here’s my chance. I know I'm a bitch but what can I say, sometimes we have to do what we have to do.

“I needed to speak to Nicky.  Why couldn’t I talk to her now?”

“Because now you have an assignment.  You’re procrastinating.  It’s not that big a deal; you should be finished by now.”

“If it’s not that big a deal, why does it have to be done?

“If you respect me, you’ll do as I ask and this is a lesson in respect.”

“Sounds more like a lesson in authority to me.”

“Sounds to me like I ended the lesson too soon.  I can fix that if you keep it up, you’ll be back over my knee for another spanking, and the essay will be five hundred words.” ‘Shoot, I don’t want to write an even longer essay.   This didn’t work out the way I wanted.’

“I’m sorry.  I’ll write the damn essay.”

So I did what he wanted and wrote an essay on respect.  Once I finally put my mind to it, my fingers flew over the keyboard.  I didn’t even say a word when he told me it had to be handwritten.  I may have bitten the inside of my mouth, but I went back and handwrote the essay.  When I gave it to him, he handed it back to me and told me it wasn’t legible enough to read.  My writing, while looking lovely, is almost impossible to read on my best days.  I bit some more of my mouth and went back and rewrote it in my very best penmanship.  Finally, it met with his approval.  

“Okay, now read it to me.”

“What?”

“Read it to me.”  

I stood there, in front of him, shifting my weight from one leg to another and finally I found my voice. By the time I finished reading it, tears were coursing down my cheek. He pulled me into him, hugged me tightly and kissed me.

“I love you,” he told me.

“I love you too, even when you do make to jump through hoops.”

“Do you need another spanking, you little minx.”

“I think maybe I do,” I told him.

“I think so too.”  He swatted my behind and pushed me toward the bedroom

‘I had a feeling I was going to get just what I wanted, lucky girl that I am.’

Have a good day and see you later for more Aimless Ramblings.