Jean Teasdale “Fun” Fiction, Part 1

Ever wonder what your life would have been like had it taken a slightly different path? I think about that “what if” stuff like all the time. But overall, I gotta say, I’m pretty happy with the way my life has gone. True, for all my years of work experience, your old pal Jean hasn’t exactly shot up the corporate ladder (in fact, my foot barely touches the bottom rung!). And the only babies I’m a mommy to have fur and whiskers! (Mind you, parenting cats is a role I take very seriously, but it would’ve been nice to have a human baby by now, or two or three.)

But I choose to look on the bright side—I’ve evaded a lot of responsibilities, and consequently have less stress than most people of my generation. At least I’m not one of those career-obsessed workaholics who only care about money, money, money and who worry themselves into an early grave because they refuse to sit back and smell the roses. You call that living? Frankly, I’d rather put up with the indignity of having a 19-year-old boss order me to retrieve from an alley Dumpster a cash-register tape I accidentally threw away than living a life of prosperity yet never, ever having a single moment of peace. Then again, maybe that’s not much of a choice. Well, I’m going off the subject.

Anyway, just because I’m content with my life choices doesn’t mean I’m not blessed with an imagination, and a big one at that! I often amuse myself by writing fun fiction about my life. (I know, you’re probably asking, “Doesn’t Jean mean fan fiction?” I do, but since I’m already my biggest fan anyway, it seems redundant!) This is a whole new side of me you haven’t seen before in my columns. So kick back and enjoy some fun fiction as we imagine how my life would have been…

 

If Hubby Rick Had Been Hired for That Assistant Manager Position at the Tire Center!

 

Man, did my new Lexus LS run like a dream! It’s funny—I never cared much about luxury-class vehicles before, but once I had one, I was a total sucker for their incredible power and wonderful handling! I felt like I was driving a torpedo through a giant mound of Cool Whip! Hubby Rick was such a pussycat to give this to me for my birthday!

But know what was better than driving a Lexus? Being able to drive it into a heated three-car garage! Wow, just watching that garage door open at the touch of a button clipped to my driver’s-side sun shade sent shivers down my spine! Gone were the days when my old Dodge Neon sat outside in the apartment parking lot all winter and practically froze into a carsicle through April!

And you know what was even better than driving a Lexus into a three-car garage? A three-car garage attached to a gorgeous six-bedroom McMansion in the toniest part of town! Finally, our years and years of living in tiny apartments a mouse would feel cramped in had come to an end! As I walked from the garage, through the spacious mudroom, and into our state-of-the-art kitchen, I felt like a queen!

I have to admit, as I gazed at our gleaming, stainless-steel Viking oven range, tears stood in my eyes. I always got a little misty when I recalled Hubby Rick’s words back when he first told me he got the assistant manager position, now two years ago to the day: “Jean, baby, now that I have this $6.50-an-hour wage increase and an extra five days of sick leave, you can finally live in the style in which you’ve always dreamed.”

Rick had never been a talkative type—he keeps his emotions pretty close to his vest. Even I, his own wife, never knew until that happy day that his greatest ambition in life was to take me away from my life of drudgery. To my utter shock, my gallant hubby told me that he had never wanted me to work in the first place! “God didn’t intend you to man cash registers and mop up toddler vomit from dollar-store floors,” he said. “Too many people are unable to exercise their true talents. But you were meant to uplift people through your writings, which I have always secretly loved. [Another surprise!] Now you’ll finally be able to devote your life to your greatest passions.”

A few minutes later, Rick came home. Though it was only four o’clock in the afternoon, Rick’s cushy job frequently allowed him to leave early. He no longer came home stinking of sweat and grease and dressed in motor oil-spattered clothes. Now he was resplendent in his crisp blue assistant-manager’s coveralls, and his mustache was neatly trimmed and his hair combed neatly. If not for the coveralls, you would have thought he was a state senator.

We opted for an early dinner this day. I pressed a few wall buttons, and out popped our dinner-making robot, who whipped us up a mouth-watering pork tenderloin with boiled potatoes in mere minutes. The body-temperature-sensing automated-thermostat had adjusted the grand dining room to optimum comfort. I set the table with our best bone china, a (very) belated wedding present from my mother, who was thrilled to see her son-in-law finally make good. Thought it did take a little bit of adjustment at first, dressing for dinner had become second nature for Rick, and the feast on the table had some pretty tough competition from the feast on the eyes that was my very own hubby in a tailored tuxedo! And, embarrassed I am to admit it, I wore my diamond tiara during dinner. (Where else would it get use? Well, besides the many country-club soirées we commonly attended!)

After dinner, Rick and I retired to our master bedroom. (Hubba Hubba! No, the bedroom was really named “Hubba Hubba!” Rick had the words painted gold and hung over our door as a gift to me!) In contrast to the rest of the house, it was sparsely furnished, save for the super-sized luxury waterbed that took up nearly the entire room, and an 88-inch wall-mounted big-screen HDTV. Guests always seemed most in awe of that room. But to me, the best part of the house was the other four bedrooms, which we had converted into multi-purpose rooms. There was my column-writing room; my Bedazzler room, where I did all my Bedazzling; a room for our two cats, with all the great toys, beds, and cat trees you could imagine; and my 365-day-a-year Christmas room. My very favorite bedroom of all, though, was completely empty. Let’s just say we’d be shopping for nursery furniture just as soon as I began to show!

As our dinner-making robot brought our after-dinner beverages (Rick preferred a hot mulled wine; I still liked my good old Sleepytime Tea with a pinch of Equal!) the doorbell rang (opening strains of “Have You Never Been Lonely” by Olivia Newton-John). I said to just ignore it, but Rick said he should get up and answer it, because it could be some people soliciting donations for breast-cancer research. After his promotion, Hubby Rick became a lot more sensitive about the plight of those less fortunate. (By the way, did I mention that Rick received several more raises since his promotion, and was now making the unheard-of annual sum of—get this—$68,000?) I decided to accompany him downstairs, despite being in my peignoir.

The thick, oaken double-doors revealed none other than Topher and Shanni West, our next-door neighbors. Yep, the very same Topher West, the golf whiz who took our high school all the way to state and later toured the semi-pro circuit, and the former Shanni Schuhheim, golden-girl-cheerleader-turned-star-realtor. They had a 12-year-old daughter named BrookeLynne who almost won a regional audition for a role on a Disney show. So this was a family that really had their act together.

Topher and Shanni were in the same grade as Rick and me, but we didn’t exactly occupy the same social circles. Rick had been a jock, too, but Topher didn’t consider a guy who warmed the bench on the wrestling team as his equal. At least, he didn’t before. And Shanni didn’t think it beneath her to sell us the very house she and her husband lived next door to; in fact, with the housing market bottoming out, she was more than happy to make a sale, even if it meant earning a much tinier commission!

In fact, both Topher and Shanni looked like they had seen much better days. Topher wore the same pink button-down Lacoste alligator sweater I remember him wearing back in high school, except now it was frayed and moth-eaten. His blond preppie haircut was thinning and laced with gray, and the years of tanning gave him some unsightly wrinkles. His broad smile revealed broken teeth as well as desperation. We soon realized that his arm was around Shanni not solely out of affection, but because she was having trouble supporting herself. Shanni had always been slender, but now she looked dangerously thin, and large bags hung under her lusterless blue eyes. It was as if some giant had placed them in a cardboard box for 15 years, like Barbie and Ken dolls his giantess daughter had grown out of, and, after the giant had finally decided to get rid of them, they had accidentally fallen out of the truck on their way to the St. Vincent de Paul for Needy Giants and wound up at our door.

Topher said they were out for an evening walk and thought they would stop by and say hello and ask how our new home was “doing” us. Perhaps he had forgotten that it wasn’t really our “new” home, as we had lived there nearly two years, but I didn’t correct him. Shanni gamely widened her dull, hollow eyes, though the effort must have been an incredible strain, and said how much she liked my peignoir. She then collapsed.

“I told Shanni not to exert herself!” Topher cried. Rick gently scooped up Shanni—he picked her up from the front stoop like she weighed no more than a piece of tissue paper—and carried her to, appropriately, the fainting couch in our Victorian-style parlor.

Topher tearfully confessed that the real reason for their visit was that they had been evicted from their house and hadn’t a dime to their name. Rather than ask for help, they had tried to act proud and “above it all,” and keep up the appearance that they were still prosperous. But now they had nothing but the clothes on their backs and hadn’t eaten for days. They had sent BrookeLynne to relatives, explaining that they were on an around-the-world cruise, but in fact they had no plans to take their daughter back because they simply couldn’t afford her upkeep. Topher explained that they didn’t expect charity. Instead, he said, all he wanted for the weakened Shanni was a chance to see the beautiful year-round Christmas room I had created. “It’s the talk of the town, and I thought Shanni’s last sight of this earth could be of that magical place,” Topher said.

“Nonsense!” Rick said, clapping a brotherly hand on Topher’s bony shoulder. “We’ll put two cots in that room, and you can stay in there as long as you like. Our dinner-making robot will prepare a big meal for you and some nourishing broth for Shanni. You should never be ashamed to ask for help if you need it.”

“Really?” Topher queried, amazed. “Even after all our years of snotty, stuck-up behavior towards you and people like you, you, the Rick Teasdales, will take us in?”

“Of course!” Rick and I cried. And our dinner-making robot meeped in agreement!

And that’s exactly what happened. Miraculously, the healing powers of the Christmas room proved to be real, as the very sight of its shimmering beauty not only soothed and revived Shanni but made her blue eyes once again shine like some kind of sparkling wine. Within a day she was eating solid food, and by the end of the week she was on her feet again. We also arranged to have BrookeLynne reunite with her parents, and there was not a dry eye in the house! Rick persuaded a society friend who owned an eight-hole golf course and driving range to take on Topher as his resident pro instructor. In time, Rick and Topher opened their own pitch-and-putt near the highway, and made a mint! It gave Topher and Shanni enough money to move into an even bigger and gorgeous McMansion.

Still feeling indebted to us, though they hadn’t needed to, they invited us to live with them. We politely demurred, saying that our house may be smaller than their new one, but it was home. Besides, it already held so many joyous memories of our now year-old baby daughter, and we wanted to make new ones!

Just think—none of it would have happened if Rick hadn’t been hired for that assistant-manager job at the tire center!