{"id":2388,"date":"2009-06-08T12:46:46","date_gmt":"2009-06-08T17:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.net\/?p=2388"},"modified":"2009-06-08T12:46:46","modified_gmt":"2009-06-08T17:46:46","slug":"on-the-mop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=2388","title":{"rendered":"On the Mop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saturday was a rough day with my grandmother<\/a>.<\/p>\n

However, I’ve not told the story of Saturday night.<\/p>\n

As mentioned previously, I went to Big Lots Saturday night, for no particular reason except that I could. And there’s a liquor store in that shopping center, and since I had no beer in the refrigerator, I could rectify that situation.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, I bought two six-packs. Bottles, naturally. The Sam Adams White Ale, and a stout from Charlottesville that the clerk recommended. Being a stout and porter man, I listen to recommendations on stouts. There’s a story that goes with that stout, by the way; has to do with the Dave Matthews Band, but I’m fuzzy on the details.<\/p>\n

So, I got home. Put the beer in the refrigerator. Did other random things.<\/p>\n

About 10:30 I went downstairs to liberate a bottle from the fridge.<\/p>\n

My grandmother was standing at the kitchen door, half inside the kitchen, peering around the door’s edge.<\/p>\n

“What are you doing?” I said.<\/p>\n

“There’s a man out here,” she said, real anger in her voice.<\/p>\n

My grandmother, the paranoiac that she is, wouldn’t have have her head outside the door if there were something truly on the back patio. “Let me take a look.”<\/p>\n

She got out of the way, came back into the kitchen, and I stepped out onto the back step.<\/p>\n

I looked around, particularly in the direction of the basement door, which was the direction that she had been looking. I saw nothing.<\/p>\n

I looked at the bushes. Again, nothing.<\/p>\n

Quite simply, there was no one outside. I told her such.<\/p>\n

She came to the door, which I was holding open, and she pointed in the direction of the basement door. But that wasn’t<\/i> what she was pointing at. Instead, she was pointing at a mop, propped up against the brick. “He’s standing right there!” she screamed.<\/p>\n

If there were<\/i> a man, standing on the porch, her scream would have alerted him, only a few feet away, that he’d been sussed out.<\/p>\n

I walked over to the mop and pointed. “Here?”<\/p>\n

“Yes!”<\/p>\n

I picked up the mop, took it to her, and held it to her face. “It’s a fucking mop! It’s not a man! It’s a mop!”<\/p>\n

I put the mop back where it had been, went back inside, took my bottle of Sam Adams White Ale, and went back upstairs, leaving my grandmother fuming behind me.<\/p>\n

An hour later, I went downstairs to make sure that she had locked up when she’d gone to bed. She was still awake, and standing in the dining room, a tea cup in her hand. “Still up?” I said.<\/p>\n

“I’m going to bed now.” And she did. Strangely, she went to bed in<\/i> her bed, instead of sleeping on the living room couch as is her wont.<\/p>\n

It was a full moon. My grandmother always does get freaky strange when it’s a full moon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday was a rough day with my grandmother. However, I’ve not told the story of Saturday night. As mentioned previously, I went to Big Lots Saturday night, for no particular reason except that I could. And there’s a liquor store in that shopping center, and since I had no beer in the refrigerator, I couldContinue reading “On the Mop”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[159,4093],"class_list":["post-2388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","tag-grandmother","tag-life","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}