Kat was glad to have Bill back again. She had melted into his reassuring arms when he’d come home the night before.
But then she hadn’t slept a wink. His words kept ringing in her ears. “I’ll order a skip tomorrow.”
Kat couldn’t let that happen. She wasn’t ready. She hadn’t had enough time. She didn’t want to be pushed into getting rid of her stuff.
She’d tried pleading with Bill last night, but he wouldn’t budge. He was determined his precious caravan wasn’t going to sit out on the street while they had a perfectly good garage full of useless junk, and a driveway full of shelves.
As she lay awake, catastrophic thoughts spiralling filling her head, she searched for answers. As first light peeped through the curtains, an idea dawned on her. She quietly slipped out of bed and left Bill snoring.
She went straight to the computer and started her online research. Her mind raced, just as her fingers did across the keyboard. She printed out pages of options to show Bill when he got up. She needed to convince him there was an alternative.
Finally, her plan was ready to present to Bill. But first she wanted him in the best mood possible. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Kat grabbed an empty box she been saving and went to the dining table. She grabbed piles of papers, bags of shopping that hadn’t been unpacked yet and a stack of magazines and put them in the box. She could sort that out later when she had time.
When one end of the dining table was clear, she set it with two placemats and cutlery. Then she went into the kitchen. Again, she grabbed an empty box and scooped things off the stovetop – prescriptions, receipts, medicines and a few coffee cups – and put them in the box. She’d find a better place for those things later, when she had time.
Thankful that Bill was having a big lie in, Kat turned on the stove and set a pot of water to boil some eggs. She would have liked to do something more special, but there was no time to waste. While the eggs boiled and some bread toasted, she woke Bill and said she had a welcome home surprise.
Bill certainly was surprised. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d sat at the dining table to eat. Maybe Kat really had changed.
She waited till he’d finished eating his boiled eggs. She wanted everything to be perfect. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find the cute little egg cups with the bunny ears that she bought for Easter. Bill didn’t seem to notice that the eggs were laying on the plate instead.
“Thanks Love. That was great. We should have breakfast together more often.” Bill seemed happy and relaxed. Now was the right time.
“Bill, I’ve been thinking. I’ve found a way for your caravan to be off the street and under cover.” Kat smiled at him.
“Don’t worry Love, I know what to do.” Bill smiled back and patted her hand.
“No really, Bill. Look.” Kat handed Bill a pile of papers printed from the internet. Each had a picture of some kind of car or caravan shelter. There were at least 30 different options. Some with sides, some without sides. Some with steel tops, some with fabric canopies. Different sizes and different colours. Then there were other printouts of bamboo screens and tarpaulins, both plastic and vinyl.
“See Bill. We can put a shelter in the driveway to cover your caravan. We can put the new shelves in the shelter as well. A shelter is just the extra storage we need. It solves all our problems.”
“Kat, more storage isn’t the answer. Remember I said we can’t keep bringing in more stuff without letting some of it go. Our house is like a dam that’s going to burst.”
Kat was undeterred. She showed Bill one printout after the other. “But see Bill, you can choose any colour you like. There are really big ones. We could order it today and have it all set up by the end of the week.”
“Leave it to me, Kat. I’ll handle it.”
Kat breathed a sigh of relief. He’d finally seen sense. She took the dishes into the kitchen and lay them on top of the empty stove. With the lack of sleep and the taxing discussion with Bill she felt drained. She walked back to her computer, moved the dining room box of papers and magazines from her office chair and decided to see if there were any better options for caravan shelter than the ones she’d already found.
Hours went by. Then something caught Kat’s attention. It was the beep beep beep sound of a truck reversing into her driveway. Wow, thought Kat, Bill didn’t mess around. He’d already bought a shelter. Kat put on her shoes and went outside to compliment her husband.
What Kat saw did not make her happy at all. The truck had delivered a skip bin.
“Bill, I thought you said you’d handle it!”
“Yes Love. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
“But I’m not ready! I haven’t had time to decide what I want to keep!”
“Love, you’ll never be ready. But it’s ok. I’m not touching your stuff. There’s plenty of my old stuff I don’t need any more. First thing to go is the old camping stuff. We have the caravan now so we don’t need the old canvas tent or the poles or the ropes. And that old lawn mower hasn’t worked in years. Same with the whipper snipper. And for some reason I found a box full of old fishing magazines. I thought I’d gotten rid of that already.”
Kat didn’t know what to say. She felt a migraine coming on and headed, dumbfound, into the house to take a pill. The only trouble was she couldn’t remember where she’d put the box with the medicines from the stovetop.
PREVIOUSLY
Catch up on all the past Adventures of Kat here…
