Do you know what irony is? Irony is when you spend 15 years of your life surrounded by men, questioning your existence, your place, and most commonly your sexuality, only to meet your soul mate and find that you turn into a snotty mess in her presence.
I'll never forget the first time I saw her face. I was working in the gold mine like this:
Let's just say, that my qualifications for this job didn't really extend beyond my stature allowing me to standing in narrower tunnels. I didn't really want the job, but my mom said if I spent one more night on the couch she'd change the locks. My friend told me that his old roommate Ferdinand* died an untimely death on the job, and while it wasn't glamorous, there was a window of time that the mining company would pay a little more to find another... little guy. I am a potter. My father was a potter. My grandfather was a potter. And my great grand father was a good for nothing shoe maker. But pretty much there on back, we were potters. A great point to make here, that you may already be wondering, is that being little is not in my family line: my father would be happy to remind me, but he's been dead 3 years now.
So the job was shit. The pay was a little above shit, but the company was top notch. The guys and I got along well; so well in fact that after about 2 weeks they asked me if I wanted ol' Ferdinand's bed. I gladly accepted. By the next morning mama'd packed everything and damned near kicked me out the door. And that's how it went for nearly 10 years. There'd be a girl every once and a while. One lucky guy would sit around the dinner table and rattle off everything that men want to know, and then she'd fade out or worse: on to the next roommate. Despite a few back yard fisticuffs, we got along alright. The house was bursting at the seams with people. Sometimes we'd host an out of towner, and that helped with money and kept the conversations lively. This is what gave Dopey the idea (yea, we should have known better) to hang a sign out front of the house that said, "The Inn."
And that's where all the trouble started.
It started out light; a man and his mistress took up the spare room. They stayed about 6 nights a month. No body asked questions. They didn't take meals with us. It was great! It was like living with a ghost: a ghost that we could overcharge for more beer money. Slowly we got more travelers. The house was definitely set back from the road, and frankly wasn't all that welcoming. To put it politely, the house drew a certain type of crowd. Grumpy was doing dishes one night and went into one of his bitch fits. He didn't like all the coming and goings of our guests. He broke a few plates and decided that if we didn't build a guest house that he'd be leaving. We'd been price gouging plenty, and had quite the reserve saved up, so we decided to build a guest house. The house had 6 rooms. And from the day they opened they were constantly full. I didn't expect it, but I liked having the riff raff out of the house. I didn't have to hide my stowing money anymore.
We'd been carrying on like this for about 2 years, Bashful and Doc had retired from the mine and began studying for their bachelor's degrees. Bashful studied women's studies and Doc... well, he started working on his name sake, so he was in a pre-med program. We decided that the goal was for all of us to go, but we could only go a few at a time.
One night in mid May, there was a terrible storm. The mica windows shook until sheeted hunks of muscovite fell to the ground. I thought our little house was going to split in two. None of us slept, so we all sat around the den staring awkwardly at each other by fire light til' the storm broke about an hour before sunrise. They yard and road were wrecked. We couldn't get the tools to the mine, so we started working on cleaning up as much as we could. The guest house was in a meadow, and was fairly untouched. We broke off into groups. I worked with Dopey to clear the debris from the house. It didn't seem like the house acquired any major damage. Happy and Sleepy yelled out for help, and we all ran as fast as we could. I remember the first thing I saw was the palest white hand sticking out from a pile of branches. It looked like the poor thing had covered himself with scrap wood to keep safe. No person that pale could still be counted among the living. My heart and stomach traded places. We worked to get the branches off of the person, and little by little soggy leaves were pulled away to reveal a woman. A young woman. A pale, dead, woman. Happy declared in a jubilant way that only he can, that she was breathing. We grabbed some of the larger branches and laid her across them stretcher style. We dropped her a few times by accident, but hell, we were 7 little men trying to move a full sized woman out of a landscaper's nightmare.
By the time we got to the house the day's heat was settling into its pressure cooker norm for that time of year. Doc said she needed rest. We didn't accomplish much for the rest of the day. Each of us took turns sitting on a dinner stool in front of the closed door to her room wringing our hands. I was on my second shift after dinner when I heard the faintest of yawns. I jumped up and ran to the door knob. I hesitated. I listened. I heard the bed creak under her. I heard the soft pad of her feet taking their first steps. Then I kind of opened the door and knocked at the same time.
If you need some relationship advice: when trying to make a dashing first impression 1. Do not open the door on a lady. 2. Do not scare the shit out of said lady. 3. MOST IMPORTANT: Do not GAWK at said lady. But, me in all my casual-cool ways, did all three in the span of about 8 seconds.
Even though the sun was setting her pale skin was illuminated. The contrast of her black hair to white skin made her look ethereal. I watched in half time as her delicate hand, so perfect and tiny, wrapped casually around the base of the lamp beside her bed. Her eyes were black and wide. In what was probably only a few seconds, I didn't hear a single step as she walked towards me. She floated; honest she did. As she neared, I took in her beautiful lips. They were full and red, and in a seemingly constant state of dissatisfaction. Looking back... it is surprising that my reaction to her angelic appearance was able to completely disarm me for the following events. I like to blame my guffawing on the fact I hadn't seen a truly beautiful woman in years. At any rate, she hit me as hard as she could with that oil lamp.
It was worth it.
I came to about 20 minutes later. I'd missed the panic as my fellow housemates made heads and tails of what happened. The girl calmed down, and profusely apologized for the mauve walnut that now took residence above my right ear. She took my head in her hands and again the world slowed down. She smiled at me. I knew from the faces of my friends that this girl was gonna be around for awhile. I focused back on her face. For the first time I really listened to her voice. I'd love to reiterate what the movies have told you, but that girl had a voice of a crow's caw drug through gravel. It was disappointing, but nothing insurmountable. To keep from cringing at the audible torture I was being subjected to, I focused back on her soft hands on my ruddy cheeks. She huskily laughed and told me my beard was soft. Grumpy... well Grumpy grumped in the background. I melted into the couch and wondered if I could just glue her hands to my face like this.
And then... I felt the itch. It started in my nose and worked down into my throat. In an instant my lungs felt like they were performing a mass evacuation. I tried to hold it in to preserve this precious moment. I wriggled my nose in hopes that it would simply. effing. subside. But it didn't. I sneezed. I sneezed RIGHT in Snow White's face. I sneezed spit and snot all over my beautiful angel's face.
And this is how just Tom, became Sneezy.
*Ferdinand is the name of one of the Seven Dwarves from the 1912 Snow White film.
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