Call It a Night

My grandmother had big hands. Peasant-worker hands with thick, short fingers. They were great for kneading bread dough, knitting weighty afghans, and pulling root vegetables out of the dirt. I got my grandmother's hands. Work today felt like I was plucking my eyelashes out one by one with them. Clumsy, thick-moving, and p-a-i-n-f-u-l. The cold virus I've been deflecting like bumpers do to pinballs scored the big, bell-ringing, neon-flashing prize on me today. Prose, in a word, sucked. Days like this need to end with a spit-polish over the resume. Crap, wrong economy for that. Gram liked to bake. Her sturdy hands cut apples the perfect size for pie and her solid fingers fit the crust up against the bottom and side of the pie plate with not a smidge' of room for air to bubble. On a day like this, Gram would show up out of the blue with an apple pie. Like she knew. Follow that with a little bourbon and honey, call it a night.