The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Francine rolled into the County Administration offices looking like the dog had dragged her to work.  “These three day holiday weekends are going to be the death of me,” she muttered to Harvey, the county’s health officer.  Harvey looked up from his list of septic tank inspections for the week and said, “What?  You don’t like football playoffs all day long, all weekend long?”

Francine tossed her purse behind the counter and made a bee-line to the coffee urn in the back corner.  She was still growling by the time she returned with her quart mug Big Gulp steaming with fresh joe.  “One ballgame is one too many, Harve, but honest to god, there must have been a dozen.  Wally had a friend or ten over, beer cans everywhere and crummy leftover pizzas far as the eye could see.”

Wally was her 26 year old son, laid off from the lumber mill in Sedro Wooley three years ago, unemployment exhausted and now a refugee in Francine and her husband Trey’s basement which they’d finished off into living quarters.  If you called a room with no windows, a small bed, apartment sized fridge and a makeshift toilet and sink ‘living’.  He had a small TV in there but mostly Wally watched ESPN on the 48 inch drive-in theater screen in Trey and Francine’s living room.  Meaning, his real living was upstairs.

“How long are kids supposed to stay in the nest, Harve?  Riddle me that!”

“I read the other day that nearly half of children from 18 to 30 were living with their folks.  You’re in good company, Frannie.  Just takes longer these days for kids to grow up, I guess.”

“When I was 18, I couldn’t wait to get out of my parents’ house.  Got an apartment with a couple of girlfriends in Seattle, found a job and got out.  What’s so hard about that?”

Harvey put his appointment list down.  “Remember what you paid for the apartment, Fran?  My first one was 75 bucks, some sad little second story one bedroom over the TV repair shop down in Ballard.  75 bucks a month.  What do you suppose that would go for now?  I bet you couldn’t find anything cheaper than a thousand.  On top of that, figure how much some minimum wage job would pay.  Might tell you why kids are living at home.”

Francine took a slow hit off her Big Gulp cup.  “You think we should charge Wally rent?”  The idea seemed to grow immediately in her imagination.  She was looking at Harvey and already nodding her head.  Why not? she was saying more to herself than him.  Room and board too!  Yes, why not?  “Harvey,” she finally said out loud, “you’re a genius.”

Harvey shrugged.  Tomorrow Franny would be muttering about the same thing.  The kid couldn’t afford rents in the area, he sure couldn’t afford Francine’s.  “Or,” he said, shuffling papers, “you could move away.  That’s what we did.  Jim, our son, didn’t want to leave his friends.  I hear Phoenix is nice.  At least winters….”

Hits: 39

The salon chairs have started to fill up down at the Cut ‘N Curl beauty parlor at the newly vacated Windy Rear Realty office. Real estate might have gone virtual but the hair styling business is completely hands-on and now that the island has moved into Phase 2 of the Covid epidemic, folks are clamoring for a haircut. Jennie Fitch, the new owner who moved the shop out of the flood zone of Stanwoodopolis, jumped at the chance to locate closer to home here on the Virus-free Zone of the South End, something scientists should probably take a closer look at, see if our nettle pollen might be a natural antibody. The past few weeks business has been brisk, if not actually hyper. She and her fellow stylists, Rhonda and Ronald, have been staying late most nights to keep up with their appointments, something Jennie is glad for and not just for the extra income. Her 30 year old son has returned home, her home, to live in the back bedroom while he ‘sorts things out.’

“I read today that over half the kids between 19 and 30 are living with their parents,” Ronald was saying through his paisley print mask, snipping happily on Carol Abercrombie’s bleach blond curls before touching up those dark roots showing after months without a treatment. “I tell you girls, I’m glad I’m gay without children. No way could I handle having them bringing that nasty virus home to poppa.”

“Oh, Ronald, you don’t know what you’re missing, the joy of children,” Carol Abercrombie said. “Drugs and sex and cooking for them what they won’t eat.” She laughed. “At least my little dear won’t be coming back to live in the basement.” Her little dear, Brandon, was serving 5 to 10 for a drug deal gone bad a few years back in Everett. The State could find housing for him, she said to Ronald who muttered There but for the grace of God. “You do what you can,” she muttered back as blond curls gathered on her black apron.

“I should be so lucky,” Jennie said. “Jonathon moved back three months ago after Covid ended his job. Now he watches TV and expects me to cook and clean and do the laundry. Just like old times. His father tells me it’s only temporary but now I have two of them. Grown kids, lazy and no help at all.”

“Marital bliss,” Ronald intoned happily. “See what I’m missing.”

Everyone laughed but Jennie. This damn plague, she was thinking. She picked up her cellphone and called Nancy Baumgarter. “Nancy, I got an opening late today if it’s not your supper hour. No, I don’t mind a bit staying open late. Great, see you at 7. Bye now.”

Ronald grinned. “Looks like the boys will have to fend for themselves again tonight.” Jennie chuckled. “Looks like.”

Hits: 29