I was finishing the last minute touches on the Gotham officer Christmas party that was to be hosted at Admiral Dolittle’s house. I had the freshly baked chocolate chip cookies sitting in the corner, their irresistible aroma filled the kitchen. The aluminum cans full of adult beverages were nestling in the ice chest. The kitchen was full of all kinds of festive holiday goodies that were sure to add at least ten pounds to each attendee.
I was talking to the Old Man’s fiery granddaughter on my cellphone; I had it on speaker. It was setting on the marble counter as I moved a few Christmas sugar cookies into place. It was about this time when her grandfather marched into the kitchen. He smiled and then dropped something. He bent over and had his cannon perfectly aligned with my before mentioned cellphone.
The reason why I called his rear end a “cannon” was because as soon as he bent over he fired a loud obnoxious shot, perfect aim…direct hit on my phone’s microphone. He stood up, totally oblivious to the fact that my phone was on speaker mode. He proudly pointed to his pen, gave me thumbs up, and triumphantly walked out.
I was petrified. Mortified was more like it. I was pondering if the Ghost of Christmas Past was haunting me for nearly asphyxiating the entire Wolf clan a few times on our yearly Christmas Eve’s trek up to the Brevard orange grove my grandparents managed. I admit I dropped some rather ripe SBD depth charges in the backseat of that beat-up Oldsmobile.
Pure unadulterated trepidation sank in as I looked at the fuming phone. I swallowed hard as my middle name was mentioned with my first and last name. You’re always in the proverbial doghouse when a woman mentions it. While I’m on it, why oh why did my mom have to give me Tiberius as my middle name? “What?” I replied.
“You should be ashamed of yourself! That was nasty!”
“It was a duck.” I lied.
“That was no duck luv.”
I hate thinking fast on my feet when it comes to an awkward moment like this. I couldn’t tell her that her own grandfather broke wind like that. How embarrassing. “It was a Super Hornet breaking the sound barrier.”
“Bull, flyboy. That was no F-18, BUT it was something else that was breaking…”
“Uh,” I stammered, trying to come up with a coded message that she would understand, “The, ah, USS Missouri fired her main guns in anger for the first time since Desert Storm. How’s that?”
“He what?” she replied with amusement ringing in her ear.
“He did.”
The phone went silent and then went dead. Seconds later I heard a low snicker behind me. I turned around and saw Gemma. She placed her hand over her mouth and snorted. She slapped the island counter top as she lost control. She laughed so hard that her sides began to ache. Her forehead was nearly beet red as started to cough. I gently patted her back and asked if she were okay. She nodded and asked for a glass of water. One more cough and she drank the soothing cool water. She placed the glass down and smiled. “I haven’t laughed that hard in years.”
“He’s been drinking eggnog again?”
The redhead smugly nodded her head. She opened a drawer, pulling out a Santa hat, one of that’s equipped with a mistletoe hanging from the front. I had been set up. The sneaky heroine pulled me in for a Christmas smooch.
“Coming to the party tonight?” I lustfully asked as we pulled away.
“No,” she frowned, “I have a party to attend at Langley.”
I nodded my head knowing full well what that meant. I continued to push, “New Year’s Eve?”
“I’ll bring the champagne and donuts,” she purred. One more delicious kiss and she left.
I was deflated. I sighed and went back to work; seconds later Admiral Dolittle walked back in strutting like a peacock with a fresh out of the pan sweet gingerbread man in his hand. He bit off its poor head and chewed it as he smugly stated, “You can thank me later.”
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