Matilda Come Lately

It is Thursday which means it is Meatloaf day. No that’s not it. Thursday is turkey casserole. Nope that isn’t it either. Is it Taco Thursday? Is it Thirsty Thursday? Nope, it is once again time for Themed Thursday.  This Thursday the theme is Late. Hmm, there are so many ways I could take this. I mean LATE! What does that bring to mind for you? Well hold on because I will take you on a ride through my mind and I won’t make you late.  Then go on over to Theme Thursday and read what other's have linked.


There she sat on the side of the sink. A mascara wand in one hand and a safety pin in the other. “Come on Matilda! We are going to be late. You know what happens when we are late” Gladys whined. Matilda separated one spidery eyelash from another and applied yet another coat of mascara to her lashes. “Shut up Gladys. I will be ready when I’m ready. Go tell Buck that I’m almost done.” Gladys rolled her eyes put her hands on her hips and said “he ain’t gonna be happy” then turned and stomped out of the bathroom. Matilda continued her precise partitioning knowing her little sister would do her bidding.

Buck sat in his Opal G.T., Baby, listening to Blood Sweat and Tears for the sixth time in a row.

He would hit re-wind on his tape deck and sing along “ride a painted pony let the spinning wheel turn”. He looked up when the passenger door opened. “Where is she? If she’s not in this car by the time this song is over I’m leaving without her! Do you want me to leave you too? Go tell her I’m not going to be late again.” Gladys rolled her eyes and marched back into the house to tell her older sister that she had better hurry. This routine made Gladys tired. She was only eleven and this going back and forth between her older siblings made her weary to the bone. Why did it have to be so difficult to go any where? Life should be easy. She had an older brother with a cool car and a driver’s license how bad could it be?

Oh wait, she had an older sister who had never been on time for anything. The only time she was ever early was when she was born a month premature. Why must she take so much time getting dressed? How hard can it be? You smear some blue stuff on your eyelids, slap some black stuff on your eyelashes, roll some white stuff on your lips and you’re done. Not Matilda, she spent hours separating each eyelash. Then she had to make sure she put blue stuff on her eyelids, then line her eyes with black stuff, then put white stuff under her eyes then pink stuff on her cheeks. It was all too much for little Gladys who brushed her teeth and hair only when reminded.

She marched into the bathroom where Matilda was still parting yet another clump of lashes and said “he said if you aren’t out there in one minute he is leaving without you.” Matilda lowered her mascara wand and narrowed her eyes in a menacing way “you tell him if he leaves me he is going to be in BIG trouble. I am almost done. All I have to do is finish curling my hair.”

The sound that came from Gladys could only be described as the same sound a wounded moose would make. She drug her feet out to the car, opened the door and whined “she is still unclumping her spidie-lashes. She still has to do her hair!” Buck turned off the car and opened his door. Gladys smirked. She knew the fight was on now. Buck was decked out in his plaid bell bottomed pants, white belt and cranberry colored shirt. His hair was combed to perfection but he doubled checked it in the perfectly polished windshield of his beloved “Baby”. He stomped through the house in his platform shoes and threw open the bathroom door. “NOW!” he demanded.

Matilda sat her safety pin on the vanity and looked at Buck “Don’t make me hurt you.” Buck laughed and said “I’m the one with the driver’s license; now let’s go we are going to be late.” Matilda sat back down on the counter top and brushed away some errant mascara. “I’m almost ready. We aren’t going to be late” she answered nonchalantly. “Besides, you always say you’re going to leave but you don’t. You know that you would be in trouble if you did.” Buck jiggled his keys and replied “well today is the day that I am leaving you.” He grabbed Gladys by the arm and said “come on, you’re ready, let’s go.”

Gladys turned and looked at her sister as she was being drug from the room. There Matilda sat still picking apart her lashes with a smile on her face. She knew her siblings wouldn’t leave for church without her, even if she did make them late.

Shortly after this picture was taken the fight was on.