Magical Mystery Tour or was it?

Today is Theme Thursday. They, I don’t know who they are, tell you the theme for the week and then you sign up and write what your take on that week’s theme is. It is always a mystery for me what to write until right before I go to bed on Wednesday. Other people know what they want to write. Heck they post their stories, poems or observations on Monday or prescheduled it Sunday night. Not me, for me it is a mystery wrapped in an engima surrounded by a riddle. This week’s theme was right up my alley. The theme is mystery. Yes, as in Mystery Date remember that game,


or Mystery Science Theater and Ellery Queen’s Minute Mysteries. I thought long and hard which hurt quite a bit but I came up with a mystery that just happened to me. Enjoy my mystery and then go on over to all the other mysterious bloggers and read what they pre-posted Sunday 5 seconds after the theme was announced by the mysterious “they”.

She was sleeping the sleep of the dead, exhausted after working non-stop for the last month trying to move and clean a house that was impossible to keep clean and moving things that she had no idea why she was keeping. It was a relief to finally be asleep in her familiar bed inside the motor-home that would be their residence. They were homeless without really being homeless. They had a roof over their heads and a bed in which to sleep. The regulars call it “full-timing”. She called it her in-between home. So many people had lost their homes or been displaced in this thing they called the housing melt-down. She thought homeless boom was a better moniker for it.

They had pulled into the r.v. park and set up camp late that afternoon after moving the remainder of their belongings into the storage facility they had rented. Kahuna had connected the sewer, water and electric while she had made the bed and stocked the refrigerator. This was nothing new for them, they had done it last year while on a project in Montana, but then they had a home in which to return. Gladys had looked out the galley window at the row of motor homes lined up in the park and wondered how many others were in the same situation, in the in-between.

She was dreaming that her mother was sitting on the end of the bed talking to her. “Don’t worry about it. You just need to go fix the leak and then you won’t float away” Nurse Meme had said. Gladys nodded her head and wondered where the tool bag was, she needed tools to repair the leak. She was jarred awake by her little dog begging to be let outside. Gladys sat up and looked at the illuminated numbers on the clock and sighed. “It’s three o’clock in the morning Boz! Do you really NEED to go out?” Again there was a pathetic little whine and she swung her legs over the bed and pulled on her robe.

Out in the cool damp night she looked around at the darkened windows of her fellow travelers and sighed. She froze, there were voices. A little afraid and a little curious she walked to the front of the coach. The grass was wet and stuck to her bare feet as she crossed the front of the pad. Sitting in front of the coach was a truck with flashing yellow lights and two men talking in hushed tones. Boz barked and tried to run toward them. Gladys pulled him up short on his leash. “Is there a problem” Gladys asked as she sloshed through the water running down the street. “Your water reducer was leaking and we had to tighten it.” Gladys looked at the flood of water and back at her water connection “Thank you”. She and Boz crawled back into bed and whispered to Kahuna “our water connection is leaking. It looks like the great flood out there.” Kahuna turned over, opened one eye and said “it’s not us.” Gladys insisted “it is too. The park police had to tighten the connection because there was so much water.” Kahuna sat up looked at her “it’s not us. It is coming from behind us.”

Morning came and with it another day of packing, moving and settling in. As they prepared to leave Kahuna checked once again on the connections “Yep, it’s not us. They have a major leak right behind us, but the water hose is leaking a little. It looks like the rubber gasket is gone, remind me to pick one up.” They drove away completely forgetting about rubber gaskets and leaking connections.

Several days went by and the park realized the leak was not theirs. There was a little water beside the coach but not the flood like before. Then it happened. The drip turned into a flow. Kahuna searched frantically for the replacement gasket for the water connection. He checked his tool box, the storage bin in the coach and even in the back of the car to no avail. “Remind me to pick up another gasket for that water connection” he told Gladys as they ate their dinner and caught up on their work.

That night as she dreamed once again her mother came to her and sat on the bed “you really need to fix that leak. You have the parts.” Then she got up and went into the galley to make coffee. Gladys could hear her running water and smell the coffee brewing. She woke up to the smell of coffee and Kahuna handing her a mug. “Hey, look what I found” he said opening his hand, revealing a black gasket. Gladys took the mug and asked “where did you find that?” Kahuna shook his head and replied “in the bathroom, in the cup by the sink.” Gladys looked at the gasket and back at her husband “did you put it there?” Kahuna shook his head and replied “no. I’m not even sure why I looked in there. It wasn’t there the other day and I know I didn’t buy this one.” Gladys shook her head in wonderment and answered “where did it come from?” Kahuna smiled and said “I guess Nurse Meme.”

“Is that the answer to all our mysteries” Gladys asked. Kahuna smiled “I think so.”