A Tale of Two Trucks by Thea Nishimori Page B

shook him up a bit and growled, ‘And if you ever come near a certain blue truck, yer gonna wish you’d never been born! Got that?’ And he nodded like a bobblehead until I set him down. I sure wish I could’ve seen the look on his face!”
    So, our mission accomplished, Joe and I headed home, dropping off a somewhat inebriated Hank along the way.

Chapter 10
     
     
    T HE next morning was Sunday, so I slept in with impunity, waking up without the alarm clock interrupting my beauty sleep. I yawned and stretched luxuriously, then opened my eyes—to find Joe sitting on the edge of my bed, holding a plate covered with a paper towel.
    “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.” He grinned. “I brought you some breakfast!”
    I blinked, wondering if I were dreaming, and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. Nope, he was still there.
    “Uh… you made breakfast?” I said, still befuddled.
    “Yup. Not sure you’ll like it, though,” Joe replied, a little downcast, and I opened my mouth to tell him that anything he made would be fine, it’s the thought that counts, yadda-yadda-yadda. But then he pulled off the paper towel with a flourish, revealing a bowl of dry Cheerios (we’d run out of milk the day before) and a slice of burnt toast. I biffed him with my pillow.
    “All right, all right! I get the hint—you want a decent breakfast too,” I grumbled, rolling over to the side of the bed. Before I could stand up, though, he’d caught the sleeve of my nightshirt—a T-shirt I’d gotten on clearance in the big-and-tall section when we were shopping for him.
    “That’s my shirt!” Joe claimed, tugging at it.
    “No, it’s not. You have one just like it, remember?”
    “Yeah, and I snagged it on a nail the first time I wore it. Here’s the tear, right here!”
    “I know. That’s why I switched them.”
    “You didn’t have to do that!”
    “Yes, I did—it reflects badly on me , as your Fashion Consultant, when you go out in rags and tatters.”
    “Well… I want it back!”
    “Joe, don’t be ridiculous. It doesn’t matter what I wear to bed, so just leave it.”
    “It doesn’t matter if I wear it to bed, either.”
    “You’ve got plenty of shirts to wear to bed!” I pointed out, getting exasperated.
    “But I want this one back,” he insisted, and I couldn’t tell if he were joking or serious.
    “Fine! You can have it back,” I replied in resignation.
    “Okay,” Joe said, then started tugging harder at it, trying to pull it off me right now !
    “ Hey !”
    “You can give me the shirt off your back.” He grinned wickedly, yanking hard enough that I lost my balance and tumbled toward him on top of the comforter. At least the shirt was long enough to come down to my knees; otherwise I would’ve flashed him, since I never wear underwear at night.
    The outcome of the ensuing tug-of-war was clear, though, given his superior weight and strength. The Cheerios were sent soaring across the room—almost floating in slow motion, due to my heightened state of awareness—as I desperately scrambled to get out of his clutches, but in the end he caught the hem of the shirt and flipped it inside-out and over my head. I lay there, naked as a jay bird, for a moment that stretched out like eternity.
    “ Aaaiiieeeee !” I shrieked, trying to cover myself up with the comforter—which wasn’t working, since we were both sprawled on top of it. In desperation, I grabbed my pillow to hold, like a fig leaf, in front of my privates. When I glanced up at Joe, he was already beet-red, gaping like a fish out of water.
    “I—ah—um…. I’m so sorry!” he gasped. “I… I didn’t know….”
    I felt my own cheeks flush to boiling. Not that I’m ashamed of my Mini Me, mind you, because it’s not small in proportion to the rest of my body, but it is singularly embarrassing to have someone see your Mini Me in a half salute, when tussling with said someone was what made your Mini Me salute in the first place! I couldn’t