The Existential Woman

The next day, Shanna was sitting in her cushy chair looking over some stickers that she thought she might use for a new deck of cards. She was frustrated as she looked them over. She didn't really like the style of the stickers and there wasn't enough of them to create the number of cards she wanted to make. She put the stickers in a folder and back on the shelf and decided that she could not make the cards. Reba would have to wait until Shanna could figure out how to make a quality deck.

Suddenly, the door opened and Norman walked in. Shanna hadn't heard him drive up. She looked up at the clock and it was near noon.

"How was your trip?" she asked politely.

"Pretty good," he replied and began to tell her about details of the drive there, what he saw, and how much money he spent. "I slept in my car."

"I'm glad I didn't go," she said, "Our little adventures seem to be getting more and more expensive."

"Yeah, but..." he began and paused to find the right words, "If we don't go on any, then we'll wonder what the money is good for."

"Maybe," she agreed and added, "But I'm not going on anymore until I have enough to do it right."

"I had fun," he said proudly, then he noticed that the package he had ordered was set on the couch. He picked up the package, opened it, and found the car stereo speakers inside. "I guess I'll put your new speakers on."

"That would be great," she smiled thinking about how she loved to listen to the music on the loudest setting while she was driving.

He went outside to begin working on replacing her car speakers. After about twenty minutes of procrastinating, she decided to go outside and work on the car with him.

She had "hippified" her vehicle when she first got it, almost a year ago as a Christmas present from Norman. He had gotten a bonus from work and bought it for her as a "Thank you/Apology" for some of the stupid arguments they had gotten into while they were adjusting to living with each other after many years of being apart. Her "hippified" mini-van was her ticket to going on any camping trips she wanted to go on. Norman had even built a wooden frame for her bed and set a mini-fridge inside. She had been so excited at the end of December, that she spent most of January putting ridiculous stickers all over it. Then she had tried to paint it, and she had no idea what she was doing so the results were mostly messy. She had a can of paint remover and a tool for scraping so while Norman was putting the speakers in, she started scraping all of the stickers off.

"I think you are right," she said in a disappointed tone as she looked over the scraped off walls, "I may need a sand buffer like you said."

Norman didn't reply. He was surprised that she was outside in the 90 degree August heat sweating and working on the aesthetics of her van. It had seemed to him, that she didn't give a hoot about how her van looked. Now, unexpectedly, she was willing to put some elbow grease and sweat into improving it. She continued scraping and he continued putting the speakers in. They were both sweating.

After about twenty minutes, Shanna couldn't take the heat anymore.

"I'm going inside to cool down," she told him, "I can't take it."

He wanted to laugh, but he didn't. He was too proud of her to make fun of her. She rushed back into the condo and almost ran into the bathroom to stick her head under the cold water. She caught her breath, wiped herself off with a towel, and sat in the living room thinking about her van and silently grumbling to herself about the annoying heat.

Once Norman was done, he walked into the condo and prompted,

"You should go listen. See what you think."

She grabbed her keys and went to the van, noticing that the new speakers were all connected efficiently to her doors. She turned on the radio and turned up the volume and could hear the difference in the sound. She changed the radio channels to listen to various songs for different tones like bass and treble and adjusted the settings on the radio. She was a bit disappointed with the sound of the bass. She had wanted the bass to be stronger. She walked back into the living room unsure if she should share her honest opinion. She didn't want to sound ungrateful.

"Thank you," she said with emphasis hoping he would understand that she did appreciate his work, "The sound is better..... but.... the bass isn't that great."

Then the two of them got into a conversation about radios and devices of the past compared to the technology of current times and they had a few laughs.

"They never should have gotten rid of 8-Tracks," she said smiling.