Hot February

“Honey, why don't we ever win the lottery?!”

“Because we never buy lottery tickets, Sweetie!”

...

For the last two days she seemed cool, but I could feel her anxiety, a different one though, because her eyes had a hidden smile. I caught her, three of four times, writing secretly stuff in her little black book while browsing the internet, and quickly closing with a snap, and a push of a button, both the notebook and the phone. Hm! One of her projects. I left her be. When ready, she'd tell me everything. Her things always worth waiting for. One time she had a business idea of ​​renting chicken hens to people who live in apartment buildings ("fresh, organic eggs"), but she quit it after we visited a chicken farm, she couldn’t stand the bird dung stench. Some other time she thought of manufacturing a 'perfume scent recognizer' device, paired with a phone app revealing the brand name, then the idea grew into a ‘meal scent recognizer’("also with a phone app, to send you to the right restaurant"). Her last thing was creating a bag, made of some lead fabric, to put the phone in on the nightstand ("no harmful radiation, but you'll hear the alarm clock in the morning").

Coming back from work, today, I've found her packing, while dancing and singing happily. The speakers were blasting Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan’s “Especially for You”. On the bed, our summer clothes, folded, in six or eight tall towers. I stumble upon a huge plastic bag, inside, my swimming gear, mask, fins, and snorkel, look like they’re ready to use. Puzzled, I turn my head, with an obviously wide movement, towards the window, it’s mid-February, Calgary is wrapped in a layer of crumbly snow, and the mercury in the thermometer doesn't want to lift its head up on the pipe above -20 Celsius.

Enough is enough:

“Sweetie, what’s happening here?”

She smiles, blinding me with the whiteness of her perfect teeth:

“Sit down!”

I obey, she brings two tall wine glasses and pours some Shiraz. “Especially for you” ends, Rick Springfield’s “Jessie’s Girl” starts.

“And, what’s with the oldies and goldies!?”

“Don’t you like the wine?”

As sign of approval, I slurp a mouthful of red wine. I swallow it, sour! I’d rather have A Cold One.

“Sweetie, where are we going?”

“Take a guess?"

"Beats me!"

“Down? Under?”

“Still no clue.”

“In Australia!”

Almost spilling the wine one our new white carpet, I jump in surprise.

“Rack off!”

She makes fun of me:

“Bloody oath!”

Clapping her hands, she takes her little black notebook out:

“Look, I've already planned the route, first we visit your folks in Sydney, spend a week with them, (Oh, I phoned your mom, too, to give her the good news!) see the Opera and everything, snorkel and scuba-dive at the Great Barrier Reef, then we go to the tennis Grand Slam in Melbourne, and, in the end, Adelaide and Kangaroo Island.”

“Sweetie, sweetie -I calm her down- but we have deadlines, duties, jobs.”

“Honey, relax, I've just called your boss, she gave you a one-month vacation.”

I breathe in and out, six long times.

“But this trip costs a lot, we can't afford it.”

“No worries, mate, I got a lottery ticket!”

...

“Do you know what the odds are to win all those millions?! There's one chance in 14 million for Lotto 6/49 and one in 28 million for Lotto Max.”

“Seriously!?”

“Yes!!!”

She's so adorable when she pouts, some tears are ready to pop out of her eyes. She lifts her pointy nose towards me and whispers:

“Well, I only got us $20,000.”