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We don’t live
in the United States, we live...
"Twenty years!" she announced, "If this were a Cadet vintage, we could open it now!" An oenophile, which is still legal in this state, corrected, "You could have opened that vintage a decade ago." Fortunately, she went largely unheard. Then the inevitable happened. Bucko went out onto the four-foot square balcony to prod the chicken on the grill, the operation of which is a violation of several civil codes. A gust of wind blew through the open door and caught a drape which flew across a chatcha-covered bureau. A glass miniature was snagged by the errant fabric and smashed to the floor. Oriso screamed. "Argh," she screamed, "That was my grandmother's! You broke it!" Bucko sputtered, "I didn't break it! The curtain did! It's the curtain's fault." I chipped in, "No, the wind blew the curtain, so it's the curtain's fault." Bucko grinned lopsidedly. "No, it's actually the fault of Sir Issac Newton, 'cause gravity done." "Right," I agreed, hoping to abate Oriso's fury, "Blame it on the law of gravity. But to quote Oliver North, 'It's a bad law.'" Oriso made a peculiar grunting noise to signify disgust. "It's MY fault for letting you two idiots take charge of the grill. Now sweep up this mess. I've got to go pour salt on my grandmother's French lace tablecloth. Some other idiot has spilled red wine on it. The life I lead! This marriage! It's a dog's life." Or at least comparable in terms of life span. Link Yaco has written comic books for several publishers. He is currently working on a couple comics-related paperbacks. He has been a copywriter, technical writer, newspaper journalist, and magazine entertainment writer. He has a Masters' degree in Telecommunications and was a technical manager at MIT for five years. Link lives in West Greenwich Village with his wife, Susannah, a Senior Vice President at an independent film company. Check out his web page here Read last week's column Visit Link Yaco Home Page COPYRIGHT 1999 LINK YACO. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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richard e. schiff,
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ucko and Oriso were celebrating their twentieth anniversary,
an impressive length of time longer than the life span of most
land animals. Their commodious--by Village standards--apartment
soaked up their arriving dinner guests like expensive French
lace soaks up spilled Beaujolais, a lot of which was indeed
being splashed around that evening. Soon we were elbow-to-elbow,
which made it difficult to raise our glasses but we managed as
Oriso made a toast.
