Imagine if you will, you are a small town housewife inthe midwest. You've been a member of the small churchchoir since you were a little girl. You, your mother,and your grandmother were all born and raised there. You dated and married your high school sweetheart andhad two perfect children. Life, as it should be, wasperfect. Your daughter was set to marry a doctor andyour son was the local veteranian. Sundays werefilled with family and cooking and conversing and anoccassional friend that stops by to see if you caughtthe game on friday night when his son made the winninggoal. Life is perfect, as it should be. Monday is spent running errands for the elderly andorganizing a church social. Your husband is at workand he's working the same job that he's had since hegot out of highschool. The pay is good and thebenefits are even better. It's an honest job, workinghard to make a dollar but he's made lifelong friendsand wouldn't change it for anything. After running the errands and attending the meetings,you put dinner in the oven, slip into your robe andrun a nice hot bath. The bubbles fill the tub and thescent of fresh cut roses fill the air (thank goodnessfor scented candles!) in the middle of winter. Thehouse is quiet and you enjoy a nice long hot bathbefore supper. After your bath, you dress in something simply (justin case the old man decides to get a little friskyafter eating). You set the table with the China youreceived as a wedding present. You pour a glass ofwine and wait for Mr. Perfect to come home. It's now an hour after his usual arrival time and youstart to get concerned. Maybe it was unexpectedovertime like last May. Maybe it's an emergency andhe's been in an accident or something. You decide toturn on the news to see if there's anything going onin the world that you haven't heard about yet and whenyou turn on the t.v. you enter into a news breakingspecial. City hall was having their weekly meetingand someone has entered the hall and opened fire. Several people are dead, including the intruder but nonames are being released at the moment. Your handraises to your breast automatically and you heave aheavy sigh. Your mind immediately goes to yourhusband and you assume he's been held up by trafficbecause of this horrific event. Your mind then drifts to the horrific event andremember that Sally, you're best girlfriend, is on theCity Council and would have been at the meeting. Oh,you hope and pray that she is ok and not one of thosepoor unfortunate souls that is dead. You just can'timagine the trauma the families of those people mustbe going through. Thank goodness Mr. Perfect will behome soon and you can turn off the dreadful news. Maybe you should set the cassarole back in the oven,it may take a little longer to get home yet and youdon't want the meal to get too cold. As you move towards the kitchen, there's a knock onthe door. Who on earth could that be? you wondered asyou make your way to the door. When you open thedoor, you see a nice young man dressed in a policeuniform standing in the entrance. How odd that apoliceman would be at your door, you think toyourself. Then he delivers the devastating news, Mr.Perfect was at the City Hall and is believed to bedead, can you please come and identify the body. What? you think....Mr. Perfect had no reason to go tothe City Hall meeting, I mean, how political was heanyway. They have to be mistaken, Mr. Perfect wouldbe home any minute and this would all be cleared up. But Mr. Perfect doesn't come home and there is nomisunderstanding...Mr. Perfect did in fact attend theCity Council meeting that night. He also took hisfriend Mr. Shotgun and proceeded to kill 8 people andhimself for reasons that may never be known. How does life resume in this small town that you havegrown up in, you were born here, raised here, lostyour virginity here, borne two children here and lovedthe man of your dreams here? Does it continue at all? What happens to the food drive? the elderly peopleneeding their errands ran? the church social event ofthe year? Do you care? Probably not....but thenagain, it's hell to be perfect.I'm glad I'm not perfect and hope that I never becomeso! I'm just saying. |
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