Still savoring his wife’s kiss, Jack looked up into her eyes and was puzzled by her statement that she was her normal height again. Even in her highest heels, she’s still much shorter than him at her normal height. “What do you mean it worked? You’re still the same height as me, well without heels anyway.”
“Apparently you’re batting a thousand, you’ve gotten both of your desired changes at the same time,” Paula said stepping back and raising both of her arms outward with wrists bent palms upward in a ‘Look Around Gesture’.
Only when his wife stepped back did Jack’s attention widen. “What the heck!” Their bedroom was suddenly gigantic. “I thought this magic thing was only supposed to affect the two of us? How come everything got big?”
Laughing, Paula grabbed their wedding album and found a shot of the two of them surrounded by all the bridesmaids and handed it to her husband.
Jack’s mouth dropped open as he looked at the picture. There was his beautiful bride next to him, standing a little bit taller than him in her low heels, but all of the bridesmaids around them stood taller than both of them.
“I love that picture! It’s a shame there’s not some way we could keep it,” Paula giggled.
“But that suggests …,” Jack started to say before hurriedly grabbing his awkwardly oversize wallet and extracting his license. “No! This can’t be!”
“Seriously Hon?” Paula laughed. “Looking around wasn’t enough, you needed your license to tell you that you’re now five foot one?”
“We have to fix this,” Jack said in a panic! “I can’t be like this!”
“Take a breath. Relax. We already know we can make changes, we just need to work on understanding how a little better. So far we think sexual desire is involved in making changes, although now that I think about it, perhaps touching is the key or a key anyway, maybe it’s both, maybe it’s something more? In any case, it seems clear that distress is not helpful.”
“But … I … I know you’re right, but … look at me!”
Slipping off her heels so she was no longer taller than her husband, Paula gave him a quick kiss and said, “It’s dinner time. We’re hungry and distraught, lets just make dinner and relax. Fortunately it’s Friday, so we have plenty of time to work this out.”
“I guess,” Jack agreed reluctantly.
“If ever there was a night for comfort food, it’s tonight. What do you say to Mac-N-Cheese?” Paula suggested.
“Ok, and wine! I definitely need a little wine,” Jack agreed.
‘I thought you just had a little whine’, Paula thought momentarily but knew better than to voice it. “This won’t take long,” Paula said walking into the kitchen. “Could you set the table? I keep the step stool in the pantry.”
“Step stool?”
Grinning, Paula pretended she hadn’t heard and continued preparing dinner.
Jack opened the upper cabinet door and found himself having to go up on his toes to reach the plates, and they were on the lowest of three shelves. As it was, the sudden weight of two plates as he pulled them foreword over the lip of the cabinet on his hyper-extended arm surprised him and he barely managed to slow their descent to the counter enough to avoid breaking them. Sheepishly carrying the plates to the table, Jack felt the heat of a blush flare on his neck and ears when he saw the smirk on his wife’s face.
Still feeling self conscience, Jack paused at the table to take a few calming breaths like he’d learned in Yoga. “Stop laughing,” Jack said.
“I haven’t said a word,” Paula objected choking back a titter, all the while telling herself to, ’Wait for it!’
Next were the wine glasses … which were on a top shelf. Jack stood looking up at the glasses and briefly considered jumping to avoid … “Fuck me!” Jack exclaimed before going to the pantry and retrieving the step stool. Standing on the step stool, Jack retrieved two wine glasses and turned to his wife. “Ok, I know you’ve been waiting for it, go ahead.”
With tacit permission, the dam broke and Paula began laughing so hard she was interspersing cackles with very unladylike snorts of glee.
“Is that it? Do you have it out of your system?”
Paula responded with another round of laughter mixed with stuttering apologies.
Sighing, Jack said,”Ok, I have to admit, it is pretty funny albeit at my expense. So white or red with Mac-N-Cheese?”
“White wine please, but you might … ah … nothing. White wine.”
Placing the wine bottle on the counter, Jack frowned at how awkwardly high everything seemed. He found he had to alter his grip on the foil cutter to expose the cork. His favorite old wooden handle cork screw required a lot more force than he expected.
“Hon, you might want to use the new cork thingy I bought instead of that antique,” Paula said.
“I got it!” But he didn’t. There was no hope of getting the right angle and leverage with the bottle on the counter so Jack held the bottle between his legs and pulled out the cork, or tried to anyway but only succeeded in turning his face red with effort.
“Let me have it,” Paula said and placed the bottle back on the counter before inserting what looked like a big needle on the end of a handle with a button. Several thumb pumps of the button and the corked eased right out.
“I could have gotten it,” Jack groused.
“No you couldn’t have.”
“Yeah, no I couldn’t have,” Jack laughed.
