It was another boring Saturday afternoon. As much as I looked forward to the weekend while sitting at my lifeless desk job downtown, I couldn't remember the last time I had a truly awesome experience to warrant the anticipation. It seemed all I ever did was clean around the house, organize my bills, and maybe catch the last half hour of "It's Academic" on the tube. But on this particular day, I decided to shake things up a little bit. After a quick scan of my refrigerator, I realized that I was out of fresh-picked fruit. While my drab little house was nothing to write home about, my property was tastefully surrounded by yards and yards of raspberry bushes, ripe for the pickings 6 months out of the year. Seeing as this was the 3rd week of June, I knew I had a few plump and juicy treats waiting for me outside, so I set out with my plastic Safeway bag and my SPF 45 sunscreen to go and retrieve some of Mother Nature's sweetest candy.
Reaching the foot of my driveway, near where tire tracks had displaced stretches of unmowed grass days earlier, my first glance at the bushes was rewarded with nary a raspberry in sight. "That's funny," I thought to myself, "I could have sworn I saw dozens driving home from work yesterday." Did the deer get to them? Maybe, but some of these raspberries were high off the ground; only something... or someone... with considerable height could have dislodged the tangy delights that adorned my property's greenery.
Then I heard a rustling- the scrambling of human feet trying to evade the scene. My eyes focused to see a rather petite woman in her early thirties, blond, perky and tanned to perfection. Watching her from behind, I could tell she wasn't going to make an easy getaway in her designer shoes.
"Show yourself," I challenged the feminine intruder, who then seemed too frozen in fear to move another inch. I briskly approached her, dropping my sunscreen and Safeway bag without realization in my haste to catch this berry thief red-handed. Suddenly, she turned around, flushed in the face not from feasting on berries but from embarrassment and tears, and it was then that I realized...
"Holy shit, you're Kelly Ripa," I said without censure to my insensitive word choice. "What are you doing here?"
Kelly's eyes were darting every which way, failing to find an escape path. "I'm so sorry- I didn't realize this was your property." Inexplicably, she began dumping raspberries out from the front of her shirt, which she had tucked over to make a small carrying pouch. It was then that I noticed her breathtakingly hard stomach, battle tested after having 3 children, two by c-section. The contours were the stuff of legend; the topography a thing of abdominal wonder.
"No, no," I began, trying to console the visibly shaken morning talk show host. "Please keep them. It's an honor having you handle my berries."
Kelly let out an adorable chuckle, making her perfectly sculpted torso undulate firmly. "It's a good thing we aren't on national television right now."
"Why's that?" I inquired, my eyes traveling up her rouge-stained top, which was cut low and ready for summer.
"Well, if I heard you correctly, you said it was an honor having me handle your berries." I was awe-stuck, transfixed on the bubbly AM-babbler who stood before me, moist with sweat and raspberry juices.
"... You know, like testicles."
"Oh!" I shot out, escaping my stupor. "Sorry- you're quicker on your feet than I am. That was funny."
"I don't just read the cue cards, cutie," Kelly replied, placing her sticky hand on my shoulder, wiping away some coconut scented white sun lotion from my shoulder.
"SPF 45," I said nervously, feeling her body warmth quite palpably, "They tore down the tanning booth in town so I moved on to home remedies."
"Is that so?" Kelly asked with a hint of playfulness in her voice. "From my vantage point, it looked like that blotch was the byproduct of a late morning hand-gliding session."
"You mean... from masturbating?" I asked bluntly, seemingly locked in her gaze.
"Well, I was going to suggest bird shit, but what you do while hang gliding is your own business."
"Oh, I must have misheard you," I said, "I thought you said 'hand-gliding,' like hang gliding- one of your clever play on words."
"So you think I'm clever?" Kelly asked, now brushing some hair out of my eyes. "I wish Regis thought I was clever."
I felt my jeans begin to tighten as she took her sweet time fixing my hair. "How is Regis doing these days?"
