Fifty-eight minutes
Taking out the trash, I slipped my slides on and braced the wall of heat outside the front door. I forgot to throw away the old wilted roses. On my second trip in, I saw the ADT sign stuck firmly into the gravel just below my porch steps. I instinctively looked for the redundant sticker I knew to be in the slender half window next to the door. I thought it would say ADT, but instead, it said BRINKS.
“We’ve been busy,” the lady cop had said to me, her hands tucked into the sides of her vest, making her look like a fat, long-legged bird.
“Oh.” I raised my eyebrows and nodded so she would feel the shade I was casting towards her as I turned to go back in. I turned so she wouldn’t see me laughing. I had forgotten the alarm had even gone off. I looked at my phone to see the call I missed from ADT had been 58 minutes ago.
My eyes focused on the corner of the sticker that was lifting, just slightly curled. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to peel it all off in one piece, but I went for it. It tore into a fragment, with only half the shield coming off.
I looked for another curled edge, but when I had to use my nail to scratch one up, I became acutely aware of how hot it was, and that I had the stretch to reach the sticker. The jasmine bush next to the door was threatening to scratch and irritate my leg, and I thought about abandoning the pursuit.
Why would you do this? You knew you wouldn’t want to follow through. You knew you would use the heat as an excuse for your lack of patience.
I scraped through the irritating feeling of my nail against the glass and sticker. I was also carrying a glass vase that I had just emptied into the yard waste container and the indoor recycling bin that needed to be returned to the pantry.
You know you can put this down, cool off for a second, and come back. I don’t know if I didn’t trust myself enough to return, or I was just high, but I dumped the stuff in the kitchen without kicking off my slides, barely peeking into the junk drawer for that razor blade I thought was pressed neatly into a clear box housing somewhat sorted batteries.
Back at it, I scraped, this time pulling off a little bit at a time. I berated myself for a minute again, questioning what kind of person I was. If I were a burglar, I would probably just walk right in and take whatever I want if I saw a half-peeled sticker in the window. Then again, maybe I would question the homeowner’s sanity and choose another house. Ned Flanders would never.
I let it all slide out of mind knowing that I can’t predict the thoughts of a burglar - nor if I could, would I presume that burglars are a monolith. Maybe the person who rifled through my car sees their work as labor. Likely. It is Oregon. A conscious car thief returned a baby and chastises the mother for her negligence. How could you leave your baby in the car?
You left a half-peeled Brinks Sticker in the window next to an ADT sign. How was I supposed to know which alarm you had if any!
I focused on the task, but nearing the end, the middle of the shield, the adhesive began to linger on the glass. I imagined a slight temperature difference near the edges of the sticker, like the outside of a half-warmed microwave dinner.
Another test of my willpower, my discipline, and integrity! It’s all on the line here. You are going to have to go find that razor blade. I went back to work on the remaining edges, avoiding my inevitable duty. They wouldn’t lift enough under my nail. See? More evidence that you need to find the blade.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to finish the task. It was the mental effort I knew would be required to venture into the garage, namely the tool bench, and still not find the razor blade. I think we were out. There had been a razor blade on the porch steps for a few days. Maybe it was a week or so ago. I had used it to cut a large box down to size for the recycling bin. It was gone now. I didn’t remember if I was the one who threw it away. I had wanted a box cutter. I bought a set of 3 blue metallic box cutters years ago when we started remodeling our first house. I wanted that box cutter, but in the sea of accumulated tools, uncared for by me or my husband, I couldn’t find it after a 7-minute hunt. That’s when I remembered my secret razor blade in the junk drawer. I kept it there so I knew where it was to access it in times like this - and now it was gone.
I rubbed my palm against the adhesive and the heat must have softened it enough to ball up and peel off cleanly. I rubbed my fingertips against the remaining edge of the sticker and achieved the same results. It peeled off easily splitting only once, but still able to be pulled alongside in two uninterrupted streams, easier than any piece except the first.