Chapter 08 - Bikini Bra Bedlam

Saturday 1st July

Though they’re never quite as lazy as a Sunday morning, Saturday morning rolled round with breakfast set to be its usual affair of people coming, going, staying, or otherwise in the kitchen. Being the first down that day I had the place to myself, so I flipped on Radio 3 as I’d been trained to do and set about my breakfast. Not wanting to challenge Dad’s Sunday morning assault on health and smoke alarms, I decided today should be a much simpler affair – tea and toast. Throwing out yesterday’s water, I refilled the kettle with fresh and put it on to boil, then cut myself two generously thick slices of wholemeal excellence and popped them under the grill. While I was keeping a close on eye that – the smoke alarm was not an acceptable morning alarm, as Dad had ‘emphasised’ when I’d been given the metaphorical keys to the cooker for the first time – I poured the quickly-boiled water into the teapot over a spoonful of black Ceylon tea. Back at the grill I flipped the bread over and had just retrieved the honey, butter, butter-knife and honey-spoon – a special spoon, not a dipper; Mum’s stipulation – when a tell-tale smell warned me the toast was on the cusp. I quickly averted disaster, transferred my toast to my plate, and popped it down on the kitchen table ready for finishing off. I was just pouring tea into a cup into which I would add sugar and milk afterwards to taste when, right on the stroke of seven-thirty, the door from the garage opened and Stef breezed in, sweaty from her ride, but clearly also energised by her daily dose of exercise endorphins.

“Hey, Sis,” I said, ‘cariad‘ being out of bounds for the weekend, especially when you can’t be sure who was coming through the kitchen door next or when. Mum and Dad were happy enough with the closeness Stef and I had always shared even before recent events, but expressing it that much might be going that one step too far. As for fy nghariad, my golden darling would have to wait until next week before I dared use that one again.

“Hey Luke!” Stef beamed, ‘Babes’ being not exactly inexpressible for the next couple of days, but definitely to be used with extreme care and restraint. I mean sure she’d called me ‘babes’ in the past on occasion, but now that I’d been elevated to ‘Babes’, that, too, was out until the safety of Monday. Yes, pronunciation matters. “Mmm, that looks good. Give me a couple of minutes to get into the shower, then make a couple of slices of that for me, will you?”

I threw my hands in the air in mock outrage. “Toast? Toast!” I cried in my best impersonation of Tim Curry’s immortal ‘space’. “No muesli? Who are you? I mean you look like my sister, but appearances can be deceiving...”

Stef chuckled and shook her head. “Oh Luke, haven’t you heard? We girls are simply famous for capriciously changing our minds about things. Remember how I changed my mind about you, how I realised you actually weren’t the unholy terror that some of my friend’s brothers are.”

“I remember and ... wait. Was that a complement?” I asked as Stef removed her helmet and unzipped her top a little. I thought I could see a trickle of sweat heading towards her décolletage, but there was no way I could risk saying anything. Or, y’know, really looking. Pesky parents!

“A compliment? You know, Luke, I think it was. Amazing, huh? So, as that sinks in for you, give it a couple of country minutes, then make the same for me?”

“Well, now that I know I was being complemented, of course, Sis, I would be delighted to prepare your morning meal. Do you want your toast slathered, smeared, or spread with honey?”

“Sounds good, though could I take a light larding over a substantial smearing? Maybe half-and-half? Oh, and I’ll need a tea, you know how, milk and a hint of sugar.”

“Not muesli and not coffee?” I asked in mock horror.

“Nuh-huh. Different things, remember?”

I shook my head. “So many new things,” I said in my hammiest Shatner.

“Haha. Oh, and I’ve something to tell you later, you know, when the population around here is less ... parenty.”

I opened my mouth to ask what she was talking about, but Stef shook her head as she glanced upwards, to the door, and back to me.

Oh.

Also, huh?

I mean, sure the Thing had been in Stef’s room last night, and I had sort of asked her to engage in a spot of ‘gentle jilling’ – all in the name of science, doctor – so we could see how The Thing would respond to her instead of me, but after she’d come twice in the garden yesterday and then been so coy about when she would next ‘amuse herself’ I hadn’t really expected anything to have come of last night, pardon the pun. Seems I was wrong. “You mean... ?”

Stef laughed. She knew me too well, she knew what I’d just pieced together. “No. Not that!” she said as she crossed one arm over her boobs and the other across her pussy as she scrunched herself up in comic protection of her imaginarily suddenly-revealed modesty, vintage Lycra stylings notwithstanding. “Not that but ... similar. You’ll see,” she whispered as she arched her left eyebrow before she turned and was gone, headed upstairs where, moments later, I heard the requisite doors and footsteps warning me she was already in the shower.

I had work to do!

Quickly I ate up the first of my pieces of toast as I sliced some more bread for Stef, and I had just popped hers under the grill and started to re-boil the kettle when Mum walked in, dressed in a yellowy cream coloured silk nightshirt. I knew it was silk because Mum had issued strict orders that only she could wash it, or any of the other silk nightshirts she owned. I also knew it probably had a better name for its colour than ‘yellowy creamy kinda thingie’, but what do I know about the colours of women’s clothing? Old paper? Double cream? Beige? For a moment Mum just stood there, looked at my plate, looked at my actions, and cocked her own eyebrow. “Hungry?” she asked as she mimed rubbing her eyes, though it was plain to see she was still a little sleepy.

“Huh? Oh, no, Stef asked me to make her some when she came in, so I’m doing that while she’s in the shower; she should be down in a couple of minutes.”

Mum blinked, as if waking from a dream. “Stef? Toast? And trusting you to make it for her? Whatever next? You think you know what’s going on and then something like this comes along? Children are strange sometimes...” Mum reflected as she set about her own breakfast, namely espresso with a side order of health food shop bran flakes that were so sugar-free that I was sure they cowered in their box if they even heard the word ‘sugar’.

I turned back to my task in hand, had just poured Stef’s tea and was about to begin preparing her toast when Dad walked in, dressed not in his weekday suit, but in his weekend pyjama trousers and matching tee, all in dark grey silk, one of Mum’s Christmas gifts.

“Aoife, Luke,” he said, ‘Aoife’ being Mum’s name, ‘James’ was his, and the ‘rents were the kind who called each other by their names, not ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ as some freakish parents were known to do, much to the eternal and undiminishing shame of their children once that was discovered by other children. Thankfully they didn’t use their pet names in front of us, so that was something. I wasn’t sure they had pet names, but I’d learned from films and tv that most adults do, and they are either so sweet as to induce a diabetic shock or so offensive as to make a sailor blush. Whatever theirs were, I was certain I had no interest in learning what they might be. Ever.

“Oh, good morning, James,” said Mum, a pleased smile on her face.

“Yes, it is a good morning,” he agreed as he took a moment to kiss Mum.

I sighed resignedly. Ours were also the kind of ‘rents who had never been shy in their affections for each other, regardless of whether Stef or I were about, and regardless of our ages, too. As children it had been nothing to bother us, but as we hit our teens, seeing our parents kissing and hugging had become a little more ‘challenging’ for us. Eww! So one day they sat us down and explained, they were the adults, it was their home, and they’d been in their relationship longer than we’d been around. If they wanted to hug and kiss, they would. If we didn’t like that, there was always the option of being sent away with the circus. Neither of us liked the circus all that much, so we just accepted the fact that sometimes the ‘rents can be really embarrassing, and we got on with our lives. Of course, now that I knew how Stef was ‘inspired’ on hearing what happened when their kissing went on in private and especially when it started to escalate ... well, that just made it all the more toe-curling for me.

Finally they cut it out, Dad checked the kettle, saw that it was still hot enough, and started brewing his morning tea whilst picking the last of the croissant from the bread bin, slicing it open and stuffing it with a slice of cheese and a slice of ham, that being his idea of a Germanic continental breakfast.

I got back to the business of Stef’s breakfast as I quickly buttered her toast, and added honey to two of the four pieces, having cut her two slices of toast diagonally in half. Nobody in our family cut bread squarely in half; we weren’t savages! I had just down put her plate and tea at the last remaining seat at the table as the kitchen door opened and Stef entered. Compared with how sweaty and dusty she had been only a few minutes ago, the transformation was dramatic. Now, she was freshly cleaned, smelled slightly of apples – her shampoo du jour – and had her hair up in one of those towel-turbans that only women know how to do. She was sporting an oversized tee – what else? – and this one was a pale pastel pink, long in the leg, short in the arm, loose around the neck, and really easy on the eye.

Just like Stef.

Ahem.

“Mum, Dad, Luke,” she said in greeting as she sat down to her alternative breakfast, smiling at her plate. “You see, Mum? I told you, put in the years, and he can be trained,” she ‘explained’ as she took a sip of her tea, nodded her head to me when she discovered it was ‘just right’, and set about making a slice of toast-with-honey swiftly vanish in as lady-like a manner as is possible when you are so obviously crippled by acute hunger.

“Stef, your mother is teaching you too well,” Dad laughed.

Mum turned to Dad, sharply, but also smiling; it was his turn to be toast. “And what, James, is that supposed to mean?” she asked, her tone hinting at the possibility of a sudden storm that was brewing quicker than tea when aunties visit.

“I, er, well, you see, Aoife, it’s like this–”

“–it’s like what, James?” Mum interrupted. “Perhaps that it is still no challenge, pulling your leg, even after all these years. Jimmy,” she said as she smiled softly at him, letting him know he was mostly off the hook, though her calling him ‘Jimmy’ was, for him, the equivalent of Mum using our full names with us.

Poor Dad. There would be a reckoning, later.

As I cautiously watched all of this, it struck me that Mum didn’t give herself away like Stef did, she didn’t have an ‘eyebrow thing’ to let Dad know how serious she was being with him. That had to be tough. But as I watched them joking back and forth I also realised that maybe Stef’s skills in playing me like her personal air guitar might be inherited. Ouch!

Wisely, Stef munched on, knowing better than to intrude in their sparring.

“Jimmy, is it?” Dad asked as he risked a note of indignation in his voice.

Mum smiled.

“I wasn’t Jimmy last night...”

Oh. God. No!

“I’d quite forgotten...” Mum teased, though she did look a little flushed; I hoped it was because of the weather, not a memory. Maybe her coffee? Definitely her coffee. Please, let it be her coffee.

“A little reminder?” Dad offered as he leant over, tilted Mum’s head gently, and kissed her.

They didn’t hurry.

Maybe Mum’s memory needed a lot of jogging?

I looked at Stef. She looked at me, left eyebrow twitching.

Finally, Mum remembered whatever it was that she’d forgot – and I never wanted to know! – and they stopped kissing.

“You see, James, I was correct,” Mum said, using Dad’s ‘proper’ name and letting us all know he had been released from the dog-house.

“Hmm? Oh yes, so you were,” Dad said with a far too self-satisfied smile on his face.

“About?” Stef tentatively asked, taking one for Team Offspring.

Mum grinned, also too happily. “I bet your father how, now you and your brother seem to be quickly maturing into adults, that he could use his tongue when we kissed and you wouldn’t–”

“Oh God!” I cried.

“TMI!” cried Stef.

“–er ... freak out,” Mum sadly finished as she realised we had done exactly what she said we wouldn’t, and she had lost her bet.

Dad smiled ... and a moment later, so did Mum.

Stef and I said nothing.

The kitchen clock ticked. Loudly. And we don’t have a ticking clock in the kitchen.

“Perhaps we should turn to the matter of your chores?” Mum suggested.

“Please!” we chorused, making the ‘rents chuckle. They were enjoying our discomfort entirely too much for my liking.

“Quite,” Mum smiled as she turned to us, all praise for our ‘maturity’ suddenly forgotten, maybe for forever. “Your usual Saturday chores are the same, some dusting and vacuuming coupled with some light tidying, plus making sure your father has emptied all bins and baskets so that everything is ready for collection on Monday.”

Dad opened his mouth to say something, maybe to protest how well he had emptied the bins. It was a standing joke that he always missed one, and somehow never the same one from one week to the next.

Mum looked over at him.

Dad suddenly remembered that silence is golden, and went for all twenty-four carats.

“Yes, Mum,” Stef and I chorused.

“I remember your father also mentioned something last night about your taking on extra duties for money, something he will be paying you for since he was the one who came up with the scheme on his own,” Mum said. She paused as Dad endeavoured to look unbelievably busy with the last of his breakfast, so she continued. “I recollect that car washing was suggested, both cars. You can start on my car if we’re delayed, or you can wait and do both once we get back,” she said, today seemingly being an unseasonal run to the supermarket to replenish the emptier-than-normal fridge and cupboards.

I looked over at Stef. “We’ll maybe start with yours,” I said to Mum.

“Well it is the smaller,” Stef agreed. “So you should be able to reach the roof without needing steps...”

“Stephanie...” Mum said, her tone reminding me of that scene in a Western movie when the gunslinger readies himself. The piano player had already made a run for it.

“ ... buuut his growth spurt this year means he shouldn’t have any problems, and if he does I’d be more than happy to help him,” Stef retracted.

Mum smiled. Was that a slight tip of her hat to her quick-witted daughter?

Stef grinned to let everyone know she was joking when she added, “And of course I could probably just pick him up, you know, if I needed to.”

“What a good idea,” said Mum, her lips twitching in a smile as she added. “Perhaps you could do that in the living room, to help him dust the curtain rails?”

“And the light fittings?” Dad added, not at all helpfully.

“Or I could borrow some of Stef’s high heels because she’s got such big feet-”

“Luke,” Mum said, a wall of silence crashing down in just that one word.

“Uhm, yes Mum?” I said, certain I was in trouble, only unsure as to how much.

“Would you like me to ask your sister to fetch her highest heels, so that we can see how well you look wearing them around the house, all day, no matter how often you fall over, bruise your knees, or hurt your poor unsuspecting calves?”

“No, Mum.”

“I thought not. So...”

“Uhm, sorry Stef,”

“It’s okay,” she said as she picked up her last piece of toast.

“Uhm, I mean it’s not as if you can help the size of your feet...”

Mum looked at me. Sharply. Don’t I get to tease anyone? Ever?

“ ... and they’re just perfect, y’know, for your height,” I added.

Mum shook her head, but she also smiled, so I risked a little more. “And such a lot of height she has...”

Mum didn’t quite suppress her snigger.

Stef bobbed her tongue out at me, toast crumbs and all.

Dad shrugged his shoulders, a common parental gesture of ‘what can I do’.

“Good, now all of that is settled,” Mum warned. “James, we need to get ready...”

“ ... if we are going to get there before the holidaymakers overrun the place,” Dad completed. It was Mum’s annual, recurring, summertime complaint.

“Indeed. Shall we?” she said as she stood and nodded upwards.

“Indeed we shall,” Dad echoed as he rose, moved to hold the door for her, and they were gone.

“Big feet?” Stef asked, menacingly, as she sipped her tea. It really is amazing how much threat can be injected into so few words by the women of the family.

“Short?” I countered. I wasn’t much shorter than Stef, as we both knew, and as I’d had multiple opportunities to check over the past few days, up close and personal. By some metrics – horizontal ones – we were just about the same height, in fact. “But I guess they stop you falling over... ?” I suggested with cautious humour.

“And I suppose your bijou stature is quite cute,” Stef conceded, not entirely equally.

I sighed. It was going to be one of those days.

“All finished?” I asked as I nodded towards her empty plate. I knew she’d finished eating, but was checking she was ready to start on our chores, or whether she wanted a moment more, for digestion I guess.

Stef nodded. “Thanks, Little Brother.”

“Welcome,” I said as I got up and cleared the table, fed the dishwasher, and dialled in the normal programme; there’d been nothing challenging for it this morning, unlike tomorrow when Dad did his weekly unhealthy option for all who were brave enough to face it. “So, upstairs, dress, and meet back down here in ten minutes?” I asked in my best ‘secret agent’ voice.

“Roger, Roger,” she said, and was gone, leaving me open mouthed in shock. Had my sister just referenced that? All those hours of work Dad and I had put in had paid off! And she thought I was the one who could be trained.

Still grinning, I also headed upstairs where I exchanged sleeping clothes for chores clothes, which for me meant some black long-legged basketball shorts in a generic team design, and a baggy grey tee with dark vertical stripes at the sides so it didn’t look ‘tragic’ as Stef would call it.

Padding barefoot back downstairs, I was just retrieving the vacuum from the cupboard under the stairs when Stef came down. As usual her ‘chores clothes’ were an old school tee in red, a pair of black ‘runner style’ shorts – as she’d described them to me – and that was it, both of us working barefoot.

“Well that’s different,” I said as I admired the way my sister had tied off her tee, leaving her tummy exposed and her outie out and proud.

“Thanks,” she beamed as she gave her tummy a quick pat before she headed into the kitchen for the dusters, sprays, and other things we used to clean with.

I shook my head. I guess if she wasn’t concerned, then I had no reason to worry what Mum or Dad might say, did I? I mean, it was just a bare belly, right?

It turned out I didn’t have long to wait to find out, as I had just plugged the vacuum into the hallway socket when Mum and Dad came down, Dad in a pale green polo shirt and generic dad-jeans, and Mum wearing a simple short-sleeved white blouse and black jeans. Guess who looked the smarter?

“Ah, Luke. Just about to start? Don’t let me stop you then,” Dad said.

I shook my head and gave him a ‘thanks’ smile which he returned knowingly.

“Stef?” Mum called.

“Here,” Stef said breezily as she returned from the kitchen, carrying a white plastic caddy stocked with all the goodies that housework could ever want for, her beloved modern fibres feather duster included.

“Warm, Honey?” Mum asked as she saw Stef’s widely-exposed midriff.

“Well I mean I know I’m in charge of him while you’re out,” Stef grinned. “But it’s hot today and I’m sure I will have to do some of the work, you know, the things he-”

“-isn’t tall enough for?” I suggested.

“-isn’t up to speed on,” Stef concluded, grinning as she waved the feather-duster like it was a dandy’s handkerchief.

Dad shook his head as he slipped on his ‘weekend Hushies’, his weekday Hush Puppies being more brogue and less loafer.

Mum raised her eyebrow. Stef’s ‘explanation’ had been inventive, but clearly Mum found it insufficient and incomplete.

Stef dropped her pose as she realised Mum was waiting. “Oh, you mean this?” she asked as she pointed to her tummy with her feather duster.

Mum smiled. Slowly. “Nice tan, Honey.”

“Erm, you know, this week, sun, garden, it kind of happens...”

“So we all can see...” Mum repeated thoughtfully. Odd phrase. All see. Did Mum mean something ... else?

“Erm, yes...” Stef said uncertainly, clearly expecting repercussions ... but none came.

“Well, don’t get too hot as you work,” Mum said, and for all the world I thought she had just teased Stef not to strip down any more, no matter what. Whatever had made me think that? It wasn’t like it was something Mum would’ve said, but something made me feel like she might today. Weird. “And remember not to work poor Luke too hard around the house, Honey, you’re both on ‘car wash’ duty later.”

“Yes, Mum,” Stef said.

I nodded a soundless agreement, still confused from their exchange. Mum had seen Stef’s tanned tummy, and said nothing with a hint of something. Baffling.

“Is there anything either of you would like us to pick up?” Mum asked as she changed the subject like a jack-knifed lorry.

“Oh, erm, I could do with some more shampoo,” Stef said. “Can you get me something with strawberry in it, please?”

Dad shook his head. “Strawberry? In my day, it was Head and Shoulders or Vosene. Now? It’s like the fruit aisle, and conditioner? We don’t need no stinking conditioner,” he said in the dodgiest of Western accents that tv could offer.

“Speak for yourself, dear. I’m just glad I don’t have to use beer like my mother did,” Mum said.

“Beer?” Stef asked, horror and disbelief in her voice.

“Yes, dear, beer. Surprisingly good as a wash and a conditioner, though you need to be careful not to smell like a brewery afterwards. IPAs are the best, I seem to recall; something to do with all those hops.”

“But still such a terrible waste of beer,” Dad added.

Stef shrugged. “Luke can drink the beer, I’ll be a wine girl.”

“Indeed?” Mum said. Though we were both now old enough to drink, as a family we didn’t really drink all that much or all that often, meaning I’d yet to sample any of the ‘Devil’s Water’ and Stef’s few tastings had resulted in impressively cute gurns. “Luke? Anything for you?” Mum asked.

“Can you bring me some flapjacks or cereal bars, the ones with yogurt on top?” I remembered.

“Oh?” Mum asked, curious at my unusual request.

“Yeah, they’re cheaper than cafés for when we, uhm, when I go out,” I said. I quickly looked away from Mum in the hope that she hadn’t caught my slip. Did I tell you, I’m in incurable optimist?

“Would you like some as well, Stef,” Mum asked, her tone so innocent it could have gone straight to heaven.

Mum had heard, all right.

Stef shook her head, and for a moment I wondered if she’d caught what I’d miss-said, but then I remembered, this was my sister; of course she’d heard. The apple didn’t fall far and all that. “No thanks, Mum; I’m good.”

“Indeed.”

“Aoife?”

“Yes, James?”

“If we want to beat the crowds...”

“With a large stick? Oh how I wish. Work hard, children,” Mum said as she scooped up her purse and phone, slipped on her shoes, and was gone, Dad holding the door for her just as he’d taught me to hold it for those who one respected. Or feared.

Definitely feared.

“Sis?” I said when they were gone.

“Yes, Babes?” she asked as we heard the engine start and Dad pulled away.

“Are we in trouble?” I asked, genuinely unable to tell if we were or not. It felt like we should be, but it seemed not.

Stef cocked her head to the side for a moment, then shook it. “Nuh-huh. We’re still breathing, nobody’s talking about grounding, and I’m still like this, so no, we’re not in trouble. It is weird, though.”

“Weird isn’t the half of it. Sis, we’ve been caught kissing, okay it was the top of the head, but still, we got caught doing that ... and nothing. Now Mum seems to be a bit suspicious about your tan ... and again, nothing. What’s going on? It feels like something’s going on, but it isn’t, or isn’t that I can see.”

Stef shrugged. “I don’t know, Babes. My advice? If there’s anything to happen, we’ll know about it when it happens. So for now, kiss me and then we can get to work.”

I grinned. “That’s my kind of motivation,” I said as I stepped up, hugged my sister into my arms, and kissed her for a lifetime or two before we parted and got to work.

The ‘rents weren’t the only ones using tongues that morning, either.

“So Luke, how’s the poker face coming along?” Stef asked as we sat at the kitchen table for a quick drink before transforming ourselves into a human car wash. We’d been doing the Saturday morning chores for long enough that we’d got our routines down to a fine art, with me doing the more manual things like vacuuming and throwing out the rubbish and Stef concentrating on the delicate things like dusting and polishing. It wasn’t that one activity was more ‘male’ or ‘female’ than the other, but simply that I had spent a long time going through the ‘clumsy’ side of adolescence, and during that time we’d found the best ways to work around it. Now that I had ‘recovered’ we did swap over from time to time, but we somehow worked better one way over the other, so that’s generally how we did it. Of course, it really helped that everyone kept things pretty tidy anyway, so Saturdays weren’t so much a ‘granny’s visiting’ clean so much as a maintenance pass. Add to that that we didn’t have to do our parents’ room – Mum and Dad took care of that themselves – and the bathroom was kept clean by everyone, so we could usually get it all done before lunch.

“My poker face?” I asked as I sipped my tea, Stef sipping the first of the two espressos she was allowed per day, both of which were to be taken by 4pm; Mum’s rules. I was allowed three teas to Stef’s two coffees, Mum decreeing there was less caffeine in tea than coffee. If either of us opted for a fruit tea we were allowed more, but fruit teas? Who drinks those on purpose?

Stef grinned. “Well I guess we’ll need to find out some day, and today’s as good a day as any.”

“Okay, I’ll try,” I said as I tried to blank my face as much as possible.

Stef laughed. “Maybe just go for ‘not reacting’?”

“That bad?”

“That bad.”

I relaxed my face, and Stef smiled to let me know I looked more like normal again.

“So, your Whatchamacallit?” Stef began. “I owe you an apology, Luke. You were right, it is some kind of a come counter, or a climax computer, or a masturbation measurer, or a... something sexy detector.”

I chuckled. “Nice list, Sis, but, uhm... what?”

Stef put her cup down. “I know what I said, that there was no way it was doing what you said it was doing, but, well, it is. I take it you noticed how Mum was in such a good mood this morning, Dad too?”

I thought about it for a moment. It wasn’t that they were dour or dull or grim or anything like that – far from it, as the ‘tongues’ remark horrifyingly proved – but Stef was right. “They did seem, not happier, but maybe lighter in mood, if that makes sense? Mum was teasing all of us, a lot.”

“She was, and we’ll come back to that later, but for now, have a think, Luke. Why might Mum be happy, in the morning, and Dad be happy, also in the morning?”

The penny took a moment before it fell. “How should I know... oh God ... please tell me they weren’t?”

Stef nodded. “Sorry, Babes, but not only yes were they, but Dad was inspired last night. I don’t know what was going on, but I could hear them talking for a long time. I couldn’t tell what it was about, but it was loud enough I couldn’t settle. You know, like a conversation you can’t hear, but you can’t stop trying to listen in on? Anyway, I was just looking at my alarm to see what time it was, and it was almost midnight, and that’s when they stopped talking and the jazz started. This wasn’t Mr. Krupa but one of their quieter tracks that builds up, and after that one was done they kept on going for another two tracks. Luke, they were ‘listening to jazz’ for almost half an hour before they went to sleep!”