A Proof in Shakes

Sometime Tuesday Morning...

I made a girl laugh at IKEA.

My brother and sister were looking for a bunk bed which prompted the girl in the blue-striped, yellow IKEA shirt to ask them, “Is it for you two?” 

They said no. It’s for the youngins. 

The girl added, “Okay, because it’s not shake-proof.”

My brother and I turned suspicious eyes to each other, both thinking “shake-proof” was in reference to breaking beds as result of an at times vigorous adult act. He made a “yeah sex” comment under his breath as I quickly contributed the thought (replete with horizontal left-fist pumping forward action)... 

“Stress--from intercourse?”

A boisterous laugh confettied from the right whose origin evaded me because I was looking at my brother as the words and fist floated in their finish, both our smirks a-match as we stood sympatico on the silliness of the idea. My sister as cool spectator to this makeshift Swedish furniture flat pack store stage act (For One Day ONLY!!) then proclaimed in a voice I heard sweep through ever so clear, “Ahh she laughed!” and I looked to the girl in the IKEA shirt, from whom emitted that lustrous audible energy to the right of me, now at this point a full-turn away, stepping away, in view the rear of her shapely form somehow revealing ever more so her still-coming state in hysterics; a proof in shakes.

Oh how good that was!

I walked away soon after, leaving brother and sister to continue business with the owner of that heartfelt laugh. I walked away because I got anxious about who I am--stranger in a stranger hat--in front of this outstanding woman and dared not my deficiencies be known, sickly shadows as they are, to her fine light.

But you know what?

I made a girl laugh at IKEA.

I, however momentary, however fleeting a fresh breeze too soon gone by, was the reason for a woman’s smile.

And to see such beauty in bloom?

Today was a good day.