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Rewind

I.

The Salvation Army disappointed me. Their lack of selection in the technology section surprised me; normally the after-Christmas season brought old equipment to the donation center, junked as soon as loved ones unwrapped brand-new DVD players and widescreen televisions. I walked up and down the row eleven times, then finally had to admit the obvious: there was only one VCR.

I bought it. The box was oversized, my arms wrapped around access plastic as I carried it from my car to the apartment, reminding me that the great advancement of our day is the shrinking sizes of upgrades. I surveyed the damage in the living room before hooking the wires to my roommate’s old black and white. It had been poorly used, beat up in places, and cleaned with dust. I paused to run a cloth over its broad surface, making the worn and barely legible chrome buttons clatter. The rag barely helped, but I wasn’t in the mood to do the job right.

After fumbling with both ancient relics, I managed to connect the right wires and jam my new purchase into the appropriate cubbyhole in a second-hand entertainment center. Thrusting our only video into its mouth and plopping on the couch, I found myself groping for the remote before I realized the hilarity of the idea. I had to manually turn the dial on the television set, waking it with a loud pop, and then flip the switch to 3. I pushed play on the machine below and sat back to watch the snowstorm.

“She forgot to rewind it,” I rolled my eyes after waiting five minutes for nothing to happen.

I stood again to press my commands into the black face. A whirring sound briefly issued from the gears, then ceased.

“Piece of junk,” I muttered. “So it’s rewound. Play!”

But when I looked up at the TV, it was dark. It popped on immediately with a twist to the knob, still displaying fuzzy channel 2. Making matters worse, I noticed the wires I had attached lying limp and loose on the carpet, somehow come undone.

Throwing up my hands, I returned to the couch with a headache. I sat on the video I was sure still set in the demented VCR.

“What’s wrong?” Marcy walked into the room, apparently hearing my cry of surprise. Her arms were piled with groceries on the way to the kitchen. “Oh! A player! Now we can borrow some library videos.”

“If it will actually play them,” I said, on my knees again, reconnecting the wires. “It appears to have issues.”

“Maybe we can get my dad to look at it when he comes with the rest of my stuff,” I heard her muffled voice in the next room, followed by the rapid succession of a scream, thump, and crash of breaking glass.

“Marcy! Are you okay?” I hollered, shoving the VCR back into place and hurrying to the scene. She was slowly getting up from the tile floor, the paper bag belching broken jam jars and bags of crushed bread.

“Is that yours?” she grunted, pointing at the banana peel.

My eyes widened. “They really work!”

She punched me in the stomach. “Why don’t you pick up your mess when you miss the garbage? You know how expensive all this was? We were going to live off peanut butter and jelly for a month.” Pointing out the green ooze seeping from the bag, she added, “I even splurged and bought your favorite soda.”

“Drat!” I stomped back to the entertainment center. I replaced the video and tried to rewind it. Again, it whirred for a moment, and then stopped.

“What’s wrong?” Marcy walked into the room, apparently hearing my groan of dismay. She was loaded with an identical bag of groceries. “Oh! A player! Now we can borrow some library videos.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said crossly. “How many groceries did you buy, anyway?”

“Just this bag,” she said over her shoulder. “Enough peanut butter and jelly to last for a month!”

My head snapped up. “Watch out for the banana peel!”

“Oh. Thanks,” I heard. “Why don’t you pick up your mess when you miss the garbage?”

“I know, I know,” I muttered. I pressed rewind again, stopping it after a second.

“Oh. Thanks,” Marcy was saying. “Why don’t you pick up your mess when you miss the garbage?”

“Whoa,” I answered.

II.

Choose the blue one!

The glowing sticky note covered my alarm clock, concealing the hour. I squinted at my own handwriting, proclaiming those scribbled words I never recalled composing.

Ripping the paper from the face, I saw that a couple minutes would start the radio station blaring. Quickly switching the alarm mode off, I crawled out of bed and tossed the note into the trash.

Sleepily going through my morning routine, I barely looked up as Marcy entered the kitchen. The pounding of the cereal against the ancient china bowl drowned out her voice, forcing her to repeat herself.

“Which should I wear today?” she said anxiously, holding up two business outfits, still on their plastic hangers.

“Why does it matter?” I asked, tossing the milk back into the refrigerator.

Marcy groaned, almost letting her clothes touch the floor. “My big interview is today! You know how important this is!”

I was about to tell her that what she wore wasn’t important, but then I did a double take. The choice was between a light-colored dress shirt and skirt and a deep blue blazer with slacks.

“The blue one,” I said.

At work, I found a similar note stuck to my computer. I frowned; the sentence made no sense without a context. Stuffing it in my pocket, I switched on the monitor and checked my email. I groaned. My boss still didn’t like my wording in the latest mass letter I composed.

Rereading the section she marked as “needing work,” I felt my brain slowly leaking out of my ear. I’d worked and reworked this supposedly simple notice, but there was always something wrong. I had no more inspiration.

I was most appreciative when the lunch hour came around and Bobby, whose turn it was to buy, stopped by my desk with a stack of styrofoam take-out boxes in various colors.

“Chinese choose-a-color day!” Bobby grinned at me, and I couldn’t help noticing that his blonde hair and gut needing a trim again.

“Like the special lunch surprise in high school.” I groaned good-naturedly. “I bet they just scrape all their leftovers in boxes and save them throughout the week for you.”

“Why else would I get such a good deal?” Bobby said with a straight face. “Now, what color will it be?”

I reached for the yellow container on the top of his stack, but then I caught sight of the one on the bottom. “Blue,” I said.

“Trying to be difficult today?” Bobby struggled to set the boxes on my desk without dropping any, clamping his chin firmly on top. Then he lifted them carefully again, leaving the blue behind.

A crash from behind made both our heads turn. A clumsy new intern had upset a tall pile of empty boxes, knocking a woman’s steaming coffee from her hand. She was not to be consoled by the boy’s apologies, obviously upset that she was now wearing her beverage.

“Hey, that could have been me,” Bobby observed, whisking off to serve his next victim.

“Marcy!” I jumped up, grabbing some tissues off my desk.

She was trying not to cry as I hurried forward.

“I wanted to say hi before I went in to the interview,” she choked as I helped her dab the cloth. “He asked for a few extra minutes with his secretary, so I thought I could get something to drink. Now look at the mess I made!”

“That’s okay, it was probably sitting in the pot since six this morning,” I said, pulling her into my cubicle for more tissues.

“Lucky I wore something dark today,” Marcy observed, calming. “I can hardly tell anything happened.”

“Looks good,” I agreed. “You’ll be okay?”

“Yeah; I better get going.” She flashed a smile and a hand of crossed fingers.

Turning back to my lunch, I cautiously lifted the lid and peered inside: chicken and rice. Taking a chopstick-full tentatively, I tasted a chunk of the meat. It was surprisingly edible.

Sitting back to enjoy my food, I remembered the note in my pocket. I reread my own distinct scrawl, almost illegible to everyone else.

We desire to call to attention the members of our constituency, as this is a momentous occasion…

A sentence for my letter! I switched my screen back to the document from a game of cards with a flick of alt-tab. After inserting the new words over the notoriously debated text, I was pleased with the finished product. I saved the letter and, for the seventh time, sent the modified file.

The take-out container emptily resting in the wastebasket, I began exploring the files for information pertaining to the next project. My boss, Sharon, stepped in, interrupting my search.

“I see you were doing some work during lunch,” she said, making me jump. She was holding printed pages in her gnarled, sharp-nailed hands. With her hair always perfectly in place and dated and prim clothing, she always gave me the impression of a mummified poodle.

“Yeah, I was having trouble with the letter all morning,” I stammered.

“I appreciate your dedication,” Sharon smiled, her wrinkles increasing. “I couldn’t have fixed the problem better myself, as I was about to do before I received your email. I wanted to tell you in person that the letters are printing off now. Good work.”

I had to clear my throat. “Thanks.”

She turned to go, then stopped. “Oh, one other thing. There was a shipment of sticky notes today, multiple colors and all that. There’s plenty of extras if you’d like some.”

“Are there any blue?” I smiled.

III.

I had written notes to myself everywhere. Seemingly, the “me” who lived this day previously didn’t trust the present “me” to make my own decisions. My alarm clock was covered again to command me to wear a certain pair of shoes, and another suggested I actually wear them around the apartment. I opened the cabinet to pull out my favorite cereal, but a blue note stuck to the side warned, NO.

Marcy came in as I scanned the refrigerator, looking for any notes of approval on the food. “I hope you haven’t eaten anything,” she said, shutting the cabinet door I left ajar and pulling a bowl out of another. “I’m making waffles.”

“Oh, good.” I let the fridge swing shut.

“Get the milk while you’re at it.”

I turned to open the door again, then saw my note near the handle: Spoiled. Sure enough, the smell of dirt and rot issued from under the milk cap when I took a sniff. “Spoiled,” I told her. “Good thing I didn’t try eating cereal this morning! I never smell the milk.”

“Then how do you know it’s spoiled?” Marcy took the jug and put her small nose to the opening. Her face screwed up in distaste. “No waffles today.”

Moving quickly to dump the mess down the drain, Marcy knocked the glass mixing bowl from the counter onto the floor, shattering on top of my feet with the sound of a million dying bells. We gasped, staring at the entity that was once a bowl, now morphed into very many unfriendly, pointy objects.

“Are you okay?” Marcy said worriedly.

“Yeah, I’m wearing shoes,” I pointed out. “Why don’t you step out so you don’t get cut? I’ll take care of it.”

“What about breakfast?” she asked, picking her way carefully out of the room. Some of the shards made it all the way to the carpet in the hallway.

“Toast and jelly?” I suggested, grabbing some strawberry jelly from the refrigerator door.

She pointed out the bread on the counter, yawning. “I’m going back to bed. I probably should never have gotten up in the first place. Have a good day at work.”

“What? You don’t have to be anywhere?”

“No, I was just practicing being responsible. I don’t like it much. Goodnight.”

I let out a puff of quiet laughter, the sound of crunching glass under my shoes as I turned to pop a couple slices of bread in my mom’s old yellow toaster. Blinking, I saw yet another note covering the toasting slots: Fire!

I arrived at work, breakfastless.

Suspiciously, I scanned my desk before I sat. No sticky notes.

“Hey, is this yours?” Bobby’s voice startled me. I turned to see him waving a small square of blue paper at me. “I found it by the coffee pot.”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, catching a glimpse of my messy handwriting.

“Thanks for the warning. Bad things would have happened if someone tried turning it on this morning.” He winked and left, taking the paper with him. I shivered.

Turning back to my computer, I hoped for something to tell me what to do next. Perhaps my next assignment already completed? A hint at how to avoid the next disaster of the day? I raked the room with my eyes, trying to imagine where I would leave a note if I were myself. Which, ironically, I was.

After hunting for a half hour and coming up with nothing but a few bent paperclips, I returned, disappointed, to the information I pulled the day before.

After a sadly uneventful day, littered with no more pieces of paper, I drove back to the flat. Marcy greeted me with a snarl.

“What’s this?” She held a sticky note under my nose.

I read my own scribble easily, without squinting: NO.

“Where did you find it?” I asked anxiously, wondering what else I had warned myself about.

“The cereal.” Marcy was glaring.

“Oh!” I laughed in relief. “That’s all.”

“That’s all? I’m the one who shops for the food, and now you’re writing notes to say what I can and can’t eat?”

“No, that’s not it at all—” I tried to explain.

“You’re going to deny it?” she shouted. “I guess you can find yourself a new roommate! I don’t have to put up with this! You even put a note on the fridge to say the milk was spoiled! Well, duh, I was here this morning! I’m not stupid.”

“Marcy, they’re old notes! They were meant for me,” I said, trying to stay calm.

“Right they were! Just like the ones I’ve been finding all over the apartment!” She whipped another note out of her pocket. “Don’t step on the kitchen rug? I thought you said you were going to clean all the glass before you left! Instead, you’re writing notes? And this one: Remind Marcy that she can’t use the VCR. So you think you’re allowed to use my TV if I can’t use your VCR? Think again!”

“But it’s broken,” I said, finally getting a word in edgewise.

“Right!” She spun out of the room on her heels. “You’re always turning it off when I come around!”

Alone in the living room now, I noticed that the black and white set was missing. The VCR caught my eye, appearing innocent and ordinary. I advanced and looked closer. The unit was as dusty as before, except for the well-polished rewind button.

BANG! I jumped to my feet and turned to see Marcy flinging her suitcases out the front door. She’d obviously been packing ever since she discovered the offensive sticky notes.

“I’m sure you’ll have no problem finding someone to put up with you and clean after you and buy your food and pay half the rent!” she growled, looking disappointed to cut short her string of conjunctions. “You… you self-centered moron! I can’t believe I ever thought you were my friend!”

The door banged shut.

I stood frozen for a moment, then my eyes returned to the dusty machine. “I just have to redo this day, that’s all,” I muttered. My hand brushed over the top of the VCR, catching on a piece of paper.

It didn’t work. Go back to Saturday.

I sighed.



IV.

I woke in the morning, finding that a glowing sticky note covered my alarm clock, concealing the hour. I squinted at my own handwriting; I didn’t remember writing anything the night before.

I groaned, rolling over. It was Saturday; I didn’t have to get up.

“Oh, yeah. The Salvation Army,” I mumbled. Sitting up, I looked at the note again.

Skip the VCR. It’s a dumb movie anyway.

“True,” I mumbled, flopping back into bed.

I didn’t wake again until Marcy’s muffled voice called me from the kitchen, followed by the rapid succession of a scream, thump, and crash of breaking glass.

“Is that banana peel yours?” I heard her holler. “Why don’t you pick up your mess when you miss the garbage?”

Somehow, I knew everything was as it should be.

©2004 amandajohns