Miles in the Woods

Word of the Day

orotund \OR-uh-tuhnd\, adjective:
1. Characterized by fullness, clarity, strength, and smoothness of sound. 2. Pompous; bombastic.

Miles in the Woods

Halfway through their third bottle of Blue Nun, Odie and James became increasingly orotund. The object of their superciliousness, Miles, sat indignantly on the rotted stump of the old pine tree as the pair shared lusty swigs off the amber bottle and belched sweet wine. The old boys bellowed on about his seeming inability to seduce the luscious Reba Mae, increasingly pleased with themselves as they alternately guffawed and passed gas. Between his curly red hair and pasty goateed face and his gangly six-foot frame and size thirteen wing-tips, it was unclear exactly which part of him was least disagreeable, the boys howled, and their voices carried all the way to the next campground where the girls sat in a huddle, demurely swatting horseflies and quaffing their sloe gin fizzes. Finally, exasperated, Miles stood up and stiffly walked across the wooded lot, past the Happy Camper trailhead that demarcated the injuns’ side from the squaws’ side, to where the ample-breasted Reba reclined coyly, cross-legged in her aluminum folding chair. The girls giggled shrilly and one of them, maybe Angela Rose but he couldn’t tell for sure, flat out snorted. Frozen in fear, Miles inelegantly found himself unable to remove his gape from the woman’s bursting cleavage. He watched, spellbound, as her garishly red lips parted slowly in a wide grin, revealing too many teeth and a big gap in the shape of an upside-down V between the two front ones. He jammed his hands deeper into the pockets of his khaki chinos, opening his mouth in a faltering stutter. And that was it. That was how they came to be Mister and Missus Miles Swindish some forty-odd years and seven children ago Reba Mae thought absent-mindedly, as she adjusted the strap of her Wonderbra and lifted the swizzle stick out of her twenty-ounce Dixie cup, upending it with a swift, well-practiced motion.