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| Noah's Ark Copyright, Teece Aronin |
Understandably, Aphra exclaimed that the flood was commencing, and since she happened to be the first to do so, God had to quickly shift gears so Noah wouldn't kill her. In God's plan, Aphra had to survive to help repopulate the earth post-flood.
So, I got to thinking: How might all this have gone down, and what gears might God have shifted to save Aphra from a terrible fate? Consider this possible scenario:
It's a hot, humid day and the forecast is calling for rain. Aphra stands in the kitchen about to take a loaf of bread from the oven. She is cranky, not only because it's hot, but because she's pregnant, has a headache, and the oven hasn't worked right for days.
But mostly, Aphra is cranky because her husband, Ham, and a bunch of kooks, specifically Ham's father and two brothers, are next door in the backyard - again - hammering away - still - and the father, the biggest kook in the bunch, is claiming he will save them all, plus a whole boatload of animals, from a flood. Now really, how asinine is that?
Young Aphra and Ham live next door to Ham's parents, Noah and Emzara, and this has been a sticking point for much of their marriage because Aphra detests the region's swampy summers. Noah and Emzara moved to this area, popular with seniors, when they retired, and Aphra resents Ham for dragging her here too. Ham exhibits an almost sappy adoration for his parents, but Aphra finds them intrusive and preachy. Today, every noisy smack from a hammer is making her resentment stronger and her headache thumpier. Some linguists believe that this is where the term "pounding headache" comes from.
Anyway, since construction began on that thing next door, Ham's two brothers and their wives have been staying with him and Aphra. And lately, animals have been brazenly strolling in from outside, putting their feet up on the furniture and smelling up the house.
Now Aphra stands in the kitchen, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. A cloth is tied around her hair to keep it out of her way but a loose, raven-colored lock has escaped the cloth to stick against the back of her sweaty neck.
She remembers what the locals say, that it isn't the heat, it's the humidity, and that's certainly the case today. The air is suffocating, and Aphra muses that one could practically drown just from breathing. She dismisses the thought as crazy. No one would be drowning around here anytime soon. And there wasn't going to be any stupid flood either. God, Noah was such a nut-ball.
With impulsive fury, Aphra goes to the kitchen window and yells in the direction of her in-laws' backyard. Immediately, all hammering halts, and every man freezes dead in his tracks, straining to hear. Ever since the ark, they've all been living in similar doghouses so this could have been the shriek of any one of their wives. As each man prays it isn't his, there comes another shout:
"Ham! I said, get your @$$ in here!"
With the exception of Ham, all the men sigh with relief, and construction resumes. Ham straightens and looks in the direction of his prize donkey grazing in their backyard. Why would Aphra want him to bring it in the house? Then the realization dawns: Ham is the @$$ his wife is yelling for.
A momentary sadness darkens Ham's gentle features. He is embarrassed by his wife's public use of coarse language. Would she kiss her mother with that mouth? And his own mother would never say such things. Still, Aphra is a sweet, good natured girl overall so he will overlook this one small flaw.
"Coming, honey!" he calls. "Be right back," Ham tells the others. Striving to be cheerful, Ham heads for home. But once in the house, he sees his wife's expression and all hope is dashed.
"What?" he asks.
"When are you going to realize that I matter more than that crackpot out there?" Aphra wants to know.
"Baby," Ham answers imploringly, "that's my dad. Please don't talk like that. He's been nothing but good to me all my life."
"Really? Then why did he name you Ham?" his wife shoots back. "You are named after the meat of an unclean beast. What kind of father names his son after something filthy and disgusting?"
Ham winces. He has wondered this himself. His parents are strict Jews. Why would his father have named him Ham? And even if the idea was his mother's, why would his father have allowed it?
"Well, I'm sure there was a good reason," says Ham. The defense is as weak as his manhood.
"Yeah, right!" his wife barks. "And here's another thing: I want you to stop messing around with that dumb boat!"
"Uh, actually honey, it's an ark," Ham corrects with instant regret.
"Alright - ARK!" Aphra roars like a pregnant, hormone-riddled fire-breathing dragon. "Do you have any idea how many things need fixing around here? Take that oven for instance! You've been promising to fix it for days, but no! The ARK comes first! You fix that oven and you fix it now!"
With that, Aphra yanks on the oven door and a huge rushing gush of water erupts from the opening, smacks into the couple's faces and soaks them before spilling to the floor.
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" Aphra yells, then wonders dimly who those people might be and why she would be yelling their names. "It's the . . ."
Knowing his father will kill the first person to announce the flood, Ham clamps a hand over his wife's mouth then tells Aphra for once in her life to just shut the #*?% up. And since he's on a roll, he tells her to lighten up on the G#??*&n swearing.
Ham lifts Aphra into his arms and hustles her over to his parents' backyard where everyone jumps aboard the freshly completed ark. Aphra looks embarrassed, and some linguists believe that this is where the term sheepish comes from.
"I'm sorry, Ham," she says. "You were right. There really is going to be a fl . . ."
Hams's hand shoots out like lightening to silence her again, accidentally bumping her head against a signpost pointing the way to Alligator Alley.
For some reason not clear to Aphra, seeing her bump her head makes her husband smile.
And some linguists believe that this is where the term happy accident comes from.
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