I Am a Nucleus

By STEPHEN BARR
Illustrated by GAUGHAN
No doubt whatever about it, I had the Indian sign on me ... my comfortably untidy world had suddenly turned into a monstrosity of order!
When I got home from the office, I was not so much tired as beaten down, but the effect is similar. I let myself into the apartment, which had an absentee-wife look, and took a cold shower. The present downtown temperature, according to the radio, was eighty-seven degrees, but according to my Greenwich Village thermometer, it was ninety-six. I got dressed and went into the living room, and wished ardently that my wife Molly were here to tell me why the whole place looked so woebegone.
What do they do, I asked myself, that I have left undone? I've vacuumed the carpet, I've dusted and I've straightened the cushions.... Ah! The ashtrays. I emptied them, washed them and put them back, but still the place looked wife-deserted.
It had been a bad day; I had forgotten to wind the alarm clock, so I'd had to hurry to make a story conference at one of the TV studios I write for. I didn't notice the impending rain storm and had no umbrella when I reached the sidewalk, to find myself confronted with an almost tropical downpour. I would have turned back, but a taxi came up and a woman got out, so I dashed through the rain and got in.
Madison and Fifty-fourth, I said.
Right, said the driver, and I heard the starter grind, and then go on grinding. After some futile efforts, he turned to me. Sorry, Mac. You'll have to find another cab. Good hunting.
If possible, it was raining still harder. I opened my newspaper over my hat and ran for the subway: three blocks. Whizzing traffic held me up at each crossing and I was soaked when I reached the platform, just in time to miss the local. After an abnormal delay, I got one which exactly missed the express at Fourteenth Street. The same thing happened at both ends of the crosstown shuttle, but I found the rain had stopped when I got out at Fifty-first and Lexington.