Albert woke early, before his alarm. “Ah, Saturday,” he sighed. “No work. No obligations. No nothing.” He rolled over and looked at his clock – a wooden-looking relic of the ‘80s with small buttons and switches, and large, green digital numbers. He wanted one with the flip numbers, but he couldn’t find one. Sometimes he set it so the radio woke him up, but he usually set it so that it started beeping softly and grew louder as time passed. His wife had hated the clock, mostly because it never woke him at the time he set it. It woke her at 6:45 every morning because he set the time 15 minutes ahead.

“Just set it for 8:30,” she’d say.

“But sometimes I have to get up early,” he responded.

She pointed out that he never got up early. And that was true. On weekends he rarely rose before 11:30 in the morning. But today was different. Today was a beach day.

He rolled onto his back, put one arm behind his head and absent mindedly rubbed his belly with the other as he stared at the ceiling. “Beach day!” he thought to himself. He got out of bed, considered making it, decided against it and walked out of the room.

He passed two large boxes in the living room and turned on the coffee maker in the kitchen. The boxes arrived earlier in the week, but he decided to wait until today to open them. “It really is Christmas in July!” he thought to himself, pouring his coffee into a blue mug and reaching for the sugar bowl. The bowl was empty, so he grabbed the ice cream from the freezer and added a scoop of vanilla to his cup. “Christmas in July!” he said aloud as he took his coffee into the living room.

Albert forgot to put his pants on when he got up (and he never closed the drapes) so his neighbors had a full view of him standing – clad only in green-and-orange-striped boxers – in his living room smiling broadly and toasting his coffee mug in the air. He looked at the boxes and decided to open the longer one first.

He stood it on end and let the contents slowing slide out: A Detectoramo 26,000. It was the most top-of-the-line, highest-quality metal detector on the market. Albert spent weeks reading about it before making the purchase. He put a pair of rechargeable batteries into the detector, turned it on and began sweeping his apartment. He loved the beeps it made. He removed the headphones from the box, plugged them into the detector and put them over his ears so he could get closer to the sound.

He swept the detector over the other box and listened to the beeps. He walked to the window and looked down the street to the beach, grinning excitedly. He had been waiting all summer to go. He didn’t notice that his neighbors were watching him.

Albert walked back to the box and swiped it again. He set down the metal detector, picked up the box and gave it a jiggle. The box was heavy, but he could hear its contents slide a little. He carefully opened the box, savoring the sounds of tape ripping apart. He removed the first item wrapped in brown shipping paper. “Christmas in July!” he said aloud.

He unrolled the paper from the item with the delicacy he would have used to handle a priceless piece of art. He removed a large metal hat. It had a flat top, a slit for eyes and a large cross embossed on the front. He put it on. The hat covered his head and neck completely. Albert removed the hat, placed it on the couch and continued unwrapping the contents of the box: a long shirt made of chain mail, breastplate, iron gloves, iron leg pieces and shoes, a sword and – the piece de resistance – a long white cape with a red cross.

He looked at his spoils and then began putting them on, starting with the chain mail. Albert decided that the shoes and gloves were too cumbersome to maneuver in, so he left them on the couch. He put on his white leather Adidas sneakers instead. He attached the cape to his suit, placed the helmet on his head and practiced walking in his living room. “Perfect fit!” he thought.

Albert stopped walking around and threw up an arm, “Who goes there?” he demanded. He liked the echo of his voice in the helmet. He went back to the window and looked out. His neighbors now saw a strange knight in his window, peering down the street. Albert picked up the metal detector and swiped it a few more times. He couldn’t hear the beeps through his helmet, so he took the helmet off, placed it back in the box and slipped the headphones over his ears. He also put on a pair of aviator sunglasses.

When he picked up his keys, he discovered a technical flaw in his plan: the armor suit didn’t have pockets. He looked in the box that the metal detector came in and found a pouch that could be attached to the detector’s handle. He attached it, put the keys inside and walked out to his front porch, locking the door behind him.

The neighbors watched in silence as Albert descended the stairs dressed as a knight wearing sneakers and began walking towards the beach. Some of them came out of the house to watch. Albert smiled and waved to the neighbors he knew, who waved back, not sure at all what to think.

At the beach, Albert wobbled unsteadily over the sand until he got his balance. He swiped at the sand with his metal detector, occasionally stopping to examine the source of a beep and placing it in his bag. He walked along the shoreline, where swimmers and surfers stopped what they were doing to watch him. He walked and swiped through the sunbather-strewn beach, occasionally asking someone if the object he found belonged to them, and always addressing them as “good man” or “good lady.”

Only one person asked what he was doing and why he was wearing the armor suit. “I’m celebrating Christmas in July, my good woman,” he responded before giving her a courteous bow and a wave of the hand. “It’s Christmas in July!” he said, and continued to walk and swipe the beach.

[Three Word Wednesday post using the words early, quality and jiggle.]