YES, I AM STILL HERE looking out my window on Main Street, and I am still in shock from something that happened Monday morning which, if you will remember, was sorta cold.
As usual, I was dressed for Arkansas noon in May, meaning I was in t-shirt and shorts because I was fairly sure the air temp would be hovering near the high 80s later. At 7:30 a.m. in the Walmart parking lot it was, naturally, in the lows 50s.
I did two things.
#1. Something I had NEVER done before; and
#2. Something I had only done TWICE before.
Let me explain #2 first. I’m pretty careful about locking my buggy when I leave it. At the same time, I’m pretty careful NOT to lock the keys inside. Only done it twice, and both times I was able to call friends for a ride back to my house to get a spare key. Knock on wood.
“Oh, no,” I moaned, “I’ve locked my keys in the buggy.” There might have been some coarse language involved.
This time, however, I couldn’t reach either of the persons who had rescued me before.
So, I called the police station and begged for an officer to give me a ride back to get the spare key. “Will I have to ride in the back seat and be handcuffed?”
Did I tell you that I had lots of frozen items from the early shopping excursion? I placed them in the bed of my pickup and hoped nothing would thaw before my ride came.
Now, to explain #2 and how it relates to my predicament.
I have been driving for more than 60 years. In this time I have always — ALWAYS — put the car keys in my left front pocket. Here’s why: If I’m leaving the grocery (or package) store, I carry the sack in my right hand, therefore my left hand is free for reaching and grabbing keys.
But because I was still worried that the Chinese rocket would fall on the M&Ms Peanut factory, I stoopidly must have put the keys in my BACK pocket. This is something I’ve never done before. Ever!
I tried to stop the cops from coming, but I’m not sure they got the message. The radio dispatcher might have had a hard time grasping the concept of buggy keys being in the back pocket. And this was explained through the chattering teeth of a senior citizen.
I headed home.
I got the frozen items home before they thawed, and I spent the rest of the day dodging cop cars in case they were miffed that I wasn’t waiting on Row 6 by the time they got there.
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THE GOOD EARTH. The smell of honeysuckle is heavenly, but the smell of honeysuckle combined with the smell of privet is too much. Maybe it’s because I hate privet.
A friend of mine — a retired schoolmarm — always says: “It smells like the end of school.”
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HEARD FROM. Lynn Ramage Schaefer, a former ‘Nashville News’ intern and former editor of the NHS “Tattler,” and now Senior Lecturer of the Intensive English Program at UCA, has her own Roomba story. She and her husband woke in the middle of the night to hear someone talking quite loudly in their house. After they argued to see which spouse would get up to confront the bloodthirsty intruder, Lynn followed the sound to a closet. She opened the door, and it was Roomba who was announcing it had not ‘docked’ correctly.
Lynn sez she and hubby named their Roomba ‘Romulus’ because it would occasionally nestle up to their legs like their cat, Remus. Lynn adds that Remus has NEVER left anything on the carpet like Hers#2 (a cat belonging to the wife of a friend) did in a previous Mine Creek column.
Lynn also sez she’s close to retirement. Impossible.
Only college perfessers would have a cat and an automatic vacuum cleaner named after the pre-Roman mythological twins that were nursed by a she-wolf. If that mythology tale foretells reality, the vac eventually kills the cat. Not a bad idea if Remus the Cat left hairballs like Hers#2 did.
I truly hate getting fixated on cats. And on mythical Roman twins named Romulus and Remus.
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THINGS I LEARNED from opening an email: Why do we wash BATH TOWELS – aren’t we clean when we use them?
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ANIMAL CRACKERS. My Bluebird observing friend Mark Pack says that he ‘has’ lots of birds that are close relatives of Bluebirds, but no Bluebirds.
I haven’t seen any since the scouts came through before the Deep Freeze.
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WORD GAMES. The twins: Slipping and Sliding. Totally out of control, aren’t they? They rode to stardom in a song by Simon and Garfunkle. Some of you won’t understand that comment.
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HE SAID: “True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.” novelist Kurt Vonnegut
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SHE SAID: “History is watching. Our children are watching. We must be brave enough to defend the basic principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process. I am committed to doing that, no matter what the short-term political consequences might be.” U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (R) Wyoming
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SWEET DREAMS, Baby
