Please Be Careful...

Do you remember me telling you all about the hidey-hole? Sure you do. We talked about it over cocktails last month sometime. Don't you remember? Come on. Put on your thinking cap and try to remember it. It was a nice conversation, as conversations go. We had cocktails, and you did that thing with the stem of a maraschino cherry.

You must remember it.

Here, let me get this IV going. Give me your arm. The other arm. Okay. Thank you. This medicine that I will introduce into your system will help you remember how I told you all about the hidey-hole. The medicine will feel a little cool as it enters your vein. Okay, maybe cold. Or rather, ice cold. All right, I'm sorry. It is actually painfully cold, isn't it? Well, you will warm up in a second.

There you go.

How are you feeling? You look pretty good. You look a lot better than Chaz over there. Chaz looks downright nauseous. He always gets that way when he has the IV going. Yes, it is the same medicine that you are getting. You look a lot better than Chaz does, though. What's that? You feel nauseous? That's okay. You look good, though.

Now then, tell me about the hidey-hole. Do you remember where I said it was? Do you remember how deep it is? Do you remember what I put in the hidey-hole? Let me show you this picture. Yes, that would be a picture of what we put down the hidey-hole. It looks bigger in person, though.

Oops. Let me get you a bucket.

There you go.

So you remember it, don't you? Of course you do. And you had your hand down the hidey-hole, didn't you? Sometimes people lose fingers when they put their hands into hidey-holes, so you should be very careful. Oh, it wasn't your hand? Yes, of course. You stepped into the hidey-hole. Well, that can be even more dangerous. Just imagine what you could step on. Make sure that you wear big, heavy boots with protective soles if you go stepping into hidey-holes in the future, okay?

But don't go stepping into hidey-holes, okay?

There, now. The IV is all done. You've done a fine job of remembering. Chaz? Oh, don't worry about Chaz. They always have to carry him away like that. The body bag? He just likes the secure feeling that it gives. Pay no attention to it. He's fine.

Here's a maraschino cherry. Can you do that thing with the stem again?

"Limping Through the Charleston" -or- "If This is St. Petersburg, Then Where Are All the Liposuction Clinics?"

Little Danny DiBlasio (no relation to the Connecticut DiBlasios, the Kennebunk DiBlasios, or even the DiBlasios over on 83^rd Street whose old man was a dope pusher in his spare time) looked at himself in the big mirror that hung outside the county building. He smoothed his little cowlick with a little bit of spit in his palm, and gave thanks that it was not a larger and angrier cow that had got to him when he was born. That was, of course, the story he was told. Heck, we were all told that story – about how old Doc Needleheim (the OB-GYN man who delivered us – every stinkin' one of us, in fact) was also into animal husbandry (still punishable by dismemberment under the laws of several states), and how when we were being whelped, one of his bovine companions strolled into the delivery room. Just as we popped our little noggin out of the birth canal, old Bessie reached over with that big old tongue of hers and took a lick of our salty little melon, still dripping with the juices of the womb.

Did I mention that you might not want to read this while eating breakfast?

Anyhow, Bessie took a lick, and now we all have these ridiculous patches of our hair that will not sit still when we try to style them. Cow licks. Licks from a cow. Uggh. That is what little Danny DiBlasio tried smoothing down with a little spit as he looked into the big mirror that hung outside the county building.

Little Danny looked at his watch and realized that he was late for his appointment. He gave up on his hair and ran up the flight of stairs into the flag-monger's shop, taking the last three steps in a leap. He opened the door and stepped inside, just as his nostrils were met with the heady, intoxicating aroma of brand-new flags, fresh from the oven. He breathed deeply and urinated. Just a little bit though. Urinated, that is. He breathed deeply but urinated sparsely. I think you know what I'm talking about here.

Or do you?

The elderly woman behind the counter addressed little Danny DiBlasio ever so abruptly. She croaked some kind of words at him. They might have been Croatian – Danny was not completely sure. He nodded politely and tried to reply in the only semblance of a foreign language he could muster.

“Me have-o appointiamente con el anager-may of-o los flagoleo shoppo,” tried Danny. “Danke schoen, y muchas dinero, babycakes.”

The woman behind the counter stood up and broke wind. An uncomfortable silence ensued, which Danny tried to break by feigning a coughing and choking spasm. The woman quickly left the room and Danny thought that perhaps he should have feigned a seizure instead – that one works every time, he thought to himself.

In but a moment, the man that Danny knew as “Clubb-o” appeared behind the counter, twirling his mustache, which he kept in a small box. He looked at Danny, stroked his mustache twice, put it back in the box, snapped the cover shut and slid it into one of his trouser pockets. One must always keep one's mustache close at hand, you know.

“Forty-eight of them?” asked Clubb-o at long last.

“Forty-eight,” replied little Danny DiBlasio.

“I'll have them ready for you next Tuesday,” said Clubb-o, turning on his heel and disappearing into his shop.

“Thank you,” said to Danny DiBlasio to the thin air.

“No y problemas, tovarish. Ich habe ein oompa-loompa im mein hosen,” said the elderly woman – in flawlessly fluent Croatian.

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Keats? Or Keats?

There were no figs left in the parlor. Not a single one.

Trentwiler walked through the entire rectory, trying to find but a single fig, but he came up empty-handed. “Just my luck,” he said aloud, “just my rotten luck.”

He made his way out of doors and found his sedan parked where he had left it the night before, although it had changed color from coal-black to a rather cornflower blue shade with white trim and running boards. Trentwiler paused a moment. “Damned vandals,” he muttered as he opened the door and slid in behind the wheel.

Out of the driveway of the rectory and then down the road he raced, speeding toward the village. His only thoughts were of figs, which he knew were available at the greengrocer in Oneonta. Surprises abounded this morning, however, for as he rounded a bend in the road near the edge of a trout stream, a young woman appeared, standing ankle-deep in the water. Her hair was raven, interlaced with a small garland of flowers, and her eyes wept great drops of crimson, which traced lines down the milk-white skin of her cheeks.

Trentwiler slowed the sedan and came to a stop at the edge of the stream. He got out and walked to the edge of the water. The young woman looked as though she might have some information regarding figs, but he was scared to ask. He looked closely at her and suddenly recognized the mark upon her upper arm.

“Were we, in fact, butterflies?" he asked,  "In a dream?”

The young woman looked at him deeply. The shadows of oak leaves played upon the both of them. “Rather,” she said, in a voice so soft, “ask yourself, my love, 'whether you are not very cruel to have so entrammelled me, so destroyed my freedom'.”

Trentwiler held up a hand mirror to her face. The both of them turned into gossamer-winged monarchs, and the hand mirror splashed into the stream.

Another Casablanca

I looked down into the little hidey-hole and strained to see if the earlobe-shaped nugget of glass was still there. Every now and again you find nuggets such as this in a hidey-hole. I have every reason to believe you know exactly what I am talking about – don't try to tell me you don't.

Hidey-holes come in all shapes and sizes. Hidey-holes are often found on the side of small outcroppings of earth, specifically designed to harbor a hidey-hole. This one was no different.

I looked in, but I could not spy the earlobe-shaped nugget of glass. It was a nugget given to me by my boyhood hero, Great Uncle Adolf. Great Uncle Adolf collected glass nuggets, and he only rarely shared them with friends, family, and loved ones. I was apparently quite special, and as a favored great-nephew, I merited (it seemed) to be given a particularly heinous nugget. That is what Great Uncle Adolf called it, anyway – a “heinous nugget.”

I never figured that part out.

Sometimes, when you are given a “heinous nugget,” you go about and tell all the world of your windfall. Other times you are content to keep it to yourself, take large doses of painkillers, and dance a merry jig in the privacy of your own home. This had been my habit in the reception of every other heinous nugget I had been bequeathed – until this one. When I received the particularly heinous nugget from Great Uncle Adolf, I immediately went out to the small outcropping of earth near the truss factory behind my house, located the little hidey-hole, and placed the nugget there. I pressed my ear to the soil and listened to the “thrum-thrum-thrum” of the machinery deep within the bowels of earth mother.

“Thrum-thrum-thrum.”

But that was many, many years ago. And now, lo, these many, many years have passed, and the machinery deep within her bowels no longer makes the thrumming sound. My eyes are dim, and my own bowels make powerful churning noises. The meadowlark has flown well beyond the field of grey and oily corn.

And I cannot locate the earlobe-shaped nugget of glass. Not a single one of us could, who had ever been given a “heinous nugget”, and who did not keep it pressed within our sweaty little palm. When the machinery ceases to thrum, the hidey-holes no longer give up their treasure.

Go.

Go and learn what this means.

Change the Channel

Now, I would have liked to think that the old miser, when he died, would have stopped muttering, but it just wasn't in the cards. Do you know how it is? An old miser gives up the ghost and just keeps muttering on and on about whatever it was that he was talking about just before he died. Yes, that is exactly what happened. I was there. I heard it.

We were taking down the Kwanzaa bush and Clinton's Comet had just finished streaking across the sky. Clinton's Comet is not nearly as well known as Halley's Comet, but it is really well-loved. Clinton's Comet is said to have a southern accent and a penchant for cigars, blue dresses, and plump interns (whatever that means). We watched as the comet disappeared in the western sky, just behind an In-N-Out Burger. People put down their double-doubles and wept as Clinton went down on the horizon.

Anyhow.

We got the Kwanzaa bush packed into Larry's Pinto and just then this old miser shuffled up to us, muttering something about textured vegetable protein (we knew he was a miser by the miser's union identification badge that he wore on his lanyard. Everyone wears a lanyard these days, don't they?). Larry offered to buy him a double-double (which contains absolutely NO textured vegetable protein, incidentally), but the old man shook his head and just kept muttering. Mutter, mutter, mutter. He muttered to the left. He muttered to the right. He muttered into the lapel of his second-hand Brooks Brothers suit. He removed his set of false teeth for a minute so that he would have an unobstructed path for swallowing his pride, and when he set the teeth down on the pavement they kept right on muttering by themselves. Larry expected them to chatter, he told me later, but they muttered – believe it or not.

Larry and I offered to give the man a ride somewhere in the Pinto, but he never answered. He went on to mutter something about the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Larry looked frustrated and a little perturbed. I was hungry, and got to thinking about the In-N-Out Burger. The old man was muttering about the advantages of pomade over hair oil. Then he muttered about Lyndon Baines Johnson. Then he muttered about Lady Bird Johnson. Then he muttered about Little Billy Johnson, Lithe Buttercup Johnson, Lisping Brony Johnson, and the 1963 New York Yankees. It was crazy.

I had said that the old miser gave up the ghost, and that is true. I made it sound as though it were a natural death, however. In reality, as the old miser continued to hold forth and began muttering about commemorative collectible porcelains, Larry blew a gasket and beat the old man senseless with a limb that had broken off of the Kwanzaa bush, had fallen into the gutter, and had gone unnoticed until now.

The bush-limb was made of light wire, interwoven with prickly plastic threads. It took Larry nearly a day and a half to beat the old miser to death with such a soft, light weapon.

Larry stood over the corpse, breathless. The old miser's teeth went right on muttering away about the low quality of Kwanzaa bushes these days.

“Come on, Larry,” I said, motioning to the Pinto. “Let's go get us a double-double.”

Larry just muttered something about the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

Do I Really Have to Explain It?

No Olive?

Have you looked at it recently? I mean really had a good look at it? It looks awful.

For a while it seemed to be just fine. It was rolling right along like a gentle stream (or a thundering herd of yaks with dysentery, depending on the day), and we all thought everything was just fine. When it got to looking a little weary, that nice old Slovak lady from down the street would wobble over with a basket full of those prune-filled pastries and pat it on the head. She would mutter something in Slovak, set the pastries down and wobble home. That brightened things right up. That did the trick.

Why wouldn't it?

But somewhere along the time that we had someone in charge who liked showing people the nasty scar from his operation, it started to shake and shimmy when people looked at it. I always thought that the shaking wasn't as bad as the shimmying, but everyone has his or her opinion on such things, I suppose. After a couple of decades of shaking and shimmying, the whole thing would stop for a bit, and then lurch off again, scaring everyone.

Last month, it was seen on a street corner in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Right there, between the smoke shop and the bordello. Was it a bordello? No, I think it was actually another smoke shop. Yeah, right between the two smoke shops. Well, to be accurate, I should say the two boarded-up smoke shops. Ever since smoking was made punishable by death by beheading, the smoke shops have been closing up left and right.

Anyhow.

There it was, crouching down low to the pavement, trying to stick something into one of its veins. It looked like hell, it really did, and I wanted to say something, or try to cheer it up, or sing it a little tune, or buy it a sandwich.

Anything.

It just isn't what it used to be, and no one seems to care. Well, there is a group of people in that one place, just over there – the group that keeps trying to organize a bake sale for its benefit. I think that they care. But not many other people care.

Do you?

Quietly, but with Vigor

Flag-bearing Benjer left the wingnut factory early that day, holding a pair of playing cards in his hand (and a little bit of insecurity in his heart). The streets were dark, and he made his way home with the help of a tiny little electric torch that he held between his teeth. Holding it in his teeth was his only option, you see, for his free hand was needed for swatting away the little blood-sucking drones that swarmed around his head.

There are always a few blood-sucking drones swarming around one's head, now, aren't there, poopsie-doodle? Sure there are.

The electric torch led our dear Benjer down a side street that he had not expected to traverse, and with great alarm, he watched rather passively and with horror as the torch led him through a tiny little door and into a dark, dusty shop that smelled of tamarinds, incense, and garlic.

“Poocha-hee!” exclaimed a small amber-skinned man from behind a counter. “Poocha-hee! You have nice electric torch!”

“I'ng sarry...I gnust av ade a rong urn,” said Benjer, the torch still between his teeth and his free hand still waving at the drones. He stopped waving and took the torch from his teeth. “I'm sorry...I must have made a wrong turn.”

“Kalla-longo! You in right place!” said the amber-skinned man. “You come to right place. I show you what you need!” He scurried out of sight, and into the back room. Benjer occupied himself with looking at a stack of old magazines from Indonesia. In less than a minute the amber-skinned man returned, carrying a dented and dusty cardboard box, no larger than a couple of loaves of bread.

Not bigger than a breadbox, you might be led to say.

“Squabbo!” exclaimed the amber-skinned man. “This what you need!”

He withdrew it from the box. It's surface was pitted, but still fairly shiny.

Benjer looked upon it with some fascination. “I never knew I needed one of THOSE,” he said. “How does it, ummm...how does it work?”

“Squabbo-licious!” said the amber-skinned man. “It no work at all. You just carry it. Just carry in pocket of oversized jacket, and let magic genies do work!”

Benjer frowned, for he had no oversized jacket to call his own. The amber-skinned man saw the sadness in his eyes, and had anticipated just such a reaction.

“Kalla-longo! I have jacket for you,” he said, as he helped Benjer into a dusty, oversized jacket. “You look like million bucks!” said the amber-skinned man, clapping his hands together. “Now to see if it fit in pocket!”

The amber-skinned man reached into the cardboard box again. He removed just what Benjer needed, its pitted but fairly shiny surface reflecting the dim lights of the shop.

“Well, it is quite lovely,” said Benjer, opening up the jacket front to reveal the large interior breast pocket. The amber-skinned man slipped it inside and closed Benjer's jacket. He patted him lightly on the chest and smiled.

“Rolla-rolla! Magic genies now do work. Magic genies keep you safe,” said the amber-skinned man.

“How much do I owe you?” asked Benjer, reaching for his wallet.

The amber-skinned man waved his hand. “You just go. You be careful now. You have big day tomorrow.”

Benjer smiled and bounded out of the shop with a new spring in his step. He began to cross the street and was hit by a speeding truck and killed instantly.

St. Wally of Hippo

I poked my head into that little space between the refrigerator and the wall, expecting to see some sort of a light shining from the electrical socket. You know how that is? Sometimes there is ectoplasmic luminescence pouring out of places where a wall is breached.

Just a word on that, however – when I say “breached,” I mean almost any sort of perforation or hole, mind you. It doesn't have to be the typical sort of what you might think of when you hear or read the word “breach.” Let me make that very clear. Ectoplasmic luminescence can come pouring out of the smallest little gap. This especially is the case when you are looking for it.

So I poked my head in there, expected light, and did not see any. I slumped to the floor and considered swallowing the rat poison. My great uncle, Lord Gadsden “Stonewall” Janikowski had become so desperate after losing the battle of Thorny Point (right after he lost the battle of the waistline), that he consumed nearly a half pound of rat poison. He chased it with a pint of Tennessee whiskey, however, so the poison had no effect. He woke up in a field hospital several weeks later and gave a field promotion to an orderly who was in the act of polishing his bedpan. The newly brevet-ed (is that a word) captain was quickly reassigned to a garrison hospital in a quiet sector, but unfortunately (and quite ironically) met his end when an errant mortar round from the tactical dance unit next door did him in while he was playing mah-jongg. It is always during a mah-jongg game. Let that be a lesson to all of us: don't play mah-jongg.

Where was I?

Oh yes. Years later, when Uncle Stonewall was an elderly man, I was sitting on his lap while he told me a story of how they had run the Yankees out of Chattanooga (odd, seeing as how he fought in the Korean War). He paused for a moment, and then looked me straight in the eye.

“Tommy,” he said, “don't ever eat freaking rat poison.”

I kept this bit of advice close to my heart for decades, so when I slumped to the floor and considered eating the rat poison in the little tiny box on the floor between the refrigerator and the wall, I immediately heard my uncle's voice.

“Tommy,” the voice said, “don't ever eat freaking rat poison.”

I had found the ectoplasmic luminescence I was looking for, after all.

(Author's note: the bit about Tennessee whiskey negating the effects of rat poison is purely fiction. Tennessee whiskey does not make rat poison safe to ingest. Thank you.)

On a Tuesday, for a Dirt Farmer

A long time ago, just after Terrence's mom told him to lay off the rot-gut, there was a loud noise in Haverland. Folks out that way talked about it for weeks afterward, and they all just called it “the loud noise.” No one was ever quite sure what it was, but there was Danner, the crazy old guy who used to sit around the post office and pick at the scabs on his knee, he said it was a sign of the end times. I wasn't sure what he meant, but he said it real low and spooky-like, so I took him seriously.

Maybe others did, too.

Anyhow, there was a man that some said was from the government. That man came out there to Haverland, and I mean to tell you, he got folks all riled up. They were worried, and rightly so. The last time we had a g-man come to visit Crawford County, it was on account of that Sweetwater kid getting killed out on the Rural Route outside of Blanchers. Nobody wanted to be reminded of that, and no one wanted to talk to the man with the bad hairpiece and breath like mothballs.

So when the loud noise was still in everyone's minds, this g-man showed up. This one didn't have a hairpiece, and his breath wasn't near so much like mothballs, but still no one wanted to talk to him. That was okay, seeing as how he mostly just drove around to the hog containment facilities and spent the rest of his time scribbling in a notebook.

On the day that he was out near Pole Creek, on some land owned by Sheriff Morgan, he got to taking pictures of that anhydrous shed – the one next to where the Staley family had their pea fields. Sheriff Morgan showed up in his cruiser, and the two men went inside for a long time. I know this on account of I know Jason Staley and he was working the fields that day and told me all about it.

Jason said there was some shouting and the government man came out of the shed, got into his car and pulled away, throwing a ton of gravel in the air. Sid Morgan came out later, looked around, scratched his crotch, and got into his car. Jason said he was on his phone for almost half an hour before he drove away. Jason went on in for supper after that.

Well, two weeks after the loud noise, that anhydrous shed went up in flames, and then, of course, that same week was the week that Yorkie Daniel's son Digger was found hanging from the hayloft in the Daniel's barn. No one was sure what had been eating Digger enough to make him want to take his own life in such a way, but who knows what people think? Some said that Digger had been shot in the back of the head as well as hung, and that sure is a strange way to off yourself. Sheriff Morgan called it suicide, though, so there you have it.

There you have it.

I walked to the post office in Haverland just yesterday, and there was Danner again, that old crazy guy, his eyes flittin' around.

“It's the end times,” he said again, some spit coming out of his mouth and hanging loose on his lower lip. “The end times, I tell you.”

I guess for some it might be, I thought to myself.

For some it might be.

In the Succulent Summertime

I never really told you about Charles and Mindy, I am sure of that. You know the old saw about them opening a drive-in hardware store, and the hilarity that resulted. Anyone and his brother (or sister) could now just drive right down the street to “C&M's Hardware-a-Go-Go” and get a packet of washers or bolts or some damned thing. They really had damned things in the store, mind you – actual cursed or anathematized bits of hardware. My uncle Bert (the one with the yellow skin and five-pack-a-day habit) had once purchased some heretical drywall anchors there.

Amazing.

Anyhow, Charles and Mindy were both from the south side of Milwaukee (not entirely unlike myself and much of my kin), and they spoke with a definite accent. They hardened their “th”s and employed long vowel sounds where none was required. Sometimes they would say “oh ya den.” No one paid much attention to them in Milwaukee, of course, as everyone spoke that way there. It was not until they moved to Davenport, Iowa, that the trouble began.

Now, on a curious note, my own wife and I also live in Davenport, and we, like Charles and Mindy, moved here from Wisconsin. Not directly from Wisconsin, mind you, but you get the idea. Stick that in your personal vaporizer and inhale it. Davenport is known far and wide for being an inclusive community – we allow Germans, Burmese, and Belgians to coexist peacefully and all have an equal shot at happiness and at winning the Iowa lottery. Check me on that, if you like – it's true. The one thing that Davenporters will not allow is the illicit carrying of non-clear glass recyclables across state lines into the Scott County recycling facility (I made this up, actually, in vain hope of it having something to do with the story).

Badda bing. Case closed. On a bright June day Charles and Mindy were nailed on charges of aiding and abetting a resident of Illinois in his attempt to flee the oppressive Rock Island County recycling laws. Illinois State Police as well as the Scott County Sheriff conducted a raid on “C&M's Hardware-a-Go-Go” and exposed Charles and Mindy's little game.

“Aha,” said the burly Illinois trooper, “we have exposed your little game.”

Charles and Mindy were given a one year suspension of their Scott County passports, and for the next twelve months commuted from a rented apartment in Muscatine.

When the suspension was finally ended, the two of them drove back to their home in the East Village. A tear came to Charles' eye. His left eye. It was due to the wind, as he was driving. Please do not think that he was getting sentimental or anything.

Thank you.

“Sometimes,” said Charles over the sound of jackhammers tearing up River Drive, “having your little game exposed is the best thing that can happen.”

“Keep your eye on road,” said Mindy, “you nearly hit that street mime.”

A lot can change in twelve months, they realized.

It was with the heaviest heart that I had to bid farewell to my cousin Denise this past Friday.  My cousin, my dear friend, my poetry collaborator, and the sister I never had departed this earth in the early morning hours.

The world is a colder and darker place, suddenly.

I will be reposting some of Denise's work on our poetry blog "the lost beat" for a while, and her husband Todd is going to try to get me some of her latest poems, and I will be sure to publish them as soon as we can.  She had a couple of notebooks full of new poetry, and was writing in the hospital right up to the end.

Please keep her dear, loving, and devoted husband Todd in your prayers.  Her funeral will be this Thursday in Racine, Wisconsin.  If you need information regarding time and place, please feel free to email me at martinipen@gmail.com  I will get back to you as soon as I can.

I am in agony over losing her.  I know that many of you loved her poetry, and more importantly, loved her. She was truly one of a kind, and one of the sweetest and most genuine human beings I have ever known.  Her poetry was wonderful, and as she told me just a short time ago, it seems, she had "not quite hit her stride yet" as a poet - it was only getting better.

I will have more information and reposts of her work on our blog, as well as links to her soundcloud account, where you can listen to her reading her own works.  A true treasure.

Please keep our family in your prayers, and please keep reading.  That is what Denise would like, I think I am safe in saying.

May her memory be eternal.

Size: Small

So I put on a funny little wool cap, made in Ireland. “Made in the shadow of the famous church in Cork,” the ancient label told me. I knew it was ancient because it was yellowed. Funny, really, how yellowed things look old. My uncle Bert was like that. Each individual part of his body, as it aged, turned yellow. First his fingertips, then his teeth, then his hair. Eventually his skin followed after. In retrospect, it may have had something to do with his five-pack-a-day habit and his six martini lunches. Who knows?

So the funny little cap is perched on my head, and it is just a little too tight for me. My wife says it looks good, but I am not too sure about that. She asked me if it helps me write, and I am not too sure about that, either. I am conscious of the fact that certain memories from previous wearers of this ancient cap are starting to wind their way into my synapses and likely will start to pour out into what ever it is that I happen to be writing. Luckily I am able to sort them out into different bins in my brain so that I do not get them confused with my own.

I just hate it when someone else's memories get intertwined with my own. It is kind of like when I was making that skillet full of colcannon over a peat fire last spring. Had I not been half in the bag from all the damn whiskey, I suppose the idea of introducing a wee bit of red potato into the mix would have seemed less reasonable. But there you are.

Hmm. That seems to have come out of nowhere. I have no idea what colcannon is, and I have never cooked over a peat fire. And furthermore, you all know where I stand on spirits. I stick with the clear variety, and let my brother Pat handle the whiskeys of all sorts.

Anywhow, the hat is warm and stylish, to say the least, even if it is a little too tight and beginning to cut off circulation to the top of my head. Might it impair the growth of hair on my scalp? I once had a barber (Steve was his name – he had to have gone a little over 20 stone, and he wore his trousers too tight and too short. It would scare passing neighborhood children.) who told me that the surest way to make yourself go bald was to wear tight hats and drink too much ditto fluid. A recipe for disaster, as they say in the welder's union.

My, but this hat is snappy. It reminds me of my old friend, Hugh (not his real name, so as to protect his innocence). Hugh lived in a city that shall remain nameless (so as to protect his innocence), and was slowly removing stones from a nearby abbey and creating a lovely grotto in his garden. It, too, was snappy, and it had already been graced with a visit from the Blessed Virgin Mary. One night after a long day of mortaring several dozen ill-gotten stones into place, Hugh was relaxing with a large tumbler full of his favorite whiskey and three or four Vicodin tablets. Lifting his head out of a big bucket of “Ready-Grotto Mortar Mix,” Hugh looked upon what he first thought to be his next door neighbor's wife, Triona. “Triona,” he said, raising his wobbly head, “sure'n yeh got a luffly jumper on, yeh do.”

The Blessed Virgin Mary told him to pray for peace, but Hugh never heard her say that, as he had passed out again and went face first into the Ready-Grotto. Mary rolled him out of it and made sure he was breathing freely before she got on her way back to Medjugorje. She was expected there and could not be held up by drunken grotto-makers.

Having now doffed my snappy woolen cap, I realize that I am about out of time, and I hope that this passionate little love story that I have told you was to your liking. Charles and Mindy lived happily ever after, and their drive-in hardware store was a great hit, bring them fame as well as income.

The end.