So glad you are feeling good! Me too!

The lesson in this article is not for everyone. If you believe that money is not important, or that it is evil even? Then bravo for you, says I! Move to a socialist country where the government will give you an apartment and a microwave, and hope they don’t euthanize you once they grow tired of giving to you, or once someone more oppressed needs that apartment worse. I assure you, there is a country just like that not very far away from where you currently reside.

Now then fellow capitalists, let’s get on with Money Management 101. I’ve heard it said that having money only amplifies what you already are. If you are good, money will help you do more good. If you are bad, it will allow you to do more bad.

So there is that. And with that said…

Anyone and everyone can have a million dollars. Here is how:

Spend less than you make.

Work longer, harder and smarter than those around you do, so that you will make even more money.

Hang around smart, hardworking people.

Do not borrow.

Invest what you can from every single paycheck, forever. Einstein called compound interest the greatest of mankind’s inventions. (For those unaware, Einstein was a really smart guy with a really big imagination.)

”But I can’t afford to get in the 401k at work,” you argue? “I live paycheck to paycheck!”

Then you always will live paycheck to paycheck, and you will never have a million dollars.

Smart people create good habits. Good habits create wealth.

Let’s take a minute to look at this big lottery number everyone is talking about, currently up to $1.7B:

Dave Ramsey (who, like Einstein is also probably smarter and richer than we are) says that, statistically speaking, “if you walk one mile to the store to buy a lottery ticket, you have a better chance during that one mile walk of getting hit by lightning… twice… than you do of purchasing the winning ticket when you get there. But if you invest $35 a week in mutual funds, ten reinvest all growth and dividends for thirty years, then you will have somewhere in the area of a million bucks at the end of that thirty years.… every… single… time.

So… if you choose to take that walk to the store for a lottery ticket… and if having money does, in fact, amplify what you already are… then I predict you will blow any winnings and die broke even if you do somehow miraculously buy that winning ticket. The old saying about a fool and his money has survived all these years for a reason.

Whereas if you choose to invest instead, if you learn to appreciate money and what it can do for you and those around you… well, for you I predict more riches than you will ever be able to spend, which is great news for you children, and your grandchildren, and your church, and your community, etc., and the gov’t. will never look to euthanize you and your large income tax contribution.

Thank you for your attention to this matter!

My name is Nigel Byrd, and I have a secret.

My troubles began sixteen years ago on a cold, December afternoon when a terrible, horrible prank was played on one of those unnaturally large and red-faced domestic ducks, the most aggressive one in fact, which held dominion over the pond in the park near my home. But it was not “really” a prank, what I did. I was immediately aware that it was not a prank, and that it was in fact of matter much darker, and I wished as I watched that I could take it back, but it was too late, wasn’t it? The ugly, mean bird had swallowed the bait.

So that you may get the gist of my meanness, I will confess the entire story. I was trying to feed bread to the smaller, seemingly more fragile wild ducks that day, but the red-faced devil was hogging it all, and not leaving a single bite for the poor mallards, so I had run all the way home in a fury, taken the Alka-Seltzer from the medicine cabinet, and hollered a blustery “nothing” to my mother’s astonished inquiry as I’d raced back out the door. Upon re-arrival at the pond the ducks had immediately and gleefully bee-lined back towards my shoreline in anticipation of more snacks, creating great V-s in their watery wakes; the ugly, red-faced duck in the lead as they beat towards me, his front lowered heavily into the water like the prow of a great battleship propelled forward by some equally great and naturally selected propulsion system. And, having won the race, that duck got the first hunk of bread I tossed, and the second, and in his greed he gobbled up the Alka-Seltzer just as he had the bread, launching me into my previously claimed state of discontent (which, though quickly growing, was not yet a horror). I mean, I was twelve years old! I hadn’t “truly” believed that a duck would “really” eat an Alka-Seltzer! Just as I hadn’t “really” believed one tablet would kill the greedy bastard! That was just one of those urban legends, wasn’t it?

But the next day told the tale. The big duck was laid over in the shoreline shallows, it’s orange feet, blackened and curled now, raised heavenward. Between them had grown a horrid looking hole in its gut, the fault of my foolish innocence. And believe it when I say I had wasted no time running away! Away from the awful crime scene! Away from its bobbing victim! And more importantly, away from any witnesses who might deduce my guilt!

But there had been no witnesses, had there? I had laid the day away in my darkened room, awaiting a dreaded knock which never came. No one had seen. No one knew what I had done. Like magic I was free, safe from accountability for my murder!

And so, feeling some better, the next day I’d returned to the scene of my crime, as any criminal will do, carrying a bag of bread in hand. But the carcass was gone. Whether it had sunk, floated off, or was carried away I knew not. Only that it was gone, offering me great relief. But something strange happened then. The other ducks would not come for my bread, stopping midway across the pond instead to float there as still as death, looking at me through wide and obviously mistrustful side-eyes.

They knew, didn’t they? The ducks knew! But how could a creature so stupid know that I was the cause of their friends’ demise? But they did! At least they seemed to! What other explanation was there for their strange reluctance to come forward for a rare treat?

Unnerved by the floating ducks I threw the rest of my bread into the water and started for home. The stupid ducks might know, but what of it? Who could they tell? Who would they tell? Would they line up duckling-like and march into the sheriff’s office? I actually managed a chuckle at the thought of it. And the further from the pond I got, the better I began to feel. They could tell no one their secret, could they? They were stupid ducks, and a duck cannot give away a crime, no matter its intelligence level. And who would believe a duck anyway, even if it could tell? No one, that’s who!

And so I was feeling much better as I ambled down the sidewalk past the Burkes’ home, rattling a stick along their picket fence when, on the fence’s corner-post I noticed a mockingbird. Strangely, the noise from my stick did not seem to affect this calmly waiting bird which, watching me come seemed completely non-plussed at my approach. Curious, I wandered closer to it, and closer yet, wondering how close it would let me come before it flew away. And as I stepped right up beside it, somewhat awed at its bravery, it suddenly flustered, spatting its wings at me! I reflectively ducked away from it, but too late, as the thing had already grabbed a parcel of hair from my head in it’s hammer-like beak and made off with it, leaving me a bare patch and a welp in exchange for it…

And they follow me still, the birds do, watching me even these eighteen years later. I see them through the window there on the lawn; waiting, watching. Once, against my will, my mother forced me out there, swearing I would be fine. But, of course she was wrong. And of course I was right. She was watching me from my window when they attacked! What in my estimation had appeared to me to be a hawk had swooped down on me. Filled with a screaming rage it had clawed at me as I ran, though mother cruelly played it off afterward as it having been nothing but a finch and not a hawk, but I knew better, and type of bird be damned! It was a bird, and it had attacked, just as I‘d known it would, diverting it’s kamikaze dive away from me only to crash heavily into the window from which Mother was watching, so hard in fact that it knocked itself unconscious, producing a clatter such as I’d never heard from the surrounding trees and shrubbery as thousands of shrill voices joined in the angered cry Against me, ”The Killer of Birds!”

The doctor’s have been unable to help me, though their medications do keep me calmer. Mother still does not know what happened to her child at the park that day, and can only surmise some dark and twisted thing, which is the absolute truth of the matter.

With the murder of that innocent duck life my life was equally ended, reduced to psychosomatic fear and withdrawal from the outside world and it’s flying avengers.

And so I no longer venture out, choosing to sit by my window, watching them watch me watch them, forever.

My folks’ marriage lasted ten years and produced two children. They’d been high school sweethearts; Pop the quarterback of a small town football team, Mom the pretty cheerleader. My father went to Ole Miss, the same as his father, and my mother went to The Mississippi State College for Women, not because she cared anything about schooling (not much was required of women educationally in those days, and all she really wanted, or so she says, was to be “Mrs. Bubba Morris”), but she went because her mother wanted her to go, and because Bubba had not yet asked for her hand. Anyways, their marriage came immediately after college, then came a daughter, then a son, creating the perfect little family.

I have heard rumors of infidelity. I don’t know if they are true or not. Neither parent has said so, though both my mother and older sister have hinted at it. True or not, he didn’t want the divorce. He fought it, just as he fought for the custody of his children, though he never stood a chance in this legal system of ours, whether he had cheated or not.

My dad, though mostly good natured and agreeable, was somewhat controlling (alpha’s usually are). This I know. And though some of my parents’ arguments seemed silly at the time, those issues make more sense to me now that I am grown, and understand life a little better. It was a long time ago, but I still recall a huge blow-up caused when Mom died her hair blonde without telling Dad her plans. She’d been a nervous wreck all day, waiting for him to come home from work, afraid he wouldn’t like it. In my innocence I remember thinking her new hair was pretty, although she didn’t look like my mom anymore. Well, she’d been right to be nervous. Pop didn’t like it. Not a bit. He didn’t want to be married to Marylin Monroe. There’d been a lot of yelling, and a lot of crying. The hair change was, of course, not “the reason”, but then not much time passed afterward before they finally sat me and my sister down and explained to us what divorce means, though it turned out they really didn’t know any more about divorce than we did, and were wrong in most everything they told us. The only part, in fact, that they’d gotten right was that, “Daddy will be moving out.” Making the only correct part of the conversation also the most painful part.

I’ll tell you what divorce really means for kids, at least what it meant in my home. What it really means is something no parent is ever going to admit to themselves, much less explain to their children. Divorce means the disappearance of discipline in the home. All semblance of it leaves with the man. It means a single parent in the home who cries a lot, which undermines the feeling of stability that a “home” should offer its children. It makes for a mother who craves her kids’ approval so much that she tries to be their friend, rather than their parent. She gives in too much. She is too soft on punishment. She leaves them alone too much partly because she has no choice (latch-key kids was the popular term back in my day), and partly because she is trying to build herself a new life. So she invites strange men into the house, each one of these strangers proving traumatic for her children for many different reasons, no matter the manner of man that they are.

And worst of all the mother will use the child’s infrequent visitations with his father as threats. “When you go to your father’s next weekend you’ll have to explain all of this!”

And I would have to explain it, too, which only served to make me dread seeing my father instead of looking forward to our rare visits. The real conversation should have been: “Why not now, Mother? Why don’t you just handle it yourself? Why push it off on him? Did this bad thing I did not happen on your watch?” But of course, the child is too young to begin such a conversation. And to be sure, the things I did that might have made her appear to be a bad mother somehow never got communicated to him, though he had to have seen them; the smoking at fourteen, the drinking and weed at fifteen, the long hair, the falling grades, etc. But hell, he didn’t want to be the bad guy when he only dealt with me about twice a year, I guess. So it never got mentioned, leaving me free to roam as I would, with whomever I would.

As I am writing this an uncomfortable, but familiar tightness has balled up my stomach, a forgotten feeling left-over from those days which has crept back in from the depths where it has laid hidden all these years. I do not miss this old feeling, which is causing my leg to bounce beneath the table, an ugly response to uncontrollable situations that has remained with me since childhood. So then, the old angsts are not gone, are they? And are quick to return alongside the distressing memories, blast them all!

It could be worse, of course. It could actually have been way worse. I know that. I really have little to complain about. I could have lost my parents, as many unfortunates have. Or I could have had a mother who didn’t try as hard as mine did, or care as much. I could have ended up with two Mom’s in the house instead of a step-father… or worse, two Dads! Hell, I could have been aborted at the start. So at least I had a chance, and I am eternally grateful for that. Life is good.

I am satisfied with the man I am, and my parents deserve the credit for it more than anyone else, but it might have been better too… with a bit more discipline and a tad less freedom? I might have stuck with school, cultivated better friends, and partied less. Who knows what might have been, had the right man come home through the front door every night at quitting time, sitting down to table with a healthy curiosity about my day; sharing his experience, expounding his logic, and demonstrating his strength? What kind of difference might that have made in my life, and in my sisters’?

My mother tried, bless her heart. She really did. She was just incapable of being two parents. Many people are incapable of that, in fact, believe that truth or not. The family unit evolved as it did over centuries for many reasons. It worked, too. Rather, it works still, when given the chance.

It is just a damned shame that those chances happen so rarely these days.

And that it is the kid who is left to harbor the grudge. What an ungracious little shit.

“What you think, you become.” - Buddha

I have considered this quote for several mornings now, contemplating a direction to go with this prompt. I do not believe I have found a very good path forward with it, but neither have I “become it”, so there is that.

I think a lot about dogs, and have promised myself to do so even more in the future after finding this quote, in hopes of taking on their better, more loyal and intelligent character traits.

Ruff.

I also think a lot about tattoos... negatively, I must say. I can find no redeeming qualities in a tattoo, though I try, wanting to find one, as so many people are so proudly displaying them these days. (I have never seen a dog with a tattoo, for what that is worth. So see? I told you they were intelligent!) I have noticed that roughly 75-85% of young people and rednecks sport them, which I have decided is a good thing for society as a whole, as it makes it much easier to determine who are the high IQ people out there without having to bother conversing with any of them. It’s like that comedian says, “Here’s your sign!”

Since discovering this challenge, however, I am worried about the amount of time I spend concerning myself with the poor decisions of others, and fear that if The Buddha is right I might find myself plastered to some woman’s boob, or her ass someday, but then the naughty side of me thinks… wait! Would that be so bad? To be stuck forever to an ass, or a boob? And then I remember that yes, it would be so bad, as I next realize that I would be little more than a billboard on the ass or boob of a woman who has already disrespected her own body at least once, meaning I would likely have to suffer being suckled and slapped by a long train of tattooed men who are no wiser, and are probably even less wise, than the woman whose body I have the misfortune of being stamped upon. Eeee-gads, no!

Anyways, I’d best quit thinking about that. Pooky won’t like it.

And speaking of my Pook, I also think a lot about what will happen to her when I am gone, as I am no longer a kid. I am thankful to be one of those 15%-ers without a tattoo. Because of it I have had to sense to work hard, and to save. I have also invested what I saved, and those investments have grown, and I am happy that at least she wont have to worry about that. But what about all the other things that money can’t buy; things like companionship? And even simpler things than that, like how will she ever have a pickle on her hamburger without me, or empty the vacuum, or change out the soured hummingbird feeder water?

So, if The Buddha is right then, if I fixate long and hard enough on those things, does that mean I will be around forever for her? To open up the pickle jar?

At least it is a thought worth thinking, and worth becoming, even though it proves that not even The Buddha can be right about everything.

And on that note… is time to go feed the dog. The tattoo-less little guy has me trained well.

Ruff.

We often discussed it, me and Winston. We were neither one afraid to die. Nay, we welcomed it, dreamt of it in fact. Death could not bother me a whit, especially not if it were to abandon my bones upon some hallowed field of honor, destining them to be memorialized by history. There is nothing in a boy’s mind which can outdo a valiant battlefield death, and these were Winston’s and my thoughts as our regiment began its first, cautious steps forward.

And as our flag bearer gentled his probe out onto the contested field a “whoop” sounded from somewhere down the line which was quickly picked up nearby until ’Ol Winston whooped of his own right, surprising even himself I think, for he turned to me with an astoundingly joyful smile which spurred our slow marching pace to a trot, and finally a gallop. The race was on then, heedless of any order as us boys set out to claim the cherished title of “First to Cross”.

A lovely day it was, the skies crystalline above with tall, soft grasses cushioning our steps below. Dismissing the real contest, our game became a sprint towards the alluring flags of our formerly alluring country, flags which beckoned us in on warm, gentle breezes. We ran as though drunk, Winston and I; light-hearted and light-headed, giddy with joy at having achieved our moment. It became our own race then, Winston and I outpacing the others, our untried rifles clutched close, the muscular machinations of youth proving superior in our eagerness, our freely pounding hearts having transferred completely over from our mothers’ worried yokes into the calloused hands of the sergeant-major to protect as he would. My God, but it was lovely… right up until

Her finger is transfixed on love’s pulse

on its rhythmic magic

on its throbbing madness

on its circulating mayhem

Never to be pulled away

Her own heart beats with it

musical chairs

sallied round and back

dreading its inevitable stop

This Challenge made me think of the band Queen, which made me think of my friend Bob, whom I have not seen or heard from in forty-some years, so perhaps I should say, “my old friend Bob.” The challenge didn’t remind me of Bob because he was an especially big Queen fan or anything like that, although I am sure he thought the group was ok, as I did, but more-so because there was this one time when Bob and I stole one of Queen’s songs and walked it off into the sunset, immortalizing it in our own minds.

Round about 1980 my buddy Bob and I got kicked off the school bus mid-winter during our eighth grade year. Of course, being that we were fourteen-year olds sporting long hair and attitudes we didn’t think what we’d done was that big of a deal, but then Bob and I were regularly in trouble for things we didn’t think were all that bad. It was just that bus drivers, we ruefully discovered, were just like every other jackass out there who was over thirty years old. What is it with old people anyways, that they can’t take a fucking joke? And so our pair of as yet under-developed minds naturally came to idolize petulant assholes like Ronnie, Duane, Jimi, Janice, and those other “cool-ass” rockers who cashed out before achieving that dreaded, life-altering, mid-life milestone subscribed after three decades. In fact, me and Bob had become so disgusted by this grown-up’s world and the idiots who ran it that we vowed during our forced marches to-and-from school that we would be sure to keel over proudly and in some cool fashion when the right moment came, well before striking what the two of us considered to be the common age of jack-assery, just as our rock and roll heroes had so wisely done; the saying back then being that, “it’s better to burn out than to fade away.” Hell yea! We would go down in flames, me and Bob would, our un-trimmed hair fully on fire!

Now, I’ll fill you in here in just a minute about what Bob and I did to get kicked off that bus that first time. When I do so you’ll have the opportunity to decide if mine and Bob’s thinking on the matter was right or wrong, though even after all of these years I expect that if you are over thirty you are gonna agree with that bus driver who gave us the boot, and if you are under thirty you will side with me and Bob; but first, before I explain, I’m going to tell you a little bit about my friend.

If you’ve been following my writings for any amount of time then you have met Bob before, sometimes under his real name, sometimes under pseudonyms, but still unapologetically Bob. We shared many, many adventures, not the least of which came about due to our walking to and from school together everyday for two years. I first met Bob one day while I was enjoying a smoke out on my front porch swing. This kid toting a fishing pole across the handles of his ten speed bike came racing down my street before cutting through the grass between my house and my neighbors; headed, no doubt, for the neighborhood lake behind my house. Not five minutes later my smoke break was interrupted when a tall, thin, shirtless kid sporting an ugly red welt across his cheek came around the corner of my porch. “Hey man,” he asked me (everyone called each other ‘man’ back in those days), “could you help me find my glasses?” So I followed him around to the backyard where the kid had crashed his bike after running into the neighbors’ unseen clothesline. My first impression being that the kid was a legitimate loser, it was fortunate for him that the search for his glasses also turned up besides several dropped fishing lures, a disposable Bic lighter and a flip-top box of Marlboro Reds, making it possible that I could be friends with this kid if he turned out to be not so gooberish as this first meeting made him out to be, though that decision had not yet been made. But I would give the goober a chance at least, and time always tells.

It turned out that Bob had just moved to Virginia Beach from Kansas, which I found unimpressive, although he did like rock music, which was in his favor. We were in the same grade, though he was almost a year younger than I was, and he had a brother the next grade up, who also became a friend. Ours was a big neighborhood with lots of kids, so Bob could not have known how important this impromptu interview was, as I could have contributed to making his life miserable from here out if I chose to, but despite the bad start this new kid seemed alright.

Bob played basketball, which made sense, as he was tall, thin, and somewhat athletic. I played baseball, so I understood the sports thing. He talked a lot about “partying” and “getting high,” though I took that more as him wanting me to think he was “cool” than that he was a druggie or something. He wanted to be a badass, but really didn’t have that in him. Too skinny. Not at all intimidating. Regardless though, Bob liked fishing, girls, sports and music, which made him ok by me.

Anyways, getting to the point, what me and Bob did not too very long after establishing a tentative friendship was that we started up that “We Will Rock You” thing on the school bus one day; you know, the whole “stomp, stomp, clap… stomp, stomp, clap…’ thing. We had everybody on the bus going, kids stomping as hard as they could and clapping in time… even the younger ones were completely into it when me and Bob started in, shouting the lyrics out above all the stomping and clapping:

“Buddy you’re a boy, make a big noise

playin’ in the streets

gonna be a big man someday…”

Anyways, that was all we did… over and over again, rocking out the school bus til they kicked us off, the old fuckers:

”You got mud on your face

You big disgrace

kickin’ your can all over the place, singin’…”

And so because of Queen me and Bob went pedestrian. We could have rode our bikes I suppose, but there were busy highways, and let’s face it… it’s very hard to look cool on a bike. So we hoofed it, cigarettes cupped in our hands against breezes created by passing cars, flipping off any fuck-heads who honked, stopping by the convenience store to cash in the lunch money which fed our cigarette habits, some days leaving a little early so we catch Cheryl at her bus stop before she got on. Bob introduced me to Cheryl, whom I had one of those “holding hands and making out things” with for a while, at least we did until I met Louise, whom Bob also introduced me to. He was a great wing-man, Bob was. All I had to do was to say, “that girl is pretty hot.” Ten minutes later Bob would bring her over. Truly great wing-man.

After all of that the bus didn’t feel right when we started off the 9th grade, so Bob and I began looking for ways to get kicked off again, and we quickly accomplished that goal. Hell, we were old pro’s by now, and experience does tell.

So, turns out me and Bob were not good at school bus’. And despite our brash talk, we were not intended to join the “29 Club” either, apparently, as Bob is still living somewhere up near Atlantic City now, and I’m still kicking down here in Nashville; both of us a little fatter now, and a little balder, though very much alive.

And being old isn’t so bad I guess, though the kids today are real wimps in their Under Armour clothes and with their Great Clips hair. I can’t speak for Bob, but it is nothing for me to kick the little shits off of my bus when they’re acting like idiots… the fools rocking out to their Taylor Swift and whatnot.

Jeeze, it makes me wonder… why didn’t I get out when I had the chance?

She is fully aware that it is the height of foolishness, talking to herself. And yet it is also a habit she cannot break, being so much alone. So it is her dependence on folly as much as it is her inability to watch for Muncie’s approach that lends such a tone of annoyance to her voice.

“Would you look at that damned frost covering the window glass?” Ellen hated to curse, and seldom did. Only when emotion got the best of her.

From her apron a rag appears, but the kitchen is too warm and the outside too cold for her elbow grease, leaving nothing but circular smears of obscurity for all her trouble.

“When did it get so warm in here?” She rejoins to the silent kitchen, her face as unhappily smeared as the glass. “Maybe if I open the door?”

But the view from the doorway is as veiled as was the window; a fog lying so still, quiet and chilled beyond it as to induce a shudder from her, and so thick that she can not make out the end of the walk, much less see down the lane leading to town. “Both window and the door useless?” She opines. Taking the rag out again she shakes it angrily in her outstretched fist, whipping it at the fog as she would at a cloud of gnats that might be shooed away.

Expecting company Ellen has donned a nice a pant-suit, thus the apron. The not quite high heels she wears with it produce dull thunks up from the pave-stoned walk, their edges muted like everything else under the thick fog as she blindly slow-walks out to the curb, the icy air particles spidering ticklishly across exposed skin left glistening and pink by the kitchen’s warmth. At the walkway’s end she stops, an opened palm shielding her brow in a feeble attempt to see down the lane, as if doing so might help to pierce the gloom.

“Soup. Nothing but foggy soup.” Glancing back she sees only the soft square of light where the window should be, and a larger glow from the left open door. “He will not come in it.” The words are more of a declaration than the emotional lamentation that she feels, as she is beyond expectations… hopeful ones, at least. And had she any expectations they would be wasted on Muncie Woods, wouldn’t they? Muncie is certainly no catch. But he is a man. One who calls on her with some regularity. And Ellen is over thirty now, her prospects dwindled to one, and so she wishes the fog away even if it is only Muncie who is detained by it.

She is welcomed back at the door by a heat wave from within nearly as thick as the fog without, her kitchen padding it’s attack on her senses with a delicious aroma of baking goods; goods that she could never enjoy herself as she is watching her waistline, but that she never-the-less must “taste” from the oven out of necessity, the nibbles enough to satisfy her sweet tooth. Safely inside from the cold and fog she stops to look back once more, but all is gray and indecipherable with not a shadow stirring the gloom.

“The mist is not so much,” she says aloud. “If he is any kind of man he will come if for no other reason than to show that he is capable. And if he desires me, then should he not at least be willing to brave a cold fog for me?”

But an air of doubt is creeping in with the cold, so she pushes the door-to behind her

Doubt? Well, hadn’t she been frosty too, that last time Muncie had come? Worse than cold, really? She’d been downright ugly to him. To be honest, she almost always was ugly with poor Muncie. And she had no idea why she was? She didn’t plan to be mean to him. It was never in her mind to be mean. It just happened! It was as if something came over her whenever he called, some spiteful and mean thing. Her behavior towards him was as much of a problem as this fog was, she supposed, and the two would surely work together against her if he did come to call. Yes, that last time she’d been as cold and gray towards him as this dreary day was towards her, as sometimes a woman can become when a pogonip blankets her fancy.

“If he comes,” she promised herself. “This time I will not be mean, I will not poke fun at his blooming waistline, or his receding hairline. This time I will treat him as the man he is, and with the respect that a man deserves. I will be prim. I will be proper. I will be gracious. I will make it obvious that I do enjoy his visits, which I genuinely do.” Walking back to the window, she produced the rag again and swiped at an eye-level spot, but still… nothing whatsoever to see coming.

Ellen is plenty old enough to know that she doesn’t need a man. She can make do without one. She has up to now. Lonely is not really the word for her plight, but life does get boring, doesn’t it? A girl needs something, doesn’t she? Poor Ellen has not yet concluded that it is a target she wants; a target for her schemes and designs. That what she needed for her journey to matronliness was something to knead and mold like her cookie dough, and a man would do nicely. Better than a cat even, which is why lonely women adore cats. Because their challenge of being impossible to manipulate makes them the perfect little beasts for lonely women who would continue to try and try again anyways, breaking their boredom forever.

Being that she has already given way to her disappointment Ellen is surprised at the knock, turning to look at the unexpected rap upon the door rather than rushing to meet it, until it came again that is, bolting her into action. While she is not exactly eager to see Muncie she is eager to see someone, so she is quickly out of the apron and fast to smooth her slacks, dusting away a wayward fan of flour as she did so. She pauses for a breath at the door before opening it, preparing herself for what she knows will come. Though they are not intimate, Muncie wants to be, and so the dolt uses every opportunity to touch or to hug her, which is probably part of the reason why she always turns mean on him. Ellen is not used to being touched, though she is trying to adapt, sort of.

As is always the case, she is surprised when she sees him at the door. Not that he is there, that is not surprising in the least. Muncie Woods is nothing if not dependable, but by his height, actually by his size in general. He is always a bigger man than she’d remembered. And, as is also always the case, she is taken aback by his beard. Ellen is no fan of facial hair on a man, even if his is always neatly trimmed, and is somewhat distinguished looking in a salt and pepper, professorial sort of way. Muncie is one of those men who is always better looking in person than he is in one’s memory, so her smile is genuinely happy, though that happiness is unfortunate in that this genuine smile leads to the “icky” hug which always follows it. As stated, Muncie is a large man with an equally large hug. And while he is a large man, his appearance is, as Ellen would put it when being nice, kind of doughy; soft enough looking that the strength of his hug never ceases to both surprise and impress her with its power, while at the same time exasperating her as she is mired up against him in reluctant submission.

Once released from his clutches is when it begins… again. She is aware that it is beginning, but is powerless to stop it. “Ugh,” she waves a disgusted hand in front of her face. ”You’ve been smoking again.” Why, she silently wonders, can she not be pleasant around this man? When she has waited all week for him to call, and has baked all morning for his pleasure alone without knowing if he would even show up?

A quick, critical examination reveals what should have been obvious to her all along. It is because she is not in love with him. She is not even attracted to him. They have been shoved together because their community is small, and each of them is all that is left for the other, as both are still single well past the age for choosiness. It strikes her hard, this epiphany, though it is too self-centered, and the same thought should have been projected onto poor Muncie as well, but is not. She does not stop to think that perhaps he is not coming to her out of love either, but perhaps he only comes because he is as lonely and bored in his cabin as Ellen is in her cottage? Perhaps she is only his diversion from a dog, something else for him to pet and to train, just as he is her diversion from a cat? But in her vanity she does not think to consider his motives, naturally assuming that her attractiveness is plenty enough reason for his attentiveness. He only wants her for sex anyways, right? Isn’t that all every man really wants a woman for? Oh, and to do his laundry. She would be a catch for Muncie, everyone would say so, while she would be settling, and would have to spend the rest of her life doing wifely things with, for, and to a man she was not the least bit attracted to. That was reason enough to grow annoyed and mean when he called, wasn’t it?

As always, after her “smoking” condemnation Muncie grew quiet, contributing nothing in the way of conversation, which only added to her annoyance. She would have to put in all the effort again, wouldn’t she? She was the only one who had dressed herself up, and she had spent her morning baking for him, too! Could he not have at least bothered to change into a clean smelling shirt, preferably one that wasn’t flannel, and maybe shave his stupid beard? She had told him before that she didn’t like his smoking, or his beard! Did he not listen? Wouldn’t those be small sacrifices to make if he really and truly liked her? And if he was considering a proposal, as she surmised that he was doing?

Exacerbated, she threw some of the cooler cookies into a Tupperware box and mashed the lid. “Muncie,” she tried to say it nicely, but her angst was showing through. “Do me a favor. Take these cookies and go. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to do it today, or next week, or ever again. So please don’t argue. Just go.” But of course she did want an argument.

Instead, Muncie stood and graciously accepted the box, his head dutifully bowed with shame, while she felt herself empowered to the point of elation. She had done it! She had ended this uncomfortable thing that she’d suffered week after week just because she was too polite to end it (at least that’s what she told herself, forgetting how she’d watched for him through the window, craving his attention when it was not around, yet finding it insufferable when it was actually upon her).

She held the door for him, apologizing as he walked through. “I’m sorry Muncie. I really am.” And she believed she was, too, although neither the bite to her words nor the actions behind them showed it, her sympathy slowly eroding from the fact that he was leaving without so much as a plea, or an argument, or some sort of fight to keep her as because of anything else. She probably would have relented too, had he showed any kind of fight. And as he disappeared into the fog she could not help but ask the one question that came to mind as he dutifully disappeared into the mist. She was glad she was talking to a fog, and could not see his face as that question came to her mind, and she was even more glad after his response that he couldn’t see hers.

”Muncie? Why did you come today? I was so mean to you last time, and am so mean every time. Why do you keep coming?” She did not know when she asked the question what sort of answer she expected from it, whether he came because he wanted someone, or because he needed someone, or whether he thought he was in love with her?

But the answer she received from out the mist was not at all what she expected… not by a long shot.

“Why… didn’t you know? I thought you knew. I figured that was why you treated me so badly. Your mother pays me to come, Ellen, a hundred bucks a week… but I guess I‘ve blown that easy money now.”

Shocked, and searching her brain for anything that would cut, she found nothing. “You bring me my box back, Muncie Woods! Do you hear me!” She screamed it into the foggy void.

”Sure! Gee thanks! I’ll bring it next week… that’ll be another hundred bucks!”

”Nevermind, You! Just keep the damned box!” She yelled into the fog, somewhat ashamed of her language. Ellen hated to curse, and she seldom did.

While he waited, he pulled up the site on a whim, found the bio, and read through it one last time as he sipped the hot coffee:

Michael Knight

Electrician’s Assistant

$32k annually

26 years old

5’9” 170 lbs

Likes fishing, hunting, music, and Saturday night bonfires

He actually laughed when he reached the bottom. Four years later and still not a single swipe!

”Are you sure you want to delete this profile?” It asked him.

“Absolutely, you son-of-a-bitch!“ Mike hit the button and slipped the damned phone back into his pocket.

“Hurry up, Dawn!” He hollered through the house. “I wanna be on the water before light!”

”Hold your horses, Handsome! I just gotta pee first!”

He laughed again, and relaxed. No real matter if they made it... the fish had never bit before Dawn anyhow, had they?

Thank God for those Saturday Night bonfires.

Back in the 2000’s Pooky-Bear and I lived for a stretch in a very small community in West Tennessee. Moving there from Nashville was not easy, especially for her. The shopping opportunities out there in the sticks were obviously not the same. Even Amazon was still new and limited at the time, so Pook was not only lonely there, she was bored too. Needless to say she was excited when my job brought us back to Nashville.

It was not so hard for me. I enjoyed the slower pace and tight community of Henry County. What I missed there was a book store. Now, as I have already stated Amazon was around back then and books were their thing at the time, so I gratefully took advantage of that, but there is nothing like an actual bookstore where you can hold a book, measuring it’s weight and testing it against others of its kind before roaming over to the classics section, or the history and philosophy racks in your search for everything interesting. Unlike anyplace else time warps around you in a bookstore, patiently lingering there for your perusal. Yes, bookstores were the one thing I missed during my displacement from modern civilization, so I was as happy as my Pooky-Bear herself was to know that our new house in Hendersonville would have a Barnes and Noble minutes away.

And at first all was well enough. My forays there were as I remembered, but that quickly changed. My bookstore trips steadily grew shorter, less frequent, and ever more disappointing. I understood that my favorite writers were aging in some cases, even dying in others, but I couldn’t understand why they weren’t being replaced? Where were the up-and-coming Clancy’s, L’Amour’s, DeMille’s, and Grisham’s? Hell, somehow even greats like Faulkner, Penn Warren and Gary Gallagher were only able to warrant two title spaces on all these rows of shelves, if that? Instead of leaving the store enchanted I was now leaving it with that same nagging disappointment that Pooky-Bear and I seemed to leave the movie theater with anymore, complaining to each other as we walked out about another fifty dollar dud.

And I must not have been the only one with that disappointing feeling. It somehow did not bother me when that Barnes and Noble near my home closed up a couple of years ago. Hell, I wasn’t even surprised when my wife told me they had shuttered it; the store suffering the death of a thousand cuts (that is to say from half of the population walking out without one of those fancy, oversized plastic bags because no; he did not need a tassled bookmark featuring an inspirational quote, a potpourri crock pot, or a $12 Pumpkin-spiced latte along with his romantic thriller).

It sounds harsh, I know. It is harsh, in fact. But that is how a man becomes when the valuable things in his world are progressively bungled away… harsh.

But then, by being brushed off he has been harshly treated too, has he not? Isn’t it as good not to read than to read what is not for you? Wouldn’t we all rather do without than to deal with less than?

I know I would.