Oh, and one more thing

I was standing in line in the grocery store this afternoon, the clerk was making small talk with the customer ahead of me.

"Cold enough for you?"

The twenty-something year old man laughed and explained he was only visiting our area, he serves in the Forces out of a base in Cold Lake, Alberta, and if you REALLY want to talk about cold....

I had to jump in. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but thank you."

Quizzical look towards weirdo lady behind him.

I explained again. "Thank you for what you do. It's important. It lets me live the way I do." Slowly, like talking to a child, knowing full well that the only real issue is that this CHILD has never had someone say this to him before.

He suddenly understood me. "Shit. I mean, you're welcome. It's my pleasure." And a shy smile.

"No, I doubt that, but you do it anyway."

And then he grabbed his bags of bread and oregano and green beans, and walked out of my life forever.

But I will remember him.

And I bet he will remember me.

What would YOU do?

Let's assume you live in my basement. You come upstairs to the kitchen, and see a huge note on top of the stove. "I am cleaning the oven, DO NOT TURN IT ON." Let's also assume there are newspapers spilling out of the oven (placed at the bottom of the door to keep oven cleaner from dripping on to the baking sheets in the drawer.) Let's also assume the baking racks from the oven are sitting on the counter.

What would YOU do?

Well, if you ACTUALLY lived in my basement, what you would do is this: Wait until I come home from a half day at work and then, as soon as I enter the door, I get on the phone to set up an appointment to get winter tires put on the car. While I was on the phone, you would silently turn on the oven to 450 degrees. And when I hung up the phone, you would say, "Irma, what's wrong with the oven, why is it doing this?"

And when I smelled the gaseous odour of DEATH eminating from the kitchen, and started yelling, "Turn it iff, TURN IT OFF", you would look at me like I was a lunatic. Don't let the fact that there is actual acrid smoke POURING out of the venting burner give you a clue.

"I told you not to turn on the oven!!"

"Well, yeah, but that sign was from yesterday."

"I. KNOW."

So instead of gently wiping off the oven cleaner, I then had wait til the oven cooled down, the ventilation fan at FULL blast, to scrub off the chemicals my TWENTY FIVE YEAR OLD step son had baked in to the metal, all the while hoping the fumes don't give me brain cancer.

His reply, "look, don't worry about it, I'll make my lunch in the microwave instead."

Kill, kill, kill.