Cracked

I cannot stress enough the importance of good customer service skills. Recently a man in North Charleston, South Carolina, the state where the name Dick Harpootlian is synonymous with the term “Lock and Load” for the state Democratic Party, called 911 to report he was not given correct change when purchasing crack cocaine. The Democratic Party has nothing to do with the use of crack cocaine other than the persistent idea that Dick Harpootlian's parents must have used the substance just before naming their infant.

A monetary disagreement is an understandably frustrating situation between vendor and vendee. I had an experience similar to this once when I gave the cashier a twenty dollar bill and she gave me change for a ten. In this instance I simply appealed to the store manager, who promptly and courteously recorded my name and phone number and called me to come pick up my cash when the cashier’s drawer rang up with an overage that evening. I was a satisfied customer and have continued my business relationship with that particular pawn, er, dress shop ever since.

If the drug dealer; we’ll call him Mr. Crack, was serious about his business, he would have considered his customer, Mr. Smoke, as a potential future profit margin. By reacting selfishly, he dashed his hopes for repeat business and customer loyalty. In these days of economic hardships, he effectively slammed an out-of-business sign on the fingers of his future. His avenues for expansion are forever closed.

His only hope is to take up politics. I hear Mr. Harpootlian is looking for a running mate.

Sand Hassle

A good bathing suit is like a screen door. It keeps out unsavory wildlife and provides a nice view, yet allows a gentle breeze to come through and cool off the kitchen.

If the screen door doesn't work, the house fills up with smoke and somebody's biscuits are going to burn.

Join me over at An Army of Ermas. I've been frolicking in the ocean a little too long. My biscuits are in big trouble.

The Seventh Level of Thanksgiving

For sheer heat index, Hell’s Kitchen is nothing compared to my kitchen. Of course, a straight comparison is really not fair because I have a secret weapon.

The Inferno.

The Inferno, a malicious representative of an extra level of the Bad Place that was too frightening for Dante to include in his detailed description of the place where murderers and people who leave the copier jammed go to spend eternity, looks relatively innocent poised there beside the refrigerator waiting for me to thrust the next victim into its cavernous maw. Soot from past victims cover the oven door like oatmeal around a baby’s mouth.

The trouble comes from a malfunctioning thermostat deep inside the Inferno. It’s either broken or has learned human characteristics like the freaky computers that take over the world in stories that I used to think were fiction.

Me: I’d like to preheat to 350.
Oven: I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, Amy.

I only use one rack at the very top. Anything lower would just be cruel. When I first got the thing, I foolishly and against orders turned the knob to Preheat and sacrificed a pan of brown and serve rolls. The dogs wouldn’t eat them, even the Lab that once tried to consume three hubcaps and a tire tool in the garage. Finally I threw them in the yard and claimed a meteor hit the elm tree.

As you can imagine, cooking a nice Thanksgiving dinner is out of the question. Oh, ever the optimist, I tried it once. The Inferno gutted that bird like a freshly caught catfish and raced across my innocent roasting pan like the great Chicago fire. There are fossils embedded in the enamel that will amaze archaeologists in centuries to come.

As I whipped open the oven door in a suicidal attempt to rescue the dinner, the heat sent my hair flying toward the ceiling like space dust and singed my eyebrows. Armed with Kevlar potholders, I whipped the pan out of the oven and hurled it toward the table. The remains of the charred cooking bag stuck to the turkey’s skin like a huge black bandaid and the legs looked like Tiki torches. The bones at the end of the drumsticks crumbled to ash upon contact with fresh air.

Bill Dear, ever the man with the right thing to say when kitchen disasters strike, strolled into the room coughing and clutching a cup of coffee like it was the last life boat on the Titanic. “I didn’t even know you could make blackened turkey.”

I peered at him through the smoke. “It was only in there for half an hour.”

“At least you had the foresight to put it in a body bag before you cooked it.”

I gazed forlornly at the little ashen piles of soot under the drumsticks and thought about the Thanksgiving dinner we would eat at McDonald’s.

“Don’t worry, Baby,” Bill drew a gentle hand across my face where my eyebrows used to be. “Anybody can cook a turkey breast, but it takes somebody special to mulch the feet.”

Green Thumbs and Dead Mums

People in these parts are fraught with distress and alarm about the drought just because the lakes and rivers are drying up, ecological conditions are becoming unbalanced, and a bad case of static cling could start a wildfire that wipes out the entire southeastern kudzu crop. The last time we had a drought like this it looked like General Sherman was the official state gardener.

I’m just excited that everybody else’s yard looks like mine now. If it takes a green thumb to make things grow, I have thumbs the color of root rot. So far this year, I’ve murdered a fancy bamboo plant, a hearty pot of mums, and a Venus Fly Trap. To be honest, the Fly Trap was self-defense. I didn’t like the way it rubbed its leaves together whenever I ladled my hips into my stretchy pants.

Needless to say, my evergreens aren’t. My dandelions aren’t dandy. My weeping willow just sniffles and wrings its hands. And the Queen Anne’s Lace along the driveway has been demoted to Lady in Waiting’s Pompom Fringe. Even under the lushest conditions, the Black-Eyed Susans set the color scheme for my yard.

I once worked in a building that was destroyed by fire. There were two plants in my office, the kind that people always swear that you can’t kill. Thanks to my careful ministrations, these two fellas were well on the fast track to the happy flower garden in the sky. Then fire struck. Emergency crews responded, and the firefighters fought valiantly, but the building was ruined. The charred remains were enveloped in the sickening smell of smoke and standing water. Once the air cleared and the scene of desolation covered the parking lot, a large, heroic fireman appeared, gingerly carrying something he had unearthed from the rubble. As he drew closer I saw his arms were full of glossy foliage, coaxed into rebirth from the water of the firemen’s hoses.

I know when I've been beat. I’ve killed a lot of plants in my time, but I never had any that called 911.