I was gone this morning, taking booster cables and the battery charger to Bryce, who was working about ten miles away.  He couldn’t keep the trencher running; when I left, we had it going, and he was back to work.  (More on that place and what happened there yesterday later.)

Made another stop that took about an hour and finally neared home.  Figured I should pick the mail up if Mama J hadn’t already.  I could see by the tracks that the mailman had been there, so pulled up and . . . Hooboy!

There were a number of checks for work we had done in there, a couple of bills, and two other pieces.  One from Little Falls, N.Y., and the other from Michigan. 

I knew right away what was in each one.

And I knew right away which one I was going to open first, except I didn’t want to right away, ‘cause I wanted to keep it for as long as I could.

The package from Little Falls was addressed to me. 

Me personally. 

So was the package from Michigan. 

The package from Little Falls looked like it could possibly be a correspondence from some nice young ladies I got acquainted with about 3 years ago.  (At least it seems that long to me, since we last were together.)

The package from Michigan was a disc, by the way it looked and felt.  I lost my most favorite disc the last time I played.  For some reason, I threw high (Has Lex taught you how to play yet?) and with a thing we have out here called wind, which you don’t have so much of, it lofted high and hard over to the right.  The last I saw it was clipping through the top of a 35-foot-tall pine tree, and after that, it was lost from sight indefinitely.  My game went hard right after that; So did my score.

I was really looking forward to getting that disc, obviously.  But it wasn’t the package I opened first.

First, I turned the lights on.  Then, even though I really don’t need them, I went on a search for my reading glasses.  I looked all over and couldn’t find them.  Turns out they were right there by those two packages all the time.

Next, I opened the Little Falls package.  I glanced at the handwriting first, as on old schoolteacher always must do, to see if it was neat enough.  It passed my inspection.

I got my reading glasses adjusted correctly on my nose and proceeded to read with great satisfaction.  It appears all is well in your lives, even if you have to chase the cats to catch them.  That’s normal you know, because a cat never will let you know it likes you and always has to run away a little bit to try to make it look like it doesn’t like you.  Cats and girls are a lot alike, just like dogs and guys are a lot alike.

Except.  To be totally honest, I was a little disappointed to read that your cat ate the hind legs and tail first of the rat it had caught.  Because, as you surely must know, any good cat will eat the headfirst, and only the head, leaving headless bodies to liter the yard as a way of thumbing its nose up at anything else in the world. 

You might work at training your cat in that regard.

I hope someday in the future I will get another package from Little Falls, but I don’t want to be too selfish or anything.

Lastly, I opened the package with my new disc and went outside to try it out.  It flew famously. It’s orangish in color, which may make it hard to find if the light isn’t so good, but maybe I’ll just have to be more careful with it than my other lime green one that I lost.

But I have to tell you about Bryce and Josh and yesterday. 

They were tapping into the water well system so they could get water for the sprinkler system they were installing.  Okay, so when they cut the pipes to put a tee in, the water wouldn’t stop dripping, even though they had the water shut off.  And anybody knows that if you want your glue to hold when you glue that tee in that you can’t have water dripping, or if you do, not very much.

They tried to glue it once, and it didn’t hold because of the water.  It was about then that Mama J and I stopped by to see how things were going and Bryce showed me his problem. 

“We need some bread,” he said.

I knew he did.  You probably don’t know this, but bread is a plumber’s best friend.  Stick a piece or several in the pipe that keeps dripping and it will sog up that water just long enough to quick glue what you need to, then it dissolves a bit later and all is well and your pipe isn’t plugged.  (Just be sure to flush that pipe out immediately, and not a week later, or when you flush it out a week later, you’ll puke your guts out from the smell.

I could see some bread on the table inside the house, and thought of snitching some, but what if the lady had it especially counted out for something? 

So, we ran to a nearby store that sold material and bulk food.  I walked in and said, “I need some bread.” 

They looked at me like I had lost it, because they didn’t have any bread there, and I knew it was a long shot as to whether they would have any or not.

But the funniest thing hadn’t happened yet.

We went a couple minutes uptown to a café to buy some.  By then I was on the phone so Mama J went inside to see if she could get some. 

Well, the waitresses were busy, and there was a family eating lunch there that she knew, and lo, and behold!  They had one bun left in the breadbasket on their table. 

Now think how this would sound to you if you were eating at a café and someone you knew a bit walked right up to your table and said, “Um, are you going to eat that bun?”

They looked at Mama Jan and started laughed, and then I think she realized how it sounded and she started laughing. 

I don’t think they thought she was serious, so they said, “Sure, that’s one of our boys’ bun, do you want it?  He doesn’t by the looks of things.”

Mama J said, “Sure, I’ll take it.  My boys need it to plug a pipe.”

And how do you think that sounded to someone who doesn’t know how you can use bread to stop a leak? 

The last she saw of them, they were laughing so hard they couldn’t eat.

Till next time, and know that I miss you, and Lexi–