Where is the blog??

The Princess and Hero are traveling, and the blog may not appear for an undetermined amount of time. Then again, you never know. Unlike some lucky people who are going to warmer climates for the holidays (we do not know any personally, or we would be inviting ourselves along), WE are heading right into Winter Storm Draco, which would not seem nearly so scary if it didn't have a name that sounded like a cross between Drano and Dracula.

How to eat healthy around the holidays -- we think

We have a holiday tradition in our household that involves the local grocery store, a grocery cart, several bags of cute holiday-wrapped candy, and very little willpower. You can probably discern what this tradition might involve.

Some people may have tried to circumvent such temptation by going about their shopping trip with a handheld basket instead of a grocery cart the size of the Louisiana Purchase. But consumer research suggests that people who shop with a basket are actually MORE likely to make impulse purchases -- but only if they are holding the basket with their dominant hand. Honest. I wish I had known this sooner. All this time I've been carrying baskets with my nondominant hand. Think of all the impulse purchases I've missed out on!

The research of course implies that to avoid buying more than we intend to, we should carry the basket in our nondominant hand, in the hopes that the other hand will calmly, rationally, start picking up loaves of 17-grain bread, organic/dairy-free/wheat-free/vegetarian/calorie-free beets, etc. and place it in all someone else's bas -- I mean, in our basket.  

Recently I read some tips about how to consume more healthful foods during this time of holiday overeating. The first tip was what to eat for breakfast the day after Thanksgiving. The sensible advice given in the article was: Have a slice of pumpkin pie for breakfast. 

I liked this author immediately. Not that I am particularly fond of pumpkin pie, but might not the principle extend to, say, chocolate cake for breakfast? Her reasoning went something like this: You KNOW you are going to want that pie sometime during the day. Yet in an effort to behave yourself gastronomically, you will eat sensibly all day, telling yourself you will NOT eat any pie, and believeing yourself until about 10 p.m., when a little voice says, "You DESERVE this pie," and in the pie goes. Boom! You have just gone 350 calories over your limit that day. Whereas, if you consume the pie first thing in the morning, you have already factored those calories into the day's equation, and you can set about being virtuous the rest of the day.

This rationale was soundly denounced by my coworkers, who declared that were they to choose such a course, they would STILL have a second piece of pie at night.

Yet the idea fits in nicely with my own personal philosophy of rewarding yourself BEFORE you have really done anything to merit the reward. And if it theoretically works so well the day after Thanksgiving, why not EVERY morning? Indeed, the Hero is lobbying for just such a lifestyle change, citing another group with similar wise, healthy eating habits: the Shakers.

After watching a documentary on the Shakers, he announced that the Shakers were the wisest people ever, at least in respect to their breakfast meals, which according to the documentary included apple pie EVERY DAY. 

"Apple pie for breakfast! EVERY day!" He was in awe.

Sadly, the Shakers have pretty much disappeared into  history now, and with them this fine idea of eating pie for breakfast. I can think of only one improvement to make upon their ritual: Have breakfast all day long.

This week

The Princess apologizes for the scarcity of blog posts this week. What started out as promising topics turned out, upon reflection, to be better relegated to the recesses of her imagination. And the Hero has not provided much material for her, being engrossed in pursuing his master's project in sonification, which is a word the Princess suspects he made up.

We sincerely hope next week will bring more exciting topics to pursue, or we may have to start making things up. It's not as if it hasn't been done here before.

Born to be...me

Dear Coast Guard,

This letter is in reply to your radio ad currently airing in Maryland, in which a very deep, confident-sounding male voice makes a stirring case for joining your establishment. In the ad this individual says, roughly, the following:

"I was not born to take it easy. I was born to test my limits--physically and mentally. I was made to stretch myself, to meet every test laid before me. To know who I am, to seek the edge of my abilities and then push myself beyond them. I was born to excel, to achieve. To exceed expectations. I was born for the United States Coast Guard."

I must say, this ad has stirred something deep inside my soul. It is difficult to describe, but I believe it can be summed up in one word: Laziness. 

Frankly, all this talk about pushing personal limits makes me really tired. I really WAS born to take it easy. To grab the Fritos that are lying within my reach. To be comfortable in the realm of my current abilities and to stay well away from their edges. My idea of pushing myself is to go pick up the mail that came through the mail slot in the door and is now lying on the floor. Stretching myself occurs only around Thanksgiving.

And not to be snarky, but what is all that "I was born to excel, to achieve, to exceed expectations" stuff? I am all for improving one's vocabulary, but your ad sounds like a thesaurus entry for "succeed." 

No, you are not talking about me in your ad. But should you get really desperate, you should have no trouble finding me: I'll be on the couch. With my Fritos nearby.

Car reprise

I hereby retract my apology in a previous post, in which I expressed remorse for unleashing ourselves on various car salespersons in the area. On the contrary, the salespersons have proven themselves well equipped to deal with clueless car buyers such as ourselves, in the sense that we come away from discussions with them feeling even more clueless. This, of course, is what they are trained to do. 

Our most recent salesperson evidently has taken an advanced training course in Bewildering the Customer. In this course, participants learn to wear customers down by simply talking on and on about the details of their own lives. We now know this woman's family intimately, including the heights of all her siblings, their complete history of parking tickets, and what her two children are getting for Christmas. We almost feel as if we should send the kids Christmas cards ("Hi, Jasmine. You don't know us, but we just thought we'd wish you a Merry Christmas. Do you want to know what your mom got you for Christmas? We can tell you where she hid it, too. We helped finance it, by the way.").

The tactic did not wear us down enough to beg her to sell us a car, although it did suffice to send us straight home after our visit instead of stopping at any of the nearby competitors, which we had fully intended to do. 

But her tactic may have been quite deliberate. All of her personal details were related as we were sitting in the car, giving us plenty of time to tune her out and become one with the car, visualizing zipping over mountain passes in it, imagining smoothly cutting through snow-covered roads. She probably hoped that we would bond so completely with the car that we would just refuse to get out of it, and demand that the manager get in the car with us to go over all the details so that we could just take it right home.

But we are wiser than that, of course. We stayed focused on the important things we want in a car -- e.g., that it has a sufficient number of cup holders. We voiced our relief at discovering that the car we were considering offered an extra two cup holders when the middle armrest in the backseat folded down.

"Oh, do you have little ones?" the saleswoman asked.

Um, no. Just us. 

As the Hero observes, our concern about always having beverages within reach would lead one to believe that we have been impoverished for most of our lifetime and are afraid that, at any moment, we might be deprived of life-nourishing liquids. Let me just say that we both were duly provided with adequate hydration during our bringing-up years and were in no way neglected in this respect. 

Another concern in a car, along with the cup holder count, is color. At least for me. The Hero warned that, particularly if we were to go with a used car, I might not get EXACTLY the color I wanted. 

This comment was met with such a stare from me that he began to worry that he might not EXACTLY get dinner that night, either, or any other night. Nothing further has been said on the subject of color.

And finally, a third important feature in a car is comfort, mainly because, like cup holder and color, it starts with c. Happily, the car we were considering is very comfortable, although if it had a bed and refrigerator it would be REALLY comfortable. But we wouldn't want to be too greedy.

Just as long as the ratio of cup holders to people is at least 3 to 1.

Nontraditional Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving, as usual, we and a large number of people we presume we are related to in some manner celebrated by eating too much. We were not allowed the customary post-Thanksgiving recovery period, however; we were not even done eating yet when a Series of Events was announced by certain Young Persons in attendance.

We were given a choice of activities: We could participate in a bowling tournament in the family room, attend a fashion show in the living room, or patronize the child-run bakery downstairs. There was no fourth option, but I suspect that certain adults, in an effort to get in on some of that recovery period, climbed into one of the vans in the driveway for some shut-eye.

I signed up for the bowling tournament, envisioning those little plastic bowling sets with the pins that can be knocked down by an ant. Instead I was given a Wii controller and introduced to my character, a brunette with pigtails and glasses and hands, but no arms. (Sometime later we also discovered that none of the girl characters were, strictly speaking, wearing pants, whereas ALL of the male characters were fully clothed, even though they no more had actual legs than the females. We thought this highly unfair and lodged an official complaint, which was thrown out on a technicality.)

I won the preliminary round of bowling and moved on to the finals, which I also won despite no prior experience in bowling without the benefit of arms OR pants. My victory drew admiration, although it also caused my arm to throb for two days. Had I been interviewed about my win, the headline would have read: "Bowling champ injured while engaging in fake sport."

I later visited the downstairs bakery, run by two sisters, and a subsidiary store run by their younger brother. The girls graciously gave their brother a great deal of business by sending their own customers to him, but only after the customers had purchased something at the bakery and had consumed it. "When you're done with your cupcakes," they told us, "we don't have anything more to do with the food. You can take it to his store," pointing at the Tiny Male Relative. "He'll take care of it."

This prompted the Hero's later observation that, although the young male proprietor believed he was running a market, he was "actually the garbage man."

"But an elegant one," I noted. "The garbage was delivered to customers on silver platters."

So on Thanksgiving we filled up on fake food and hurt ourselves playing fake sports. What more can you ask for?

Serving notice

I apologize to all the car salespersons in our area, upon whom we are about to unleash ourselves in our quest for a new car. We have already accosted two of them, and they are undoubtedly at this very minute seeking either a) a new profession, b) a new therapist, or c) both.

It's not hard to see why. We ask deep, thoughtful questions that cause the car salespeople to pause, ponder, and in some cases reach for a bottle of Tylenol. For example, if a salesperson starts talking about such car features as torque, we might frown in concentration as he explains, and then ask one of those deep clarification questions, such as "Is that available in different colors?"

This is not to say that we don't do our homework on car buying. For example, as I drive I have studied the cars around me to the point where I can now recognize my favorite models, causing me to say, "Look, a  CX-5!" and swerve dangerously as I try to get a closer look to confirm that yes, it is indeed a CX-5, and the driver is now looking alarmed and is likely calling 911 on his Bluetooth to report a deranged driver.

One reason it is so difficult for us personally to buy a car is that the last time I was car shopping, cars had far fewer options. Either you could get the Flintstones model, with foot power, or the Dino model, foot power plus an extra turbo boost. The Hero's car dates to a much more modern time, roughly the Model T era. So we are understandably overwhelmed by the vast array of car options available today, including -- we were actually told this by a salesperson -- headlight technology that is used on spaceships.

Car salespeople have been known to be pushy, of course. It is not a requirement that you have actually met a salesperson for this to be true. In a span of a day and a half, I have received severald emails from three different salespeople at a particular dealership in which I have yet to step foot. The communication from them, beginning on a Monday, progressed thus:

Salesperson 1: We pride ourselves on providing our customers with a superior shopping experience. [Princess's note: Does this mean they have free samples of chocolate? And foot massages?] We are confident we can meet your expectations. Would it be convenient for you to come in next Sunday?

Salesperson 2, a couple of hours later: My manager [Salesperson 1] has informed me that you'll be in on Wednesday. I'm sure we can find just what you're interested in, take it for a test drive, and, hopefully, you'll be driving away in a new car.

Salesperson 2, one hour and thirteen minutes later: Did you get my earlier email? Cars are flying off the lot. You'd better hurry while there's still some choices available. We're all set for your visit tonight, or would it be easier for us to bring the car to wherever you are?

Me: Pick up my Thanksgiving turkey and a large pizza on your way here, and you've got a deal.

Of course I did not actually respond in this way, but I admit that the idea of them bringing the car right to you seems a stroke of genius. They drive a brand-new car to your house, park it prominently in your driveway, and let you strut around it while they go and knock on the doors of curious neighbors to invite them over. Tell me you are going to turn this car down if they ask whether you want to buy it.

Salesperson: So, ma'am, to make things a little smoother we brought all the paperwork with us --

You: Yes! Yes! Where do I sign?

Neighbor, reading paperwork over shoulder: Say, it's a little blurry -- is that 5% financing, or 50%?

Salesperson, shoving neighbor behind a bush: Ha ha! I think we can take care of the rest without an audience, don't you, ma'am? Now if you'll just sign right here...

It's important to keep the high-pressure tactics in perspective, however. You want to buy a car. The salesperson wants to sell you a car. But here your mutual goals end. Your goal is to pay as little as possible for your dream car. The salesperson's goal is to retire and have enough money to employ a personal valet who will carry him aloft on a litter to his pool at his house in Tuscany.

So, as we continue our own search for a car, we are mindful of one thing: We must wear down the salesperson first, or we might be the ones carrying him to the pool on that litter.

Who does what?

Marriage experts advise that when determining who will be responsible for various chores, one factor to consider is the level of comfort or skill one partner or the other has with a particular chore. If your partner loves to cook, it makes sense for him or her to do most of the cooking if that works for the household schedule. 

But this does method have its flaws. Some people -- who often happen to be men -- may try to foist an unpleasant chore on their partners by means of flattery: "Oh, honey, you are SO much better than I am at folding the shirts and pants and underwear and socks and putting them back in the SAME drawer every time! How do you DO that? You really should be the one to do that regularly. I'll just mess it up."

They secretly suspect women have a gene for cleaning toilets, or changing diapers.

In our house, anything that is routinely used in the same sentence with digital or electronic is typically understood to be in the Hero's realm of expertise. Thus, anything to do with the computer, TV, cable, Internet, stereo, etc., I leave for him to handle. I am SURE that he has a gene for this. (I do, however, take responsibility for resetting the time and date on the phone whenever the power goes out, mainly because he does not care if it gets reset or not.) 

There is another method of handling chores, however, and that is that whoever complains about an issue in the household is the one who becomes the de facto Dealer with the Problem. This unfortunately was the case recently when I complained -- once too often, apparently -- about our Internet going down multiple times a day. 

"Call the company," the Hero suggested. 

So I did, although the reader may infer that much more conversation on this topic -- which is not being reprinted here -- transpired between the Hero and myself before my call.

Here is how my conversation with a representative of our service provider went:

Rep: And what can I help you with today?

Me: Our Internet goes down several times a day.

Rep: Oh! That is NOT good. I'll be glad to help you try to fix that. First, do you have a router?

Me: [looking at four large boxes in the vicinity of the computer] Hmmm, eeny, meeny, miney, moe...okay, miney must be the router.

Rep: I beg your pardon?

Me: Uh, that was a yes! Yes, we have a router. [crossing fingers that this is true]

Rep: Okay. Is your modem connected to your computer through the router?

Me: Sure! [have no idea what she's talking about]

Rep: Okay. The modem needs to be directly connected to your computer so we can adjust the signal.

Me: [getting nervous] You know, maybe we should do this another time. I think the dinner is burning. I'd better go check. 

Rep: Uh, it's only 10 a.m. in your time zone.

Me: Wow, I see flames! Bye!

This brings us to the third method for determining who does what in the household: If you mess something up, you are generally absolved from further handling that particular chore.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I must go and exercise my gene for eating cookies. I'm pretty sure I have one.

Extreme sports

As part of a recent airplane flight, at no extra charge, we passengers were able to experience the thrill of Extreme In-Flight Bumps and Dips. This was unannounced, probably because it is illegal for the pilot to say something truthful like, "Ladies and gentlemen, we will now embark on a reign of terror."

But that is exactly what happened. The experience included great sound effects, what with the plane's metal creaking and screeching and a voice inside my head yelling, "WHEN will you listen when I tell you to drive instead of fly??"

I wished someone would yell outside my head, because then I would have felt that I could scream too. But I didn't want to be the first. Second only to my fear of crashing is a fear of showing fear in front of other people. Everyone else appeared calm, so I channeled all my fear into praying and -- because the Hero was not there -- into the poor, innocent armrest on my right. Sometimes people like to hog the armrests in airplanes. This is understandable, but you really do not want to do this when seated next to me.

The Extreme Sports experience lasted approximately 3 hours, which is quite amazing considering that the total flight was only 1 hour 45 minutes. After the plane had returned to some sense of normalcy, the woman next to me turned and said, "You did really well." I nodded weakly. She didn't realize what a narrow escape she had just had, sitting next to me during turbulence. Had I known her better -- say, if I'd said hello to her at the beginning of the flight -- I would have grabbed her arm during the disturbance and, possibly, not have let go until the flight attendants came to pry my hand off.

She would have been totally justified in seeking a refund from the airlines:

Passenger: I would like to request a full refund for my recent flight on your airline.

Airline representative: And what is the reason for your request?

Passenger: I specifically asked to be seated in the No Passengers Who Get Queasy or Who Flip Out section.

Rep: And you were subsequently not seated in this section?

Passenger: Let's just say the doctor told me I may never regain feeling in my right forearm.

Rep: Oh, you sat next to HER...we'll get that refund to you right away, Ma'am.

After getting off the plane, I wondered where I should go to pick up my "I survived Flight XXXX" pin. Instead, I picked up my luggage and headed, unknowingly, into another Extreme Method of Travel: the taxi ride.

I will keep the description of this second experience brief. Have you ever wondered how insects and spiders can cling to upside-down surfaces, like the inside roof of a taxi? I don't know the answer, but I know that a person can perform this feat, too, given enough terror-fueled adrenaline. 

So, you don't have to be an athlete to enjoy extreme sports. Just head to your nearest taxi, or plane, and let the good times roll. And make sure there's an empty armrest.

The Princess travels

I recently returned from a work conference in a faraway city, where I spent most of my time being in the wrong building, getting on the wrong elevator, and wondering why, when I clearly was not using all the little shampoos and conditioners and other freebies in my hotel room, housekeeping kept stocking more little shampoos and conditioners and other freebies.

Not that I am complaining. We do not receive mysterious deliveries of little shampoos and conditioners and other freebies at home. And the Hero, attentive though he is, is not in the habit of bringing me a lovely dinner on a tray as they did at the hotel, but if he did, I am sure he would not charge $33 for a burger and fries. So it all evens out in the end.

This conference took place in the South, which is known for its hospitality and homestyle cooking, in which white bread features prominently. At least it did in the hotel and conference center, where mornings traditionally began with an egg and cheese biscuit. Not every morning, of course. Some mornings there was an egg and cheese and bacon biscuit, whereas other days we were treated to an egg and cheese and sausage biscuit. 

While I was away the Hero kept a close watch on the house, particularly the contents of the fridge and freezer. One night by phone he inquired about what was involved when I cleaned the house. "I always make sure I at least clean the bathroom," I said, thinking we would start small.

"Right. Clean toilet."

Here we expanded upon the other items generally residing in a bathroom, ours included, that also needed attention. Tub. Counter. Sink. Floor. Etc.

"Okay," the Hero said gamely.

My co-workers were impressed with his initiative, and the next day they inquired of me how the cleaning was going. I said I would ask when I called him in the evening.

"How's the cleaning?" I asked him that night.

"It's not Saturday yet," he answered quickly. "I'm going to clean on Saturday." There was a pause. "Do I need to wash any clothes?"

More points with the co-workers. And me.

All in all, it was a good conference. I came home to a fairly clean house, and even some food remaining in the fridge and freezer. ("I had KFC one night," the Hero confessed.)

Now I can relax until next year's conference, and more white bread.

The transformer coat

As the seasons change and we circle around once again to cooler weather, so the Hero and I have circled around to a recurring discussion: outerwear. For my part, I argue for the need to have multiple coats or jackets for various occasions and types of weather. The Hero believes this is a false need, bordering on obsession, on my part.

"We don't have room for so many coats," he argues, which is true. In 1840, around when our house was built, people were not into building giant closets, because they knew that doing so would only encourage their adult children who had houses of their own to store stuff there. Besides, there wasn't any space to build closets, so they hung their coats on pegs in the living room, since there also wasn't any space for an entryway. This rich heritage has been handed down until the present, and our coats, too, reside out in the open, hanging from Shaker-style pegs fashioned by the Hero. 

But the problem is not really that we have too many coats. It's that we don't have neat-looking coats that would make the out-in-the-open coat display look interesting. Our rack of coats, in fact, could look like a Pottery Barn ad, if only we had really cool coats and accessories, like a plaid flannel jacket, a bright yellow rain slicker, polka-dot rain boots, a vintage child's red wagon, a medium-size friendly dog, etc.   

I sometimes find myself searching these Pottery Barn ads for any hint of where they might have obtained the cool coats and accessories in the photos ("Yellow rain slicker, Shop Here, $85, www.shophere.com").

Maybe the Hero has a point about the obsession thing.

He would love to decree a one-coat per person policy, which he believes would work if each of us could find just the right coat. The following is an ad in pursuit of that goal that describes the coat characteristics needed. 

Wanted: One all-purpose coat, or jacket, smallish size to fit my wife. Coat must come with removable liner and hood to be suited to various outdoor temperatures. Must be able to shrink and grow to accommodate more or less bulk underneath as clothes are layered or removed for varying seasons. Coat must also be able to grow and decrease in length, as dictated by the current weather, by some mechanical or electrical or magical means. It must suit both casual and dressy occasions. In rain or other precipitation, coat must self-activate a rainguard protective coating that deactivates once the threat is past.

Or, in the event such a coat is not possible, perhaps a medium-size friendly dog...

Decisions, indecisions

Whenever the Hero and I are facing a large purchase -- some electronic gizmo, a new car, or an island somewhere in the Pacific (not really, but wouldn't that be nice?) -- we find ourselves hampered by an innate flaw: the inability to spend large amounts of money quickly. 

It is not necessarily an inability to part with money -- I in particular am quite skilled at that, and the Hero is making progress -- but we cannot do so without commencing a long, complicated process. In some cases, by the time we have finally decided to commit, the item in question is no longer on the market.

If ever we were to acquire a substantial sum of money in some nefarious manner, and had to get it off our hands in a hurry, we would be doomed. The authorities pursuing us for our crime would quickly catch up with us in the digital camera section at Best Buy and arrest us before we'd had a chance to decide on a purchase. "What do you think?" the Hero would shout to me as we are both led away in handcuffs. "Optical zoom? digital zoom?" 

"I don't know!" I would yell back. "Do you think we need full HD video?"

We estimate that we have spent a collective 23 years researching various items. Sometimes our inability to commit monetarily in a timely manner extends to smaller purchases as well. We admit, for example, that the slow cooker probably was researched as much, if not more, than the new car that was purchased around the same time. The research appears to have paid off: Unlike the car, the slow cooker does not wake us up in the middle of the night with a shrill alarm, nor does it attempt to hold us hostage by refusing to release the keys from the ignition. 

We are now facing the necessity of buying a new car for me. Actually, we have been facing this for a couple of years now. The car still goes, so we keep putting off that decision just a little bit longer. The car, however, is giving us hints that it is not interested in going for much longer. The exhaust system is deteriorating. The car does not like to start in cold weather. It does not like me to poke around in the keyhole with the keys in cold weather. The car is saying, "Look, I'm old. I'm ready to retire and move to Florida, hang out in the sun, go to the beach, you know. It's time for us both to move on."

So far I have been impervious to all the car's efforts to retire, begging it to hang in there for just one more season. But lately it has brought out the one weapon --besides not starting at all -- that it knows will bring me down.

"Time to look for a new car," I said to the Hero. "The CD player only works above 50 degrees."

And so, if we don't spend some money quickly, I might be seen commuting in a Go-Kart. Except it would take us just as long to decide on a Go-Kart as it would on a car.

It's a hurricane! No, it's a post-tropical storm! No, it's Frankenstorm! Wait, it might be --

Today we report from somewhere on the East Coast, where we have just emerged from several days of anticipation and dire warnings and newscasts about impending Hurricane Sandy, and, less exciting, the hurricane itself. We were told that we should not be fooled by the fact that no one seemed to know, at any given moment, whether it was technically still a hurricane or, possibly, Rush Limbaugh. 

If all the media buildup was intended to goad citizens who were in the path of the storm into preparing in a prudent manner, it was pretty successful by most accounts. If all the buildup was intended to produce anxiety, it was hugely successful, at least by our own personal account.

Unlike a lot of storms, we had days to prepare for whatever this one would bring. And, therefore, days to worry. Of course we planned. We made oodles of Ziploc baggies of ice. We prudently stocked critical survival supplies, such as coffee (Hero) and chocolate (Princess). We always plan ahead, so we also made sure to root around until we found several half-used candles and flashlights with batteries of dubious age. 

In the end, however, we did NOT lose power, so we can happily stash the candles and flashlights until the next storm, at which time the batteries will be of even MORE dubious age.

The governor told everyone to stay home on the day the storm was supposed to greet us, which we were happy to comply with. If he had told everyone they should take the opportunity to have a long nap, we would have been happy to comply with that too.

We watched soberly, however, as photo after photo of the destruction left by Sandy flashed across the TV screen, and then we saw a dire warning: If the power went out, our local power company might not be aware of it.

Of course we would need to call to let them know. But we thought it might be prudent to address this possibility ahead of time, and considered calling the power company BEFORE the power went out.

Us: Um, hello.

Computerized voice at power company: If your power is out, press or say 1. If you see a downed wire, press or say 2. If you --

Us: Uh, yeah, our power's not out yet, but we just thought you should know that it MIGHT go out, with the storm and all, and --

Computer: I'm sorry, I did not understand that. Did you say your power was out?

Us (louder and slower, as if speaking to someone very old and deaf, or possibly dead): No, we said it MIGHT go out --

Computer: Is this an emergency?

Us: Well, not yet, but it --

Computer: If this is an emergency, please say Yes.

Us: (silence)

Computer: Thank you. Please hang up now so that we can assist those who are having a true emergency.

Us: But --

Computer: Goodbye. (click)

(Loud boom, and everything goes dark.)

Us: Hey, it's an emergency now!

Telephone: (dial tone)

At one point the power did go out, plunging us into darkness. We remained calm; not a muscle twitched, because we were not moving until we had some light, and we could not remember where we had strategically placed the candles and flashlights. It could have been a long night, sitting frozen in place.

Fortunately the power came on after about 10 seconds, but the Hero took the brief outage as a warning sign and promptly turned off his computer before the power went out again and stayed out. He found a candle, matches, and a book, and sat on the couch, ready to be plunged back into the nineteenth century (but without outhouses). I kept working placidly at my computer, and after several minutes with no flickering of the lights the Hero decided that perhaps we were going to remain in the twenty-first century after all, and reluctantly gave up his anticipated reading by candlelight.

After everything was over, and life went about much as usual, we were left to ponder the experience -- mostly, what do we do with all those Ziploc baggies of ice?

Bumpy cake lives!

As we head into the holiday season, the thoughts of some individuals are no doubt already whirling around upcoming holiday activities, such as baking. If your thoughts, personally, are NOT whirling around holiday baking, that's okay: Your thoughts can be directed toward someone else's baking, hoping that they will make way too many cookies and beg you to take some.

I once asked my mom why I did not have, as so many other adults seem to have, fond memories of baking at her side when I was little -- my girlish hands grasping the big wooden spoon to stir the heavy dough, excitedly watching cookies rise through the oven door, licking the bowl.*

"You were never interested," she said.

Oh.

But one thing I WAS interested in when I was little, and which we had in abundance thanks to my mother's job at Sander's bakery, was bumpy cake. Bumpy cake was a rich chocolate cake with little mounds of cream on the top, covered in chocolate. Really, what are memories of homemade baking compared to memories of eating bumpy cake?

Sander's eventually went out of business, though not from lack of support on our part, but happily some of their products continue to be sold in drug stores and grocery stores. And an airport bookstore in Michigan, where I found tiny jars of Sander's famous hot fudge sauce and something called Caramel Pear Sauce. I took one jar of each to the counter to purchase them.

"Today must be Sander's ice cream topping day," the guy said. "Everyone's been buying them. And two seems to be the magic number."

"Well, you know, one jar for me, one for someone else..." I said.

"Oh," he said. "I thought it was TWO for me..."

He seemed to be intimately acquainted with the caramel pear sauce. "You will LOVE that," he said enthusiastically. "It's a little heavy on the cinnamon if you eat it by itself, but otherwise, it's great."

I took it that by "eat it by itself" he meant, literally, "eat it by itself," with the assistance of a spoon and no other accompaniments, such as ice cream. In that case, I wasn't surprised it was a little heavy on the cinnamon.

So sometime soon, I plan to take some time to get reacquainted with a spoon, a tiny jar of Sander's hot fudge, and -- a product inspired by my favorite childhood dessert -- some Sander's Bumpy Cake Ice Cream. And I will make my own memories. And I will definitely lick the bowl.

______________
*For the record, even if I HAD baked with my mother when I was young, there would have been no licking of the bowl. To this day she chastizes me for doing so in my own kitchen, citing vague, dark stories of salmonella poisoning. She does not know any actual persons who became sick from eating uncooked dough, but that does not stop her from citing dark stories. I'll mention to her on the phone that I made brownies, or a three-layer cake with homemade frosting and marzipan decorations, and she will only be interested in one thing: "You didn't lick the bowl, did you?" This is probably the REAL reason I was not interested in baking.

The cider mill games

One of the joys of autumn in Michigan is visiting a cider mill. Basically, this is a place where you can buy festive fall food items loosely connected to apples and, more important, containing large quantities of sugar: apple cider, plain donuts and donuts dipped in sugar, caramel apples, sugar straight up, etc. The large quantities of sugar are then enjoyed on the grounds while lounging at picnic tables, or taken home to be enjoyed later or, as frequently happens with us, consumed while sitting in the car in the parking lot of the cider mill, with the heat blasting. This is, after all, October in Michigan, which is roughly equivalent to January in more moderate states.

But if you opt for eating your treats in the car or at home, you miss out on one of the other great features of most cider mills: bees. The bees are very friendly. Pretty much wherever you are, particularly if you have a glass of cider, the bees will want to be also. On any given day on a weekend during the fall, the ratio of bees to people at a cider mill is about 178 to 1. 

On our recent visit, we headed out to the yard with our cider and donuts. There, the time that should have been spent enjoying our treats was instead spent on intricate bee evasion maneuvers that would have done an army commander proud. There were only three other people outside, and they were not in possession of any food or drinks, so the bee-to-person-holding-sweet-beverages ratio rose to the level of Harry Potter fans to Harry Potter.

The bees seemed to instantly divine our maneuvers. Our trail resembled the ones sometimes shown in the "Family Circus" comic strip, wandering all over the neighborhood and up into trees, etc. We considered giving up one of our glasses of cider as a sacrifice to draw the bees' attention while we escaped with the other glass and the donuts, but we figured the bees already knew this trick.

Some thoughtful person had planted weapons around the yard: flyswatters. They worked very well, if you wanted to rile the bees up more than they already were. Our bag of donuts would have served this purpose just as well.

We cheered to ourselves when a bus full of teenagers pulled into the lot, figuring this would bring the bee ratio down significantly. We even went so far as to celebrate our expected liberation by sneaking a sip of our cider. Evidently the teachers had experience with the bees, though, and they piled everyone back onto the bus to enjoy their snacks.

We finally decided to pile back into our car too, so the Hero created a diversion while I fled to safety. I had to circle the car several times to make sure no bees were following me. The Hero jumped in after me, having narrowly escaped a bee slipping into his cider.

We had a little toast: to next year's trip to the cider mill. And next year's bees.

Plane talk

On a recent plane ride, the Hero immediately noticed something different once we were aboard.

"It's clean," he said, looking around. 

It was true. There were no scuffs or smudges on the seats in front of us, no tray tables looking like they might separate from their locking mechanism at any moment, and there was a discernible pattern to the carpet that did not involve crushed Cheerios or dried liquid stains.

We pondered this unique situation, wondering aloud what may have precipitated it, until the man on the other side of me informed us that the entire plane was brand new.

"So they could squeeze in more seats," he said.

"Ahh," we said. "At least it's really clean."

"Not for long," he predicted.

So, this was one of Southwest's new planes. As the flight attendants discussed what to do in case of a loss of cabin pressure and admonished us not to form a line for the bathroom no matter how much we needed to use it, I embarked upon an evaluation of our new surroundings. Here, based on a detailed scrutiny of seat 13B and its immediate environs, are my thoroughly unbiased findings.

More legroom, check. Most passengers are now able to sit without their knees kissing the seat in front of them, which is important in the event that you feel sick and have to put your head between your knees. Previously, passengers feeling faint were required to just go ahead and faint, finding some comfort in the fact that they were so jammed in that there was nowhere for them to fall.

Softer seats, check. The airline has engineered special seats that, while not likely to be mistaken for a Barcalounger, nevertheless are noticeably softer than previously. I say this based on the fact that we disembarked from a multi-hour plane ride still able to retain some feeling in our respective derrieres. 

Skinnier armrests, check. Let's just say that the American public's arms, in general, are not getting any skinnier; why should armrests? When the airline was conducting focus groups to see what passengers wanted in their airplane experience, did they really get yes answers to the question "I would be comfortable with a stranger's forearm flesh hanging in my personal space during the flight"?

Less underseat storage, check. Airlines appear to be on a campaign to force passengers to travel without any luggage whatsoever. How else to explain the rising fees for checked bags, the new fees some are charging for carryon bags, and now smaller spaces in which to store those carryon bags? Soon passengers will be required to have their belongings surgically sewn somewhere inside their person, which will of course wreak havoc with the security systems. 

Lower seats, check. Although the new seats are closer to the ground than the ones on the older planes, officials have insisted that passengers will not notice -- other than the fact that they can no longer store anything larger than a Kleenex box under the seat in front of them -- because the seats now better accommodate typical human proportions. Many passengers, of both typical and atypical proportions, are likely to disagree. As for me, I can only say: 

Finally, a seat where my feet can touch the floor.

Would you like an AARP membership with that hairdo?

On my recent visit to the hair salon, I complimented my stylist on her new hairdo. It hung sweetly around her face. I did not realize at first that it was rather radically shaved in the back, but it suited her.

"Oh, I had to do SOMETHING," she said, with her characteristic Irish accent. "One day I looked in the mirror, and" -- here she assumed a look of horror -- "I'd turned into me mother!"

I sympathized with her. Earlier that week, a receptionist at my mother's dentist's office had remarked how much I looked like my mother. 

My mother had just had two teeth extracted, and was not looking particularly her best. Plus, she is 87 years old. 

Seeing that I did not share her viewpoint, but evidently completely failing to understand why, the receptionist warmed to her subject.

"Look at some pictures of your mother at your age," she urged. "I'll bet she looked just like you."

I HAD looked at pictures of my mother at my age. She was very attractive, but she did not look anything like I do now. 

I shared this tale with my stylist. "My mother is 87," I said. "She's a wonderful person, and I love her, but I really don't want to look like her." 

"Oh, heavens, no," she said. "No one ever wants to look like their mum. I love me mother, too, God rest her soul, but I don't want to look like her. Forgive me, mum," she said contritely, looking heavenward. "I sure hope she's not hearing me from up there, saying how I don't want to be all jowly in the chin like her."

She was incensed that a young salesman had recently asked her whether she was an AARP member. "The impertinence!" she said. "What age do you become a senior citizen? 65? 60? 55?" 

"I think it varies," I said. "But some places might say 55."

She sighed. "I'm already one, then. But for goodness' sake you don't ask someone if they're an AARP member. Not even if they look 90."

In an attempt to distance herself from resembling her mother, and indignant at being taken for a senior citizen, she had undergone a radical haircut. "You could wear this look too," she said.

There is a tendency among people, which I would do well to ponder more often before I open my mouth, to believe that if you compliment them on something -- a hairdo, new shoes, a piece of art -- you would be pleased to have whatever it is for yourself. Certain family members, in fact, use this method to determine what to get other family members for birthdays, Christmas, etc.* ("You really liked my sleeveless vest jacket, so here you go!" "You really seemed to like the new kitten, so...")

So far the compliment trick has not worked with high-end vehicles, however.

And now my admiration of the stylist's haircut had put me in peril of having part of my head shaved. But she hastened to say that I wouldn't have to go THAT extreme. "And not now," she said reassuringly. "Just something to think about." I was profoundly grateful. 

But she was inspired now, and she cut my hair on a slight angle from back to front. I did not really notice until I got home and the Hero, who has become sensitive to my feeling caught between his opinion of my hair and the stylist's opinion, and my feeling that MY opinion does not count for much, said, "You look sort of New Yorkish." 

"Good," I said. "I don't think my mother ever looked New Yorkish."

In which the Princess cannot be trusted

Our home has been invaded. The insidious intruders have made attempts before, but were thwarted by our precautions. This time, however, they joined forces and overwhelmed us. What's worse, I let them into the house myself: three bags of M&Ms.

Three bags of cute, fall-themed M&Ms. Peanut. Plain. Even candy-corn flavored.

I am at a loss to explain how this happened. All I can say is that it seemed like a good idea at the time. So did the Battle of Little Bighorn, and we see how well THAT turned out.

Perhaps I was overwhelmed by the cuteness of the M&Ms. The Hero would not have been overwhelmed by their cuteness. He is impervious to cuteness in something that will be consumed. "This wouldn't have happened if you were with me," I accused him. 

Repenting of my error in judgment, I took the excess candy to various social functions. As seriously as any group of wine tasters, we endeavored to tease out the exact flavors of the candy corn M&Ms. It elicited many flavor suggestions, although no one suggested candy corn.

Someone thought it reminiscent of cotton candy. The Hero and another male detected a distinct orange flavor. I tasted just plain white chocolate.

And one person pronounced it "just wrong."

Was she referring to my decision to buy it? It was hard to tell.

At any rate, none of the candy I bought is individually wrapped, which means I can't share it with our trick or treaters. 

What a shame.

Where is the Princess?

Due to pressing work duties, the Princess may be rather sporadic in her blog appearances for a week or two (confirming the Princess's belief that work in general interferes MUCH too much with one's life). In the meantime, take comfort in the fact that her work duties do not include interrupting your dinner hour with phone calls asking who you are going to vote for.

No more blood sucking--maybe

This summer I found myself in need of a cross-cultural media campaign strategy, something that could reach across the great divide between humans and...mosquitoes. The message I wanted, desperately, to convey was this: 

OTHER PEOPLE HAVE JUST AS MUCH BLOOD AS ME. MAYBE MORE. TAKE THEIRS. 

Mosquitoes are not equal-opportunity diners. Approximately 19% of humans provide 100% of the average mosquito's diet. We few are their breakfast, lunch, dinner, morning snack, late afternoon snack, midnight snack, watching-TV snack, etc. If any political candidates are running on a platform of leveling this playing field so that more of the population gives its fair share of blood to this cause, they have my hearty support.

In the meantime, I have ordered a device, a lantern, that can be used outdoors to repel mosquitoes. It reportedly forms an invisible, protective shield around anyone sitting nearby. I have not tried it out yet, one reason being that the directions for assembly are so lengthy that it seems easier to just sit around and get bitten. And that doesn't include the directions for USING it.

The assembly directions go something like this:

1. Preparation of device for usage requires ample space in which to work, such as a large, open outdoor field. Prepare accordingly, securing any necessary environmental permissions, etc.
2. Disassemble all three sections of the device. Mix them up thoroughly so you cannot remember which part fits into which other part.
3. Locate the bottom section of the device and insert four AA batteries into it. If you cannot locate the four batteries, this is because they are not included. Look in the drawer where you keep batteries. If necessary, secure batteries from some other, little-used battery-operated item in your house.
4. In the middle section of the device, insert the butane cartridge. Only cartridges from original manufacturer will work in the device (what did you expect?). And they are expensive. So do not mess up on this step.
5. In the grill on top of the device, insert the repellent pad by carefully sliding it under the grill, carefully pulling it back out when it gets all tangled up, and repeating however many times necessary.
6. Put all the parts back together. If you are female, do not ask your husband for help. If you are male, do not ask ANYONE for help. If you have parts left over, they probably belong to some other disassembled item.
7. In the event you are able to assemble all the sections back together in proper fashion, congratulations! You are in the top 6% of users. If the device WORKS when you have it all put together, you are in the top 1%.
8. To start the device,turn the ON/OFF switch to ON. Be aware: The device is not actually ON at this point. To further turn it ON, locate the button that says PUSH. Press this button six times in rapid succession. Sixteen times may be better. The device is now ON. Most likely.
9. Cartridges last 45 minutes. By the time you have assembled the device and waited for it to begin working, you may need another cartridge. If so, repeat from Step 1.
10. To store longer than one day without usage, disassemble the entire device.

The device comes with myriad warnings, as you might expect of something that is expected to seriously do battle with one of humankind's most hated enemies.

• Do not assemble indoors. This includes the garage AND your relatives' garages.
• Do not keep open food nearby. Chemicals from the device may alter food molecules, causing the food to get off the plate and walk away.
• Extremely flammable. Do not use near flames. Do not smoke around this device. Do not smoke when NOT around this device. (This message paid for by your mother.)
• Do not lick the repellent pad. Do not let children or pets lick the pad. Mosquitoes may lick the pad.
• Device is designed to work while you are at rest. For best results, do not walk, run, jump, crawl, hula dance, shimmy, or breathe too fast around the device.

To further the public's understanding of this device and its operation, we present here a short Q&A with a totally fictional representative of the manufacturer.

Q&A

Q: Why does the device show a mosquito with a line through it on the top, where the repellent pad goes under a grill?
A: This is a warning not to use the device to intentionally barbeque your mosquitoes.

Q: Someone would do that?
A: If we don't tell them not to, they might.

Q: It says the device is effective against not only mosquitoes, but also "biting flies, flying insects, and bugs." What about certain people who bug me?
A: Sorry. We can only do so much for $29.95.

Q: It sounds like the device won't work very well unless I'm just sitting around. Couldn't you have made an "active" version?
A: Who are you, James Bond?

Q: Hey, does he get bitten a lot, too? That would make a good book. The Spy Who Got Eaten Alive by Mosqi--
A: NEXT!

We've got scary covered

It's a bit early, but we're all ready for Halloween at our house. We didn't even have to do much of the work ourselves. With very little effort on our part, indeed even without our knowledge, our house has pretty much taken care of turning itself into a destination for Halloween fright.

The excitement begins outside, where the stairway that leads to our door is booby-trapped with spider webs strung across the steps. To get to the door you have to plow right through these. As you do so, you might ponder the thought that it is a scientific fact that a spider web is 3,000 times more sticky than silly string. Also that some spiders have been known to take revenge for the disturbance of their webs.

Once indoors, there are additional cobwebs to dodge. Amazingly, some of these seem to form in mere seconds. An entire doorway that, a moment earlier, you walked through quite easily, can be entirely sealed off to the unlucky person behind you.

(Not to interrupt things, but what exactly is a cobweb, anyway? Is there something called a cob that spins a web? Do spiders ever get caught in a cob's web? Do the two ever fight over territory? Do cobs take revenge?)

If spooky noises are your thing, we have those in abundance. The refrigerator emits a series of noises that sound as if it is having a conversation with itself, and the discussion is whether to just eat whole the next person unlucky enough to open the door or to merely dismember them and stuff them in the freezer for a snack later. Although we keep close tabs on what lives in our refrigerator, occasionally mooshy, unidentifiable food things can be seen that, if you were brave enough to touch them, might be mistaken for brains.

The refrigerator noises, however, have nothing on those of the toilet lid. Made to slowly close on its own even if dropped, it has inexplicably begun to make eerie, back-of-your-neck-hair-raising sounds as it lowers. The Hero cannot resist picking it up, letting go, picking it up, etc., over and over to hear it. We are alternately amused and uncomfortable at the sound. We can be amused because we know what it is. 

Or do we?

As you move through the house, scary creatures occasionally swoop down at you. They are most likely stink bugs, creatures that seem to have traded their ability to navigate with any purpose in exchange for...we're not sure what, as they have no positive qualities whatsoever. (Warning: They particularly like the color white, and if they get scared, or annoyed, they will...well, let's just say they are not potty trained. If you wear white, and at some point you notice brown splotches on your clothes, don't say we didn't warn you.)

There are other scary creatures in our house as well. I am thinking here of those that lurk in the mirror, particularly in the mornings, but as this is a particularly frightening prospect that's all we'll say about it. 

Occasionally there are scenes of gore, such as when I am operating electrical equipment in the kitchen. Actually, electricity does not even have to be involved: Anything sharp, like a knife or a paper envelope (and also glass jars of applesauce at the grocery store, but that's enough about that), can whirl around unpredictably and land in someone's flesh. If you see something emerge from the house looking like a mummy with Band-aids all over, most likely it has been involved in a little skirmish in the kitchen.

The only thing missing so far is something going thump in the night. We're waiting. We know it will come at some point...thump, thump...and we'll tell ourselves it's the toilet seat lid.

Some days are more fortunate than others

Dear officials of the local commuter train:

I could not help noticing that you have been having a bit of difficulty with the train schedule lately, what with storms knocking out signals, trains breaking down, personnel breaking down and not reporting for work, etc. Perhaps it might be easier to notify riders of the trains that AREN'T having problems than of those that are?

Not that I am criticizing you. I am sure you have had plenty of that from frustrated commuters who just want to get home after a long day of work, or who would prefer not to spend half the morning on the train trying to get to work. 

We do appreciate your sincere apologies and thorough explanations. They don't help that much, to be honest, but it's a nice gesture nonetheless. I personally am more appreciative of another fact that I couldn't help noticing: that these problems usually seem to occur on a Tuesday or Wednesday.

And I do not ride the train on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. 

It has been very thoughtful of you to have things turn out this way, allowing me to miss many of these commuting headaches. And this might seem a little selfish of me, but if any future troubles arise, could you perhaps try to make sure they happen on one of those days? I'm not advocating that your personnel be lax on these days or anything, but maybe they could just be extra vigilant on Monday, Thursday, and Friday. And maybe those severe storms could be limited to Tuesdays and Wednesdays, too. I realize this is not really your jurisdiction, but I'm just saying.

I realize that my request might interfere with the schedules of some of your other riders. I realize it might not be feasible. But -- 

Hey! A thought just occurred to me. Maybe you could just eliminate all these problems on ANY day! Then EVERYONE will be happy. Yes, I like this plan much better.

I'm sure you'll figure out a way.

Sincerely,
Fortunate Rider (and may it stay that way)

The great chocolate heist

For further evidence that, as a whole, the American diet needs to be overhauled, we need look no farther than a candy store in Colorado. During a break-in at the store last month, an individual stole numerous scoopfuls of chocolate candy, including peanut butter cups, chocolate-covered Rice Krispie Treats, and English toffee. From surveillance cameras the store owner readily identified the culprit as a juvenile, which should alarm us all that our children and young people are so drawn to sweets that they will turn to criminal activity to access them. Even more disturbing, the cameras revealed that this young, sweet-toothed individual was...a black bear, who entered the store through the front door on which the lock was broken.

This incident brings up an urgent question: Why don't I live near a candy store that sells vast quantities of chocolate and has a faulty lock on the front door? But beyond that issue, just what are we, as a nation, teaching our young black bears these days? Did this community offer a choice of shops for the bear to choose from? Say, a fruit market? Surely if he had had a variety of nutritional foods to choose from, he would have done the sensible thing and taken even MORE candy so he could have some the following day, when the store owner repaired the lock and foiled any additional break-ins.

But we can take some comfort in the fact that the bear apparently had some training in manners, as he was very tidy while in the store, and disturbed nothing except the candy he wanted. This he scooped up and took outside to consume -- again, very thoughtful -- and then returned for more. This went on for about 20 minutes, according to the cameras, during which time the bear probably consumed the equivalent of all Halloween candy sold in this country each year.

The incident has nutritional ramifications beyond this single bear. Since the break-in, visitors to the store have reportedly been asking which treats the bear enjoyed, and buying quantities for themselves. This gives me an idea. If we want people to eat more healthy -- and I am not saying I necessarily want people, including myself, to eat more healthy, but that is what we are hearing these days -- we may have to get the wildlife of America involved. Get the bears, the deer, the raccoons on camera snacking on a rice bowl with pea tendrils, and we just might convince the human population of this country to follow suit. Headlines like "Bear steals seven pounds of turnips from farmer's market!" would go a long way toward solving the junk-food problem we have.

In the meantime, the bear involved in the candy store heist would appreciate any little handouts you may care to share. Just be sure to leave your door unlocked. 

How far for love?

Today we had intended to bring you commentary on a news item about how the discovery of a rare spider has halted road construction in Texas, but reading that story about spiders led to reading other stories about spiders and soon we were freaking ourselves out and becoming convinced that spiders were pretty much poised to take over the world. Therefore no feature on them will be presented today. Or, probably, ever.

We have come across a news report regarding a Russian man who apparently offended his girlfriend. The news report did not elaborate on his exact transgression, but if Russian men and women are anything like American men and women, the man probably has no idea exactly where things went wrong.

Regardless, desperate to get back into her good graces, the man -- who is not named in the report, so let's call him Yevgeny -- must have thought long and hard about how to reverse this state of affairs. While he was musing, he happened to look out his window and notice his neighbor's field full of hay. Finally, he hit upon just the right solution!

"I will give her hay!" he thought excitedly. This was swiftly followed by a more rational thought: "I don't have any hay." But he is not one to give up on a great idea. "I will steal it!"

And, according to news sources, he did -- 1 1/2 tons, to be exact.

Now, I freely admit ignorance of Russian customs in regard to relationships. It may be that the gift of a large amount of animal feed that does not, technically, belong to you is a perfectly accepted manner of apologizing to an offended loved one. Or possibly Yevgeny requires some retraining in the art of courting.

The news accounts do not say whether the hay ever reached its intended recipient. If it did, we can imagine the conversation between Yevgeny and his beloved, whom we shall call Olga:

Yevgeny: Olga! I was brute. I should not have (here his words are muffled, as he still is not exactly sure what he should not have done). Forgive, please!

Olga (unimpressed): And just why should I forgive you?

Y: Look! I bring a peace offering for you. (He gestures proudly toward the large cart of hay.) I steal for you!

O: (silent for a long moment)

Y: Ah! You are too overwhelmed for words!

O: (sighing) You stole hay? Really, Yevgeny, if you were going to steal something, couldn't you have stolen a diamond or something? 

Y: But...I thought you would be pleased! 

O: Well, you were mistaken. Please leave now.

Y: What...what should I do with the hay?

O: (sounding bored) Oh, take it to the field at the edge of town and dump it.

Y: (as he does so, he is astonished to find two other men there, also dumping carts of hay) What is this! 

Men: Join the club, pal. (The three dump their useless hay and head off together to eat somewhere.)

But of course Yevgeny never got to enjoy his meal that night, as he was arrested for possession of stolen hay and, possibly, for Acting Upon a Stupid Impulse. Olga makes no further appearance in the official records, but we might speculate a number of things about her, including that she is now seeking a man who does not live next door to someone with large amounts of hay.