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The comedic relief, that’s me.

Hearing a knock on the door usually startles and surprises me and I spill my coffee all over myself, but today instead of BANG BANG BANG it was a nice civilized little knock, and I grinned on my way over to the door. “Sarah!” I said, “I knew it was you.” She came in and cuddled the cats and I babbled away a mile a minute all about what’s been going on and she told all about the two boy-kitties that have recently taken up residence in her heart and in her house along with all the other kitties. She said that she was going to the pet supply store and then the grocery store and did I want to come? I said sure, so she went to the bank while I took a shower, then came and picked me up. While we were in the grocery store I said, “I’ve been meaning to call for about a million years, I almost called you a couple of weeks ago when we decided to go to Boston but I didn’t want to make you think you were being used to take care of the cats.” She rolled her eyes and smiled and said, “Geez, Sage, that would have been completely okay with me, don’t you know that?” and I felt glad that I’d mentioned it.

In the pet supply store I picked up a case of wet food because I swear Karma knows when we’ve been there and gets highly disappointed if we arrive home without wet food, and after Sarah had paid for her purchases I got out my checkbook and wrote out a check for the wet food. They don’t care at the grocery store if you don’t have i.d., so I figured they wouldn’t care at the pet store either. The clerk said, “Great, and can I see your driver’s license?” I said I didn’t have one. “Hmm,” she said, and then turned to the other clerk. “This girl doesn’t have a driver’s license,” she said. Clerk Two frowned and asked me, “Do you know the number from your license?” Clerk One and Sarah said, “She doesn’t have one at all.” Clerk Two’s face got befuddled. “You don’t have a driver’s license? At all?” I shook my head and smiled and said, “It’s really okay — I don’t mind not buying the wet food.” Clerk One and Clerk Two began apologizing in two part harmony, One explaining how the computerized cash register wouldn’t accept a check without i.d., Two explaining that it was store policy, and they were both very very sorry. Sarah said, “Hey, no problem, I can pay for it and you can pay me back, okay?” “Great! Thanks,” I said, and Clerk One said, “Are you sure? I’m so sorry about this,” and I beamed at her and told her that I completely understood and it wasn’t a problem at all, and they were STILL APOLOGIZING as Sarah and I walked out the door.

We went back to Sarah’s house where she made something called… kiblets? Kinnels? I keep thinking kibbles but I know that’s not right. Little delicate pastry bits with even teenier bits of walnuts stuffed inside. I love knowing people who enjoy cooking. She let me make one, and after I rolled the dough too thin, got it stuck to the rolling pin, put too much of the walnut mixture inside, and rolled it up with walnuts drooling out both sides we agreed that I was much better at sitting in the kitchen being entertaining by talking. (Not that my cooking skills aren’t entertaining, but in a different way.)

Buy Me Elmo — I mean, Tickle Me Elmo, is the toy of the week in this country. Buzz Lightyear is the toy of the week in England. People are putting ads in the paper, selling Elmo for upwards of five hundred dollars, getting into arguments in stores over who saw it first. What is wrong with these parents? What are they afraid will happen if they don’t get Little Sweetums whatever their hearts desire? If my father had given me a Barbie Doll (yes, there are Barbie Dolls hidden deep in my shameful toy past) for christmas and I’d whined and said, “Daddeeeeee, I wanted a CABBAGE Patch Doll, not a BARBIE Doll,” he’d have packed my bags and put me up for adoption by sundown. Hell, if I’d gotten into an argument in a store over who saw a toy first he’d have had me up for adoption by sundown! So I was saying all of this to Todd and smugly concluded with, “I never wanted the toy of the week for christmas, thank you very much,” and then had to take it back. I wanted an Atari video game system, complete with joysticks and paddles and Donkey-Kong and Pac-Man, so much I could taste it. And, to my great surprise, on christmas morning what should appear under after all the other presents were opened but an Atari? It’s one of my very best memories ever, playing the Ship And Plane game that came with the video game system, just my dad and I playing with the Atari for hours, laughing and laughing until our stomachs hurt.

© 1996 QN Podcast (formerly Quirky Nomads).