Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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hold what ya got

My husband says something that drives me crazy.

Not the… please shut the cabinet door or would you please put your dirty socks away kind of crazy.

(Not that he does those things.)

(I’m just giving you examples.)

More of the… Sleeveless tshirt, backwards ballcap, and stern business voice on work calls kind of crazy.

That kind of crazy that gives me shivvers.

Handsome behind the wheel on a country drive…xoxo

At various crucial times around the farm, he says to me in his deepest, most controlled, most deliciously mellow voice, “Hold what ya got.”

And I almost can’t focus. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I love it, ha!

This past week he said it to me while we wrangled Scarletta Jones into our makeshift squeeze shoot to administer antibiotics. My job was to hold the rope against her strenuous objections and then apply whatever full body tension I could muster onto the steel gates to keep her still. Hold what ya got. He just utters the phrase calmly under his breath, without making eye contact, focused on his side of the task.

Earlier in the week and again yesterday, he said it to me many times while we worked together on our little greenhouse build. He has designed and purchased and organized all of it. Planned every step. He gives me useful-feeling tasks along the way, often amounting to lifting lumber to the sky while he measures some mysterious distance or holding two pieces together while me makes an angle just perfect.

Hold what ya got.

Then inwardly, to myself, Focus, girl!

There are innumerable examples of him casting this atomic spell on me. He’s been saying it for years, and I only recently intimated how it affects me. He doesn’t get it. But that makes it worse. Or better.

I suppose he’ll keep saying it forever. I hope he does.

And I absolutely will.
XOXOXO

friday 5 at the farm, straddling seasons

Hey friends, hello! How goes your passage of time? The clocks here, and the calendars, still refuse to slow down. We often catch ourselves looking up with bewildered expressions, asking each other what day it is, what year, and again for good measure, are you sure it’s already Thursday? Already September?

That cannot be right.

Thankfully the days and weeks are packed with work well executed and memories well crafted. We are buoyed by extravagant laughter and nourished by even more extravagant food. So, if time seems to be accelerating, at least we can feel sure that we have redeemed it all for the best treasures. I do think we have.

((hydrangeas fading into their autumnal glory))

Here are a few headlines, in classic Friday 5 at the Farm style:

ONE: Handsome’s birthday week was rock solid and glittering and, worth remembering forever, covered with a lavish mountain of hypoallergenic foam and sprinkled with disco lights. We first celebrated with our hilarious neighbors who donned shark and mermaid costumes just to make him laugh, then at his office with the Pubic Utilities Division (forever in our hearts), at a gala downtown (we sat alone at a table for twleve but had great fun together), in Bricktown with a small group of fun seeking friends (only one bone was broken), at the farm with even more friends (barn movie and FOAM), and daily, just the three of us, in as many small, sweet ways as we could manage. We even indulged in a double date night with Jess and Alex. Handsome reported feeling very loved and celebrated, which makes my heart happy. He is the engine that keeps so much in this world running and moving forward, and he certainly tends to give more than he receives. So at least at his birthday, I love seeing him spoiled rotten!

TWO: The middle seasons have begun their long, slow ceremony of changing guard. Summer is folding up her threadbare and wrinkled flag solemnly, advancing one measured step at a time toward Autumn, who yawns and rolls her shoulders, blinking without an agenda. She is ready but in no hurry. Autumn will steal no glory from Summer, because she knows that once we settle into her embrace we will not look back. We’re all a little tired. Still, the landscape still boasts more saturated color than muted. Flowers are still blooming. Tomatoes, basil, and eggplants are still offering us their final promises. And our air conditioner is still keeping the house cool and fresh, for a few more days at least. This is the in-between, the bridge, the weeks in Oklahoma when anything could happen and often does. I intend to absorb and enjoy the details as they come.

THREE: I remain deeply thankful for a farm full of healthy animals. Chanta and Dusty are thriving in their fatness and rippling muscles, good teeth and less troublesome hooves. The cows are enjoying their preordained romance, to the extreme most days, and have you heard that Scarlett has been sleeping in the wild coreopsis? Most mornings, if I do not hear her mooing early for breakfast, she is still asleep in that especially tall, thick patch of yellow flowers on the west side of the big barn. I will admit that we have not collected a fresh egg in over a month, but that might be due to the flock being free range and definitely prone to laying in strange places, like open vehicles and soft hay bales. I recently discovered a clutch of fifteen eggs in a deep hollow below some Mexican sunflowers. Tricky girls. Mike Meyers remains the reigning champ of happy splashes.

FOUR: Speaking of gardens, whew! For someone who talks about this a lot, I sure do not seem to have any idea what I am doing, ha! That extra long stretch of 100-plus weeks with no rain was challenging, but still so much survived. Our water pressure troubles have been resolved, and I am back to watering on a cautious rotation. We have more cooling on the forecast, too, which will bring tangible relief. Now the name of the game is taking stock of what is still full of good energy and then babying those plants with every trick in the book. Any blank space that comes from removing weeds and spent plants will be given the chance to host broccoli, spinach, lettuces, carrots, kale, pansies, and a few more fall treasures. For the next several weeks I will be busy with the school gardens too, so available time to play outside might be limited this season. We shall see. Really, everything is fine. Not the lush and productive garden she was in July, but still beautiful.

FIVE: I have been a glutton for great reading and listening lately. Recently, I finished off another Abraham Verghese novel, this time Cutting for Stone. His writing is one of the most mesmerizing and thirst quenching reading experiences you can give yourself. Please choose a title, any title, and let me know how much you love it. I also finished The Stand finally, after many decades of wondering if it was for me It is!! Oh man it is. Stephen King is a crowd favorite character writer for good reason. I had forgotten. Also loving some good marathoning podcasts lately, but maybe I’ll save that for an upcoming running update.

Okay, friends, listen. As if to underscore how quickly time passes, let me admit that I wrote this “Friday 5” post exactly 8 days ago, intending to share it with you last Friday. Since then, we have enjoyed refreshing cool weather and more hot weather. I found the energy to run sixteen miles, most of it with my dear friend Sheila, the longest run I have tackled in a while. Jess and I had an incredible garden clean up day at her house then another spontaneous day of baking something extraordinary, here at the farm. We are all working and playing and loving each other left and right, even with an unexpected handful of sick days for my husband. Life is good. Life is beautiful in every way. I really that the days are so full we have to consciously stop and look aroudn to see what we are doing.

Happiest Friday ever to you.
XOXOXO

late summer beauty and reminders

By mid August I often feel confused about what my job is, about what is priority in the gardens and with the animals, about how it all relates to the outside world, and, crucially, what to do with my hair. I suspect this slightly unmoored feeling is generally owed to a stack of conflicting energies: Most of the world is hot with Back to School Fever, while the pool is still blue and I could eat at least four more watermelons. Also, our family is in a dense Happy Birthday season, with parties and special days left and right, while many members are enduring some damaging and deeply worrisome crises. We try to prop each other up and stay engaged with reality; and we work to celebrate and keep things moving, too, like always. Joy and grief and work and play, all at once. The delicious, brackish water we know so well.

Things are shifting, I can feel it. The same way things shift toward the end of winter, when we get a glimpse of change but then it all buckles down again to remind us we are not in control. An early thaw then a late freeze, that trick. At mid August we might get a glimpse of more serious color in the landscape, tighter, cloudier skies and just barely less daylight after supper, but we are still firmly gripped by summer. Our cars are still ovens for the commute home, and tomato vines refuse to produce new flowers until nighttime temperatures relax. We know that October is there waiting for us, just like April always follows closely after Februrary, but the weeks between could mean anything. So the moment matters greatly. How we spend it, how we feel about it, how we infuse it with meaning.

I feel all at once stifled and ready for change but also panicked, regretful and sad for the season soon ending.

I feel the loss of aggressive sunshine and limited clothing as well as excitement for autumn plans and traditions.

I feel the stunning passage of time as well as deep gratitude for the health of our animals and closeness of friends and family.

I feel like a failure for all the things I did not accomplish in my garden this year but this overwhelming amazement for what happens out there with very little intervention from me. I also feel childlike joy over the garden our girl has grown at her own home. There is nothing like watching that adventure take root.

I feel so happy for all the peace and stability our home has provided all summer long, for people and visiting pups and resident four leggeds alike; and simultanously I hope we travel a bit more in coming years. I hope we rediscover how to play and pause work and worry. I hope our calendar next year includes lots of time off for my husband.

I feel safe and loved and clear eyed about the future but also empty in the way that only a missing loved one can make you feel. It’s always hard to acknowledge that another season, and soon another year, has passed with out her. I have mostly learned to stop setting timelines on God, but occassionally the length of this hard season takes my breath away.

I feel like I spend so much of my waking hours on cemented daily routines, and while they serve us really well, when time feels suddenly precious I crave to break it up.

And so I find my paperback journal and write Senses Inventories, gluing the details of my moments to paper. I make lists of clear, specific blessings and prayers recently answered. I let it all build a crackling, electric awareness of and confidence in the beauty of my life. Life right now, life as the exact and unique gift that has been given. It’s a transformative exercise. It wakes me up and helps me shed the heavier feelings of this in-between season.

And I take lots of extra walks around the farm, with little expectation to be productive. Just looking and absorbing and remembering that this beautiful, imperfect, chaotic little rectangle of Oklahoma is our home. It is a childhood dream come to life, the details of which I barely have shared with anyone over the years, and it is okay for me to accept and enjoy it. In fact, I really should.

I try to see the gardens from new angles and internalize the shapes and colors for what they are according to Creation, not for how they measure against a list of jobs or design advice on some website. I try to rest in the long series of miracles that must happen just in the process of one tiny cosmos seed becoming this five foot tall, ethereal, glossy, fernlike, mysterious widlflower. Also, does anyone else get tranfixed by the word “cosmos” being used both for this pefect flower and for outer space, for all of creation?

When I feel like I have been sleepwalking through routines, I slow down and let Klaus lead the way without rushing him, instead of expecting him to keep up behind me. I pay attention to what he sees and what makes him smile, remembering his first puppy summers and how much he loves this farm, his home. His kindgom. How much all the animals trust him.

I take deep breaths and inhale the basil and manage to laugh at how I always expect the cute little bed shapes I plan in April to stay tidy and petite all the way through August.

I spend more play time with the horses and let them come to me, which they always do. I hug them and wait for them to them let go first, as the saying goes, accepting their massive necks on my shoulder and not fearing for my toes near their hooves. I give thanks for their health a thousand times per day and smell them and feed them extra apples and carrots and kiss them excessiveley when they accept fly spray. I listen to their complicated whinnying language and do my best to whinny back correctly. I look into Dusty’s eyes especially and wonder if he remembers her, if they talk to each other. I look into Chanta’s eyes and tell him thank you for being so gentle with children and small animals.

To stop time, I do my best to pause and text my frends when they cross my mind. We are all busy. Everyone. But my gosh life is rich because of our friends! I hope they feel how treasured they are.

I try to apply thought to details that connect my past to Jessica’s future, like morning glories. LIke so many plants and recipes and books and rituals. I remember her as a toddler so easily, like my mother surely remembers me. And the strands just grow and grow.

I make note of the many pleasures and comforts of living in a small town near other small towns with easy access to big cities, when the mood strikes. It’s common enough to moan about the inconveniences, but I always crave to get home as fast as I can. It’s my paradise. I know it all is such a lavish gift. I know that each animal is a once-in-a-lifetime friendship with a real soul and that their trust is no accident. So I try to hold their gaze as ling as they offer it.

It’s blazing hot now, and windy, and my feet are very tired and my hair needs a miracle and I have packed the next few weeks with about 27% more than it can easily bear. But it’s all perfect. Life is beyond good. I can actively will the clock to slow down just enough to catch my breath, and I can trade the moments and days for glittering jewels, while they are still up for grabs.

To put a dent in time, do things that time can’t take away.
XOXOXOXO

friday 5 at the farm: missed photos

First, here are two snapshots of Scarletta Jones providing composting services as I cleaned out a space for planting green beans:

((scarletta jones very interested in the fresh weeds I was pulling
from the vegetable garden May 2024))
((she mooed gently and followed me around the perimeter))

And here are at least five photos I missed recently because I didn’t have my phone in my pocket:

ONE: Rhett, standing to Scarlett’s immediate left, their shoulders touching, was licking her face over and over again like she was a popsicle. His eyes were wide open, and hers were closed, a contented expression. Their tails swished almost in unison, dismissing flies. I take lots of snapshots of them most days, but this is one I really regret not capturing.

TWO: Chanta driving all his weight onto his front legs in order to kick Dusty, vertical bucking bronco style, because he felt my ten minute tardiness in feeding them breakfast was for sure Dusty’s fault. Chanta’s coat is almost shiny now, very little winter fur remianing, and his belly is filled in luxuriantly. His leg muscles rippled when he moved to kick. His beachy mane flew wildly. I celebrate every day he shows such youthful vitality and always wish I had taken a photo of moments like this.

THREE: One of the Ex-Pat roosters from our sweet neighbors’ house next door has taken up residence with one of our bantam hens, who almost daily escapes the coop to be with him. There are at least three free range Ex-Pats, but this particular one is in love with this hen, and she clearly returns his affection. One morning recently she had gotten herself enclosed in a live trap (the kind you put out for raccoons, etc.), but I hadn’t noticed yet. I was working in the Circle Garden, and he traipsed up to me and tilted his head, clucked so politiely, with a quesiton mark inflection at the end. “Excuse me, Ma’am?” I talked to him for a minute then followed when he scurried across the yard and around an oak tree to the metal cage where his betrothed was waiting. I released her, reprimanded her gently, then watched them proceed to eat breakfast together. The food was nearby; he could have eaten without her but didn’t. I would love to have captured the look on his face when he approached me for help. And I would love to have a photo of them scratching up their shared meal, crisis averted.

FOUR: The early mornings have been foggy and rainy and moody, with smeared navy and grey skies and dramatic cloud patterns. I have taken zero photos of all the beautiful gloom, but I wish I had taken hundreds. Twice this week I did breakfast chores beneath a canopy of shimmering hidden lightning, and it was gorgeous. There will soon be a day when we are parched dry to the bones and crave this heaviness and thick moisture. I love it all but wish I had taken photos of the sky this week.

FIVE: I had a waking dream of Jocelyn again, and while that is not something you can take a physical photo of, I still wish I had it to see with my eyes over and over again. She will be twenty nine at the end of this summer, and despite the circumstances I feel intensely close to her. I feel her in my heart and against my skin, and in this waking dream I heard her voice. It is lower now, more womanly. Her girlish limbs are different. Stronger, more graceful. Her eyes have more maturity and experiece behind them, but they still sparkle, are still deep brown and glossy with ideas and grief and depth. I wonder if she has visions or waking dreams of me, too. If she has a sense for what has changed in her absence. If she knows how much she is missed but also how much she is trusted and loved and upheld in thought and prayer and conversaton. She felt preternaturally close to me during this vision, and I am so thanful for that gift.

“Keep joy in the front seat.”
~Courtney Dauwalter
XOXOXO

team free turkey & my near miss with a hidden camera tv show

I regret to inform you, dear reader, that this is a true story.

On a chilly morning about a week before extended family was due in town for Thanksgiving, I had quite a memorable visit to Midwest City. First I ran seven easy miles at Regional Park. Then I stopped at Winco for the final push of groceries for our massive feast. This was a day I had been eagerly anticipating: The well organized purchase of all the loveliest and most perishable Thanksgiving Day supplies, including of course the centerpiece turkeys, plural because we planned to feed at least twenty four people.

Dressed in running tights and a now damp sweatshirt, a black wool coat covered with blonde and grey horse hair, and muddy running shoes, I wheeled my grocery cart all through the raw kale and firm pears, the walnuts and the butter, the heavy cream and lemons and bags of stale bread. I zipped happily through my menu and shopping list then ventured over to the frozen meats. There, I was thrilled to see a sign boasting, “Free turkey with $125 purchase!” I can spend that much money just driving into the parking lot of any grocery store, so I did not bother tallying up my treasure. I just selected two frozen turkeys, grabbed a few more needed items, and made my way to the registers.

I slid easily into an empty space attended by a cashier who was new to me. We exchanged pleasantries, and I asked her if either of my turkeys could be included in the $125 minimum for a free turkey. She thought so, sure, but would happily confirm. She speed walked over to her manager, they conferred for several minutes, and she glided back to me beaming. “Yes! No problem!”

She was the picture of efficiency, relaying my Thanksgiving groceries from one hand to the next, scanning prices, her fingers flying to input produce codes, making effervescent small talk with me as she worked. Yes, very excited for Thanksgiving, oh my gosh yes, the weather forecast is beautiful so far! Are you hosting? yes, yes, it’s my favorite thing. And wow this is the perfect time of day to shop. No one is here! So nice.

I looked around, just enjoying the spaciousness of the store, admiring the extremely well stocked shelves and symmetrical displays, wondering how many people it takes to keep so many chrome and glass surface that shiny.

When she reached the end of my massive order, she cocked her brunette curls to one side and kind of clucked. The total was only $121 and some change. I was surprised because, as I mentioned, it is normally so easy to spend that minimum and then some. No one was waiting behind me. So she encouraged me to grab another item or two to reach the required $125 for, in case you have forgotten, the free turkey.

I abandoned my groceries and did that stupid ball-of-your-feet jog people do when they are trying to look like they are running cooperatively across a street in front of a yielding vehicle, searching without my list for any items I might have neglected. Canned soda, yes. Okay a couple of packages of brown-and-serve dinner rolls, too. That should do it.

I rounded an aisle that becomes a straightaway to Efficient Brunette Curls, and my heart sank. In those few moments since I had polite-jogged away, three groups of shoppers had accumulated behind my now unattended cart. I saw a well dressed woman about my age driving a cart with a similarly generous arsenal of ingredients; in front of her was an older black woman, dressed in a loose gown and wearing a scarf around her recently set hair, leaning against a cart that held only cranberry juice, a bag of oranges, and a few boxed pantry items; and in front of her was a young couple. They were both festooned with tattoos and wearing cropped concert tees, black combat boots, and vividly colored hair. I squirmed past each shopper, whispered my awkward apologies, and presented those spontaneous purchases for adding to the goal.

This is where the story really begins.

Efficient Brunette Curls cheerfully rang up my new items, took a pleasantly deep breath because this transaction was almost done, and then cocked her head again, clucking again. The total was somehow lower than before.

I am no scientist, but it sure seems like adding more items to a total should increase that total. Are we all in agreement on this?

Something deep inside me set off awareness in every physical sense. The shiny surfaces were shinier. The space between the aisles became oceanic. Neat towers of boxed products swayed like unstable skyscrapers, at risk now of toppling. The music playing in the distant speakers was like a booming, scratchy concert. I could smell the refrigerant in nearby coolers.

I glanced briefly over my left shoulder, mouthing inaudible apologies to the four people probably waiting for me to get on with my stupid life. Everyone shook their heads sweetly and dismissed the niceness, it’s fine it’s fine, no worries.

Efficient Brown Curls had already taken the matter into her own perfectly manicured hands, clicking and clacking her heart out until she felt she had reached an impasse. “I don’t get it.”

“It should be enough,” I said, never able to resist stating the obvious.

“It should be enough, yes.” An ally.

The woman last in line, the one with the ample grocery haul like mine, stage-whispered through the small crowd, “Are you trying to get the free turkey? I am too! What’s wrong?”

Okay, maybe this is actually where the story begins.

Curls explained to her surprisingly rapt audience the mystery of the diminishing grocery total, and I made sure to interrupt her a lot by saying how sorry I was to delay them all, and also trying to justify my immense collection of kale and oranges and walnuts and butter and, you all might have noticed, two turkeys! Because it is our parents’ fiftieth anniversary year, and the whole family will be in Oklahoma for Thanksgiving, and we need it to be really perfect. My body flooded with whatever hormone keeps you from being able to shut up but makes you want to run away as fast as possible.

But I had $118 worth of reasons for staying put. Which meant I needed to spend another $7 or $8 to get a free turkey.

Here, I should point out that the turkey I was hoping to get for free was only about $14. My husband is in charge of our finances overall, just to rest you assured.

Okay. Efficient Brunette Curls tapped a few more keys on her Magical Grocery Machine and marched with purpose away to the manager’s bench. She approached. “Your honor, I object,” is probably how she started. They wagged their heads at each other a few times, exchanging points of view beyond our hearing. Curls, now our fearless leader, returned to us.

“You just have to get to $125. It should work.” We had made no meaningful headway.

I was completely unwilling to do that stupid polite jog again, especially in front of people, especially in front of people who had been waiting for me already, so I panicked. And friends, I mean, I panicked.

I let my head pivot freely on my neck a few times then spotted the bottle of 100% real cranberry juice in the older woman’s cart. It was not the juice cocktail; it was the real stuff. Pure cranberry. My brain saw it as a gold mine and said to my body, “That’s it! That’s the solution. Buy her juice, it will fix everything!” So I did, and she smiled and said, “Thank you Jesus!”

What happened next really truly makes no sense.

The grand total did not go up, not ever by one cent. It actually went down.

I added a not cheap grocery item to the order, and the total diminished again.

By now, the young couple, the juice loving lady with the recently set hair, and the Thanksgiving hostess in back were all four gathered close, drawn together as if by an invisible thread, the common thread of either concern or wonderment. What is happening? We all needed to know.

If moments ago my body wanted to flee, then now it now wanted disappear entirely. The whole scene felt like a hidden camera television experiment. A What Would You Do kind of situation. As Curls worked furiously on her Magical Grocery Machine, my gaze expanded again to the store overall. Has it always been so clean? Is it normal this well stocked and tidy? And what about my overly accommodating neighbors… Each of them seemed suddenly like caricatures of themselves, like they were cast by a director to play very distinct parts, unlikely neighbors in a supposedly spontaneous public moment. I knew it.

Everyone was crowded now around the keypad where I would have donated blood right then and there just to pay and be gone.

The young couple, the two women, and me in my horse hair covered coat and sweaty running clothes.

Curls half-demanded that her manager come help. I gulped.

The manager arrived wearing an annoyed expression and, I kid you not, a nametag: Karen.

Karen did a Mike Tyson-punch at three or four buttons on the store side of the keypad and took one of my turkeys in hand. She asked me is this is the one I wanted for free or NOT. My eyes could not have have blinked shut even with great effort. Yes ma’am, please. OK THEN and she bowled that frozen bird all the way down the otherwise vacant conveyor belt so that it crashed into the metal end. The girl behind me gasped. Karen said nothing and stomped away.

The grocery total went down even more. I felt dizzy.

“It’s okay! I will just buy the turkey, it’s not worth it. Please let me pay.”

“Absolutely not. This makes no sense.” The world’s most patient and meticulous cashier suggested we undo the entire order and ring it up all over again. An audit, if you will. “There has to be a reason,” she insisted. And she seemed unfazed by her manager’s small tantrum.

The gasping tattoo girl behind me had since noticed some fine print in a small sticker near the keypad: “This offer does not include alcohol, tobacco, lottery tickets, or milk.”

Ok, milk! Yes, I had purchased half a gallon of whole milk because my little brother wanted a certain kind of mashed potatoes. Okay, that is a few bucks. What should we do? My body asked my brain.

Well, my brain suggested that we panic in new and better ways.

I looked at the items Gasping Tattoo Girl held in her artful arms: A plastic baggie of green onions, something in a box, and an enormous pumpkin pie from the bakery.

BINGO! My brain said this in Cousin Eddie’s voice. Obviously.

I literally took the pumpkin pie from her hands (without verbally asking permission, just with my eyes, because, that is just how this new and better version of panic manifested) and thrust it at Fearless Leader: “TRY THIS!”

Gasping Tattoo Girl hissed a happy, affirmative yyeesssss and threw her hand up in a heavy metal wagging gesture I am pretty sure was invented by Ozzy Osborne.

Now. Everybody guess what happened next.

The total went down again.

I really was beginning to consciously believe that a team of cameras was positioned in hidden spots all around us. This was too uncanny, too weird, too uncomfortable and hilarious. But I could not laugh yet; in fact I was on the verge of crying.

“No no no, don’t worry honey,” the Cranberry Juice Lady said in a warm, oracle kind of Oklahoma accent.

Hostess Lady agreed, “I need to see what happens, I need my free turkey too!” She even tried to rally a group cheer, pumping her slender LL Bean arms in the air and chanting all alone, “TREAM FREE TURKEY!” I tried to join her in this cheer but wow that felt self congratulatory, so it fizzled almost immediately. I felt bad for her, but she was laughing.

“Yeah no worries,” Ozzy Fans both said, “Let’s see how this plays out.” She petted her now paid for holiday dessert like it was a kitten.

Everyone leaned in towards the keypad, all of us aimed at it with such intensity.

The intimacy of space and purpose with these unlikely strangers really took my breath away.

We continued to chat. At some point, our group research stumbled onto the possibility that each customer was perhaps limited to one turkey. Like maybe the system refused to ring up both of them due a limited supply. Curls was so intent of getting me my turkeys as promised that she jokingly said, “I should just let you have it, how will the system know?” I begged her not to do that, please don’t get in trouble, and I glanced fearfully at Your honor’s bench in case she could somehow intuit our long distance conversation.

What finally happened is pretty anticlimactic. By removing one turkey from the order, the subtotal was enough to get one turkey for free. Then I just paid for the second turkey. Plus the half gallon of real cranberry juice and a huge pumpkin pie, which each went to their respective homes. In all the chaos, I did resist the urge to tell the young Ozzy Girl that it would have been much cheaper to bake the pie from scratch, but after that bizarre display, I doubt she would listen to any home-ec advice from me.

I paid for the big order. I paid for the a la carte turkey. I said my goodbyes and thank yous and wished my five new friends a very wonderful Thanksgiving. Then I hightailed it past Your Honor Karen and out of the too clean store before the hidden camera crew could catch me and ask for a signed release. I kind of regretted not waiting to see if LL Bean got her free turkey. She was rooting for me so hard.

By the time I reached my car to unload these precious feast supplies, my heart was racing and my eyes still had not really closed. I texted my husband, “You are not going to believe what just happened,” and I drove back to the farm.

The End.