Acceptable, Respectable, Presentable, A Vegetable

Meanwhile, mysteries abound a Casa Ta: last night, my son-in-law Mr. Sasha finished putting up the storage cabinet in my bathroom. I am overjoyed! At last, I have an away to put my recycled TP. This cabinet serves also as a burglar alarm. It is mounted right next to the window, which location assures me that if unwelcome persons attempt to climb in in the night, I will hear the sudden collision of cabinet and floor and hastily summon armed locals - after I conk someone on the noggin with a rusty pipe wrench, because lockjaw is the gift that keeps on giving and I'm a generous gal.

This is a sensible arrangement and I like those. In general, I am pleased when things make sense to me. We all like that, don't we, to find that our world view squares with what we observe in everyday life? That is why I was completely flummoxed to find large bits of broken cracker on my bedroom windowsill that I didn't put there. My upstairs neighbor hasn't been home for some time, though I'm not sure how long. This absent neighbor differs from the other absent neighbors in that my immediate upstairs neighbor is the single gentleman I sometimes see wearing pants and the others are a couple who always wear pants. I am pleased that this distinction serves my common sense purpose: my upstairs neighbor has not thrown crackers out his window for the squirrels. Neither have his pants.

This is the view straight down from my window. Not even an exotic professional basketball player could stand there and place bits of cracker on my windowsill. I have observed that this stairwell is wide enough for two fully grown PSE&G employees to descend the steps side by side, pretend they couldn't open the door to the meter room and ascend to ground level without touching shoulders, no matter how manly.

We have established, then, that I did not place the puzzling cracker bits on the sill, that my upstairs neighbor did not drop them out his window, and that it would be very difficult for a person standing outside to place those cracker bits on my windowsill. Thus, we can only draw one conclusion: these cracker bits are a gift of the loving squirrel people, who sit in the apple tree and worship me from near and far. They adore me, do the squirrel people! Where they got these precious crackers, I cannot say. That they would leave me this offering is a sign that I am well and truly treasured by the squirrels. I am their god. I would rain favor and chunks of apple on them if my current lease did not include a proviso that I not throw things out my windows. No. Really.

Should you doubt the veracity of my story, you would offend me. To think that I would buy crackers prepared without whole grains is preposterous. I'm a Triscuit gal, or at the very least, stone-ground wheat. In the kitchen cabinet, I have some of those Norwegian crackers that taste and feel like stale cardboard, but even they are rye. I save them for days when I am displeased with myself and don't deserve a good snack; thus, those crackers haven't seen daylight in over a year. Take that as a sign that the squirrel people are not alone in their love of Me. Even so, sometimes an offering doesn't fit a god's common sense needs. Take this as a humble warning: I swept up the crackers and threw them away.