Just a Little Freedom
Happy Fifth of July everyone! This means that those of you able to see this made it through without blowing yourself up, or worse. I celebrated my holiday by getting home early and digging into the latest Harry Potter book. As explosions popped in the air, I settled in to my dweebness to explore Hogwarts.
Today begins moving week where I get to go find boxes and start packing. "How are we going to get that on the airplane?" is what I've been hearing for well nigh a week now, and I have to start removing items from sight and into boxes before I go nuts.
Now, to restore my swashbuckling pirate image and reputation as a facilitator of corrupt practices, I confess that on the third of July I cut a back alley deal. H below approached me surreptitiously, with a wink and a nod saying she heard that I could get my hands on 'stuff.'
H is dear to me. She is from Tennessee and real 'Old South.' Ever the Lady and never out of her room before 4PM, she is the epitome of 'Southern Belle' charm. "I sure would enjoy a nice glass of vodka to celebrate the Fourth of July," she mentioned offhandedly.
H has amused me with stories from her past, her husband, her childhood. She married well, never mentioned deprivation (as if a lady would speak of such a thing anyway), and says things like. "Well, I never." She speaks in a lovely drawl, and when interrupted by a fast speaking northerner, never shows offence, and softly chuckles, slightly amused at the perpetrator. As I struggle with my own manners, it is instructive to see a lifetime of them at work.
As Granny wanted a beer ("I like Miller") for the fourth, I was heading in that direction anyway. I wondered to myself what the clerk in the liquor store thinks when someone comes in to buy the tiny little bottles that you used to only find on airplanes. There isn't much sense in having them, at two bucks a pop, when you can get a larger, more economical one; unless they are for clandestine purposes.
I had the ridiculous urge to explain that "these weren't for me," that I wasn't the closet drinker, that this was a mission of mercy for someone that was looking for a little bit of Freedom on the Fourth. That she couldn't even make it out the front door to see the fireworks. I decided to keep mum, and not embarrass myself like some damned Yankee.
