Bi-Partisan Lunch

The promise of a melt-in-your-mouth tuna melt seems good enough reason to stand in the door of Francie's around noon, testing out the theory that staring down diners who happened to be smarter than you and showed up early can be shamed into wolfing their lunch, thus sparing you the indignity of public stomach gurgling and fainting dead away while clinging to the hope of impending sustenance.

I shared my stare-down theory with the lady standing next to me last Friday, inviting her to join in the exercise and it didn't take long for the two of us to agree that the key to making people feel guilty is definitely eye contact........and most folks make little of it when dipping fries in ketchup.

"So," I asked her, turning from our research project, "how's life after the big house??"

We'd never met before but I knew she'd recently moved from a pretty impressive home. Folks around here call the place Terrace Hill. Christie Vilsak laughed and said it was really fun, sort of like starting all over.

"We bought a condo and it's alot smaller of course. I used to have an office and now I just have a chair where I pile things. We've got four plates, two or three forks...you know how it is when you first start out?? That's us. We keep bumping into eachother in the hallway."

I'm sitting here looking around my place and I think I need to hold a general election, the term of all this STUFF needs to expire. How long have I been here? Four years. Four years from a little apartment with a few boxes of stuff and I have somehow over the months, in the name of "someday I might need it", accumulated more stuff than one person could ever be expected to use.

Problem #1 - Yes. I am a pack rat. I can take a clean space and fill in the corners with stuff. I love stuff. I must. No one else is hauling it in the front door.

Problem #2 - Once I have stuff, I forget that I have it. Frequently I find myself purchasing stuff I need, only to discover a short while later, I now have double stuff.

Problem #3 - Well of course, someday I might need it.

Old dogs can learn new tricks. Debbie can learn a thing or two from a Democrat. Christie is onto something. If the former governor/presidential candidate and his wife don't need more than a couple of forks, what am I doing with a whole drawer full of them??