Aunt Debbie is a kitchen virtuoso. She knows no fear in the face of a new recipe. She's cooked for the masses since she was but a girl, being the oldest of 5 sisters and Mommy's helper.



She is a hard worker, and can often be found doing chores about the house. Her energy seems endless and it can be tiring just to watch her work. That being said, Debbie finds herself surrounded with seeming innocuous instruments...innocuous instruments that become dangerous in her hands. Point in fact, her poor head has met both the blades of a ceiling fan and the points of a barbed wire fence.

She prepared a picnic for us last Saturday. She made a pressed sandwich and reached for a long serrated knife when the time came to dig in. Miles made a smart comment about the length of the knife, and Debbie indicated that Brenda usually doesn't let her handle the knives.

She, Debbie that is, laughed good-naturedly as Brenda specified, "Actually, it's mainly the utility knives that we don't let Debbie handle."

Miles, perplexed, and most likely unfamiliar with the many Debbie-injuries sustained over the house (though he should have used deductive reasoning as he has seen the riches of their band-aide stash) and at the hand of ordinary objects, inquired, "What's the difference between a butcher knife and a utility knife?"

Debbie replied immediately, "About five stitches."

It was early November of 2000. The weather was turning colder, and I had accompanied my grandmother to Wal-Mart in search of mittens. Michelle [cousin] was there, too, and we fell into our standard Wal-Mart protocol as we saved the lives of several children too small for our grandmother to see as she steered her shopping cart with purpose. Did I ever tell you about the time she blindsided a dump truck? My four-foot-something, stooped-over grandmother doesn't realize her own strength.

Michelle took the front-left on the cart, sacrificing the skin on her heels to the wild wheels of the cart. I guarded from the side-right and coaxed Grandma gently around the curves of the aisles, staving off my own charge of disaster.

My eye began to twitch sporadically, and as I turned my head to the right, there was a twinkling from a watch display. Forgetting my role in the excursion, I followed the effervescent light. I was hypnotized by the sparkle, and a small pool of drool collected on my shirtfront as my hand reached out to touch the radiant timepiece of my fascination. So taken was I, that I missed the wails as a young boy's toy car met with the speeding wheels of Grandma's unchecked cart, and as a teenager grabbed her recently run-over foot and hopped around one-legged, sputtering. I missed the 3 racks of autumn-weight coats that cascaded to the floor, and I missed Michelle screaming for Grandma to stop as she tried to pry that frightened, and now disfigured, kindergartner from the grill of the shopping cart.

It was two-toned, poorly made, and the most exquisite bracelet watch that I had ever seen. The band was braided herringbone and the face had a fake diamond at the twelve-spot...it was the only one of its kind. I searched the entire mountain of two-toned, poorly made bracelet watches, and no other boasted a braided herringbone band. I do so dearly love braided herringbone.

Meanwhile, five red-smocked, frantic Wal-Mart employees squeezed between shoppers, searching for the cause of the store's domino-effect collapse of order. Grandmother, hidden within tall heaps of yarn and unaware of causing a stir, meandered in the aisle as Michelle wiped the sweat from her brow, dabbed at the blood from her heels, and cursed the day I was born.

Holding my treasure two-handed above my head, I let its divine glitter paint the fluorescent-lit flooring as I passed, unmindful of the torn clothing or the clumps of pulled hair littering the walkway. It, quite simply, sang to me. Alarms were sounding, crowds were shrieking, and police with heavy artillery were entering. My grandmother made her yarn selection and marched to the cash register across from mine. That's right, I bought the watch. I know you didn't see that coming, but I live for spontaneity.

Michelle limped into line behind me, pulling a brace from her swollen knee, a headache pad from her temple, and a gruesome looking mouthguard from her teeth. She piled them upon the counter and looked at me as if waiting for an explanation. I noted that she looked frazzled. Her eyes always exude a brighter blue when she's frazzled...that's the sure way to tell every time, mark my word. The clerk hesitated with procedure. She picked up the phone and began to order a price check before changing her mind and giving Michelle the lot for free as long as she bagged it herself.

Nearly five years later, it is still the watch against which I judge all other watches. I keep searching for a replacement. Better craftsmanship, precious metals, real diamonds...but it seems not to exist. I have tried nearly all 60,043 search combinations of "braided herringbone" and "watch" only to discover that the internet has not heard of such terms joined together! The gall!

Perhaps I am not meant to find it's alter-ultra-valuable-ego. Perhaps I am meant to remember the Wal-Mart bloodbath, the destruction unto my cousin, and know I would gladly replay the events to taste the sweet nectar of its discovery once more...

This afternoon we are visiting Miles-country in Iowa. It is a 6-hour drive, which I do not look forward to as my tailbone gets really sore from sitting for long periods of time. I am still feeling bruised and very uncomfortable from our excursion to Land of the Happy Hand Symbols.

And yet, six hours in a car is fluff. After taking a twenty-plus road trip a time or two (or three or four...), this is understandable. Mom has been aflutter with jitters about my tailbone, about on-the-road nourishment, and the like.

I remember going Up North every summer as a child...a 3-4 hour drive during which Mom used to dope us up until she was certain that we wouldn't be children prone to carsickness. Charlie and I loathed that ride every year. We would be packed to our eyeballs in coloring books, crayons, crossword puzzles, and boom boxes (with earphones). My tailbone didn't really bother me then, but I had a fluffier posterior in those days too.

I took a trip with my cousin's family in '97. We went to Orlando, FL by minivan, and I found the 8-10 hour days on the road heavenly. I was then a teenager with my head in the clouds...and possibly even discovering my philosophical side. This requires loads of thinking time.

The first trip to North Carolina took 2 days. The next, we drove straight through during one of the worst snow storms ever. The next was an emergency run back to Wisconsin for my grandfather's funeral...we broke records on that one.

Now, six hours is nothing, tailbone notwithstanding. I'm still prone to reflection...and I've supplemented my journey-taking with the skill befitting a roadside babbler. Miles is feeling pretty darned blessed right about now. See you tonight, fair Iowans!