The State Of Inflation Address

Inflation is afoot.

Yes. Just in case you hadn't noticed, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is here to point out the obvious. Oh, I'm not talking about groceries and sundries at The Devil's Playground taking a double-sized gluttonous bite out of my debit card compared to a few short years ago. I'm not talking about how food portions are smaller, yet packaging and costs have remained the same. I'm not even talking about how I suspect that I am treating myself to gas station game hen every now and then. Nope. I'm talking about inflation in other-worldly venues.

Pennies from heaven are now NICKELS from heaven!

Did you ever go through periods where you find a spate of pennies scattered willy-nilly throughout your stomping grounds? After, perhaps, a year or two of finding absolutely none? Yeah. That's happened to me, too. I haven't been finding much unexplained coinage of late. But on Saturday, when my mom met me on the Save A Lot parking area to pick up a National Enquirer, two brown bananas, and some leftover sweet-and-sour chicken, that dry spell was moistened.

We had several false starts. I gave Mom the goods, and told her the dead mouse smelling post office had changed its Saturday hours, so I had fifteen minutes to kill. I invited her into T-Hoe to while away the minutes. I'm pretty sure she's not coming back after sunset to suck my blood. Can't be too careful who you invite in, you know. Then I had the bright idea that Mom could ride along with me to the DMSPO. She doesn't like crossing under the overpass now that a MoDOT engineer on hallucinogens was hired to redo the lanes and lights. I figured I could show her the ropes. Which lane to get into that doesn't end abruptly. How you have to veer to the right four feet where the dotted lanes are wider.

Mom said she would love that. It's so easy to make her day. She hopped out of T-Hoe to lock her Blazer. The fact that it could have been done without moving, by pushing her clicker, did not enter her mind. She walked over and pointed the clicker right at the door. Kind of old style. Yet not. She surveyed her vehicle. "I'm not parked very straight. But I AM in the lines." So true. On both counts.

Off we went on our two-mile adventure. REEEEEEE! That's the phonograph needle screeching us to a halt. False start. Mom cried out that she had left her driver's side window down. So she got out to unlock her door and put the key in the ignition and roll it up. THEN we went on our two-mile adventure.

When we returned, I let Mom out and waited to make sure she got into her Blazer and got it started. Because I'm a good daughter like that. An eight-dollar daughter, if I remember correctly. Mom walked to her car and bent over. "Oh, look! I found a nickel!" She brought it to me. Because now I'm a nickel daughter. Through no fault of my own. I don't know why Mom didn't see that nickel while she was puttering around earlier, surveying her parking performance. My space next to her was still empty when we returned. Yet there was a mystery nickel right under her door.

Nickels from heaven. One of us needs to be on the lookout for more.