What Fresh Not-Heaven Is THIS?

Let the record show that The Pony is 0 for 2 on his decision-making this week. And it's only Monday.

We usually do the weekly shopping on Sunday. Now that I'm retired, and we don't have anything pressing to do on the weekdays, we sometimes alter our schedule. A couple weeks ago, we went on Friday. With Farmer H gone overseas again, The Pony talked me out of our Sunday routine.

"We could just go Monday, you know."

"Yeah. I guess we could. I have to put that insurance check in the bank for T-Hoe's hail damage. And your dad forgot to pick up a prescription and wants me to do that for him. I'll need to mail the letter to #1 to make sure he gets his Chinese money ($6.00 that pays for a heaping plate of sweet & sour chicken with rice at Lucky House) and hope (scratch-off tickets) this week."

So we puttered around Sunday, doing nothing much except enjoy our time not being ordered around by Farmer H. And this morning, we left the Mansion at 9:10 a.m. to run our errands. The last stop, except for my 44 oz Diet Coke, was The Devil's Playground.

Sweet Gummi Mary! There were construction crews grinding up The Devil's asphalt from his Playground, with big road-chewing machines, which spit the morsels of blacktop into the back of a dump truck. As you might imagine, parking was limited. AND the food end was blocked off. BLOCKED OFF! No matter where I parked, I had to go into the pharmacy end and then across the store to the food end, and then back to the pharmacy door to leave! So much for my usual game plan of sending The Pony down to the pharmacy end (not that we're druggies, you know, but to pick up toothpaste and antiperspirant and soap (the Hillbilly Family ain't stinkers--despite what you may read about their close relatives Thevictorians elsewhere).

Of course the temperature was already up to 89, making The Devil's Playground just an added circle of Not-Heaven today, with Mrs. Hillbilly Mom traipsing twice her usual distance to and from T-Hoe, and also within the Playground itself. The Pony apologized as soon as he saw the parking situation. "I'm so sorry I didn't want to do this Sunday."

"Yeah. I doubt they were working on it Sunday."

"We can go home. I'll come back later. I'll do it by myself. You can give me a list."

"No. I don't think so. Let's just get it over with now. We can't come tomorrow. We'll have Jack with us for his shot."

Seriously. The Pony refuses to push a cart through The Devil's Playground. How could he possibly do the shopping by himself? How many trips could he make to the register, then out to his car to stow away the purchases? That was out of the question. So in we went. The experience was as you might expect. Some days The Universe conspires against Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. And some days it works a 12-hour shift and then moonlights for another 8 at its second job, just to make sure she knows who's boss.

Let the record show that by the time we finally started out the exit doors, Mrs. HM did NOT alter her course for the old man who huffed at her because he had no room to come IN those EXIT doors.

He should be glad my cart was not equipped with a horn. Just ask the guy in the red pickup who cut into my left turn lane at the light by McDonald's as we were leaving The Devil's Playground, and slammed on his brakes to sit and look at the green light.