2 bags of boiled peanuts, cajun style, and that orange bromeliad there

We went to K-Mart yesterday. It's a lot like Wal-Mart, but without people. While the cat children did not know it, nor did they voice it, they were in dire need of a multi-story, carpet covered cave/tree house that they could choose to completely ignore. And I needed a belt. And some pruning shears. I know, who wouldn't have thought of K-Mart in that situation? We did indeed buy that, and a few other stuffs too. Check out was quick because there weren't any people in front of us.

The wife then informed me that she was in dire need of a multi-story, carpet covered...no wait, we've covered that already. Oh yeah, she informed me that she needed boiled peanuts. So I went to the produce stand about 3 blocks away. Is it ever that simple? I think you know the answer.

Nope, she had peanuts, boiled to perfection in dark, salty water. But not cajun style. So we did the only reasonable thing you can do in a boiled peanut needing situation and took some of that $2.78 gas and drove about as far away as you can go and still be in Brandon to buy some cajun style boiled peanuts. Is it ever that simple? Well, in this case, yes.

They had peaches out at this produce market. This traveling salesman joke of a produce stand. I bought a double shot of some peanuts (correct roadside spelling: p-nuts) and asked the lady did she have some riper peaches. She said, "Just what's out", but I didn't really believe her. I told her I hated to hear that because, and without any great pride I quote myself here, "I have a hankering to eat one of them things right now."

Now for why I called it a traveling salesman joke of a produce stand. She turned to no one, although as it turns out there was someone there, just out of sight, and says, "Brittany, poke through them baskets and find this man a ripe peach. He wants to eat it now." A girl, about 17 (give or take a year or two. I have trouble judging age accurately through the drool), in a tiny t-shirt and a tight pair of cut off jeans, come out of the back and smiled. In a pretty thick southern drawl (rare for this near completely yankeefied town) she said, "Naw, I'll get 'im one of the good ones from the back." (See what I mean...a traveling salesman stopped at a produce stand in a small town...)

Oh yeah, to finish, she found me two soft ripe peaches, washed them and sliced one open for me, agreed that SC peaches sold out of the back of farmside trucks were probably some of the best to be had, and allowed as how she planned to move on up to Charlotte when she finished school. I tell you what, I am so glad that I only bought two peaches. Now I'll need to go get some more today.

And bromeliads. In addition to boiled p-nuts and peaches, they had broms priced 2 for $10. I assume that made them $5 apiece, but didn't ask. I had just cleared a mess out of a corner of my yard and now it had some unsightly empty holes there. I had a brainstorm. OK, more likely a brain shower. I thunk, "Hey, I could put these pretty broms there in the holes. The big, unsightly holes."

So I bought two bromeliads. Then I got to thinking, if I bought two more I could fill up the worst of that corner today. And if I made sure that one of those two additional broms was that orange one there, then Brittany was gonna have to really reach up to get it for me. So I bought two more, including the orange one.

Life is good and relatively fair.
Ramblin' Ed