Gone Girl has returned a couple of days early. Cold, damp Scotland is not the place to be when you aren’t feeling very well, especially in an uncomfortable hotel bed with a faint odor of burst sewage pipes (but that’s another story). I knew I was feeling more like my sunny self when I went to the pet food store to replenish the cat’s gourmet pantry. Yes…they have their own pantry, bathroom and living room. As I was paying for their ‘exquisite morsels gently braised in savory gravy‘, I noticed that it was a different delivery man. Usually, it is a lovely short black lady who is unfazed by all the peculiar packages that are sometimes chirping (crickets for the lizards and snakes), slithering or swimming. Today, it was a really big black man who looked like he might have been a football player back in the day. That little devil who sits on my shoulder whispered in my ear, ‘Look at that guy, he doesn’t realize that he is delivering live food and he is going to freak out despite his huskiness‘. So…I smiled at him and said, “What’s in your package? Is it rats for the snakes or baby chicks?” His face froze in horror and we both looked at the instructions on the package. It was from the ‘Gourmet Rat Company’ in New York. He was standing back in horror while the checkout girl and I put our ears to the package to see if we could hear anything. There was no sound and she reckoned it was lizards for the big snakes. Mr. Husky then said in a stressed tone, “There is no need to sign – I just need your name”. You know she wasn’t named Jones or Smith, don’t you? It sounded like a local Czech name with lots of consonants and not enough vowels. By the time she had carefully spelled out her name a couple of times, the delivery guy’s face was sweating even in the air conditioning. As he raced out the door I burst out laughing. Oh, gosh – it’s so good to be home.
Postcards from Kerry 