This Stop Willoughby

About six months after we moved into our old neighborhood, a man named Tom moved into the house across the street.  He seemed like a friendly guy and would wave and say hello if we were unloading groceries or taking out the trash.  Sometimes, if we were working in the yard, he would come over to check out our project and chat.  At Christmas time, we left a tin of cookies on his porch just like we did for our other neighbors. I wouldn't say we had become friends, exactly, we didn't go to his house for cookouts or invite him to our house for drinks.  Our conversations were usually just small talk; complaining about dandelions in the lawn or gas prices, the weather and such.  We didn't really know much about him.  He was just a nice guy who lived across the street. One day, about a year later, Tom mentioned something about his wife, Darlene.  We were dumbstruck.  Tom had a wife?  We had never seen her or heard him talk about her before. ...

You may recall that we frequently have visitors of the supernatural variety in our home.  I told you about a few of them here .   There have been many more since then, but this most recent visit was different in several ways.  One, it was not human and two, it left a calling card behind.  This story is 100% true. Last Thursday evening, right around dinner time, Mr. W, myself and our daughter were sitting around the kitchen island.  My daughter and I were facing Mr. W with our backs to the doorway, but from where he was sitting, Mr. W had a view straight through the dining room and into the living room.  He was looking past us and had an odd look on his face. "Did we get a cat?" he asked. "No, why?" "I just saw a cat walk through the living room."  He held up his arm, then.  "Look, I've got goosebumps." If any cat were going to visit us "from beyond", I assumed it would be our beloved caramel colored puff ball who passed aw...

I'm 44 years old.  On a good day, I look 43 ½  .  On a bad day, maybe 50 or 55, I'm not sure.  One thing is for certain, though, the only time I look under 21 is in pictures that were taken when I was under 21.  Why am I telling you this?  Because there is a cashier at our local supermarket that insists on carding me every time I buy beer or wine.  Every. Time. When I go shopping, I like to use the self check-out lanes (we call them U-Scan).  If I'm buying a few bottles of wine or a 12 pack of Landshark (I'm not much of a beer drinker, but Landshark just tastes like summer to me) the routine normally goes like this: I scan the product, look over to the cashier and wave, she waves back, overrides the age requirement and I put the beer or wine in a bag.  Easy, peasey.   Unless "Carol" (I don't know if that's her name) is working the U-Scan station. The first time I came up against "Carol" I was buying a few bottles of wine.  I sc...