Flossie tackles construction delays

Hi neighbors.

I saw Flossie in her back yard a day ago, and she was hammering small pieces of wood onto 4 foot long 4x4s.

I watched for a few minutes before she would realize I was at her back fence gate in the alley at the side of her property.

Finally, I could stand it no more -- the kitten was climbing the fence to get me, meowing loudly. I knew my stealth mode would soon be discovered.

"Hey, Flossie!" I shouted, "What are you building?"

She turned, dropped what she was doing and came quickly to the fence. "None of your business. Some things you are better off not knowing." She pulled the kitten from the wire fence.

Cocking her head to one side, she adjusted her floppy hat with one hand and put the kitten on the ground with the other. "You remember the old spy joke about 'I'd tell you but then I'd have to kill you?'"

She opened the gate, "This is a situation like that. You don't want to know, and I don't want you to know because you can't lie for nothing. They'd figure you out in nothing flat. Come in for coffee."

"I don't have to be afraid of arsenic do I?" I chuckled nervously. One never knows quite how to take Flossie. I didn't really think she would do me in over anything, but then I didn't know what she was up to with those pieces of wood.

She had been known to have some off-the-wall notions about things in the past. I remembered that whole vampire wooden stake theory she was working on last year.

Flossie laughed, held the back door open and waved me in with the hand not holding the floppy hat. "Don't be silly. Poison is far too unreliable. Besides, you are diabetic. I'd just mess with your insulin; doesn't show up in autopsies."

"That's a comforting thought," I muttered and headed to the coffee pot. I poured out two cups while Flossie washed the wood dust off of her hands.

She poured cream and sugar into her cup, stirred, and put the spoon down on the counter.

"Well, at least she's not too agitated," I thought and smiled.

Following her lead we went to sit on the couch in the front room.

She swallowed a couple of deep drags of coffee, then said what was on her mind. "I couldn't get into the hospital yesterday because the emergency entrance was blocked off by orange cones. Men were holding signs and directing traffic -- not that there was much traffic because everyone knew what a mess they were making. Of course, I didn't know ahead of time or I would have almost died somewhere else."

"Flossie! What do you mean you almost died? What happened?"

She rose, went to the kitchen to top off her cup with more sugar and cream. I could hear the spoon scraping the sides and bottom of the cup. Things were heating up.

She waited to sit back down, settle in her bony hips, as she says, and then she frowned and continued.

"I was in the back yard, pulling some kind of climbing vine off the window screen when I noticed I was getting blotches."

I gasped. Flossie didn't have many allergies, but the ones she had were real killers.

She nodded her head and continued. "Yep, it was poison -- at least poison to me. I ran into the house, found my faithful appy pin and whammed it home in my thigh."

She leaned back. "When I woke up, I thought I'd better go get checked out. So I went to the hospital -- well, I tried to go to the hospital, but finally just called on my doctor. I went to see her and all was well."

"Wow! Flossie, you should have called me."

"Oh, you would have backed me up? Do you think we two old ladies could take on all those young men and all that heavy equipment? I don't think so. Besides, I've got a plan to teach those boys a lesson."

"Does it involve those 4x4s in the back yard?"

She grinned. "Just wait till they leave tonight. I'm making stilts with Tiger Paws on the bottom of them and tonight I'm taking a stroll down wet pavement lane."

Please everyone! Even if you want to hear what she says, never do as Flossie does, or as she says she will do!

But there is little to worry about. As I was leaving, I saw the kitten burying his "fresh treasure" with all of Flossie's nails covered in the mess.