Please Cease Tossing Your Cookies on Val's Kitchen Floor

I'm sure this will come as a shock to you, but there are times when Hick is persona non grata around the homestead. Like Sunday, when he came in not 30 seconds after I had let the dishwater out (because shockingly, I do not have a dishwasher, in case I forgot to mention that over the past 1500 posts). Yes, the dishwater foam was not even done making those quiet snap-crackle-pop noises as the detergent suds succumbed to a lack of water, and air pressure pushing down on them.

It was already 2:30. I was sick as a dog with some virus given to me by the Casey's cashier who coughed into her hand before giving me my change. And in came Hick to make his own lunch, acting like he hadn't eaten a full grand slam hog heaven whatever they wanna call it big breakfast at Hardee's without telling me. And like he wasn't going to feast for supper on the delicious pot of chili I had been brewing for 80 minutes. No. He had to have lunch that very moment, leaving the plastic container that had held his remaining BBQ Lit'l Smokies beside the sink. For washing.

That Hick is a true gourmet. He had been hoarding those six Lit'l leftover Smokies for this very moment, I think. He put them on a hot dog bun (I know, I've never seen anybody eat BBQ Lit'l Smokies that way, either) and slapped that on a paper plate, and grabbed an individual snack bag of Sun Chips. I don't know the flavor. I didn't notice the color of the bag as he sat on the long couch and tilted his head back to pour them into his gaping maw. That's because I was so distracted by the OPEN-MOUTHED CHEWING of crunchy Sun Chips that I couldn't concentrate. Michael Caine as beauty pageant coach to Sandra Bullock's Gracie Lou Freebush could not have been more distracted, watching her roll that half-masticated cow around in her wide-open trap, in Miss Congeniality.

But that's not the prime infraction of household rules committed by Hick on Sunday. He is always tracking in BARn/yard dirt. He tries to blame me, but I rarely get out, and when I do, it's on the porch or brick sidewalk (let's not get me started on THAT again) or the gravel driveway. AND I take my shoes off the minute I come in the house. Not for cleanliness. For comfort. The Pony did the same, and Hick tried to blame him, too, when he was a live-in scapegoat.

Let the record show that Val had NOT just swept the kitchen floor. That was last weekend. She's been sick all week, remember? So sweeping was low on her priority list, not near the top, like BREATHING.

Usually, Hick tracks in cedar shavings (that Juno digs out of her house) from the porch that stick to his soily boot soles. Or soil from the yard or chicken/goat/mini pony pen. Or tiny bits of gravel that fall mostly on the tile floor of the laundry room so I can step on them in my bare feet. On Sunday, I did not know what Hick had tracked in until he was already gone. I went to the kitchen to gather my purse to go to town for my 44 oz Diet Coke, and found THIS:

It was over by the counter, where Hick had gotten his hot dog bun from the cabinet for his Lit'l Smokies . At first I didn't know what it was. "What's this? Did Hick buy himself some cookies and not tell me? Since he's not supposed to have stuff like that? Is he hiding snacks, like a certain someone tries to do in New Jersey? What IS that? Is it a chocolate shortbread cookie? No way! I know that stores don't sell snacks to men. That's why they have to snoop around and eat what the women buy for themselves." I have quite long conversations with myself, now that I have very little human interaction during the day.

I picked up that object. No help. It was light. But sturdy. Smooth on the top. Rougher on the bottom. There was a little border around the edge, and the top was rounded. I sniffed. Were you ever given some of those Harry Potter jelly beans by your niece, who said, "Here, Aunt Val. Try one of these brown ones. They're chocolate!" And come to find out upon ingestion that they were actually DIRT flavor? That's the smell I got from this Hick cookie. I suppose it molded itself to the pattern of his boot (thank goodness not a style favored by Thomas Jefferson) and then dropped out when Hick tiptoed to reach the Lit'l Smokies buns. (That's just so wrong.) I swear that I did not try to hide the buns from Hick. He's just short.

Of course when I mentioned the whole incident to Hick, he denied leaving mud. Since I had thrown the evidence away after taking a picture (2), I didn't have proof. I may pick up a mud clod from the kitchen floor and sniff it, but I won't dig through the kitchen wastebasket.

Here's what I should have done. And believe me, the though crossed my mind right after the picture:

You know Hick would have chowed down on that morsel like it was a towering bowl of soup. Especially if he thought it was mine.