Harriet Busby spent her entire life doing the right thing. As a child, she spit her cherry pits demurely into her napkin, and then placed them at the side of her plate. When her brother let the cherry pits accumulate in his hand, Harriet tattled on him. Harriet was not afraid of reprisal.
When Harriet grew up, she found the habits of her neighbors shocking. Harold Batts left his garbage cans out in the open, and this resulted in a raccoon infestation. Harriet called Critter Control so many times they recognized her voice. Her backdoor neighbor, Winnie Smales, left the bathroom curtains open. Harriet was forced to inform Winnie that her *ahem* privates were not so private.
Harriet never married. She came close with Robert Dodd, but he had the unfortunate habit of sucking on a toothpick after dinner, and that was a dealbreaker for Harriet. When they dissolved their relationship, Harriet got rid of the jade green ceramic toothpick holder that adorned her kitchen window sill. She never really liked it, and it was not at all valuable. She chucked it, along with the toothpicks, into the trash without a second thought. However, she did miss Robert’s company in the evenings. After dinner especially, when Robert would sing “Are You Lonesome Tonight” in a soothing baritone.
Harriet could never understand why her nieces never sent thank you notes for the ten dollar checks she sent them on their birthdays, so she stopped sending them. Their father, Thomas, who was six years Harriet’s junior (guilty of the cherry pit etiquette breach), left Harriet a huffy message on her land line, declaring thank you notes extinct. He told his sister that “text” thanks are what is done these days, but since Harriet didn’t believe in cell phones, she was the one in the wrong.
Harriet remained steadfast. The world was full of ill mannered, selfish people. Harriet stuck to her guns, judging those in her neighborhood, at church, and especially those churls at Kroger who banged Harriet’s heels with their shopping carts.
Then, one Saturday, after a solitary Friday night in her recliner, Harriet had a Eureka moment. Life was getting shorter and shorter, Harriet was getting older and older, and the lonely days and nights stretching in front of her turned her blood to ice.
Harriet looked at herself in the mirror. Pale, undistinguished. Hair that barely held a curl. The beginnings of under eye bags. Were those jowls? She stifled a sigh, pulled open the hall closet door, and took out her maroon cardigan.
The speed limit was 35 mph, but Harriet floored it on the way to the Goodwill store, where she bought a brass toothpick holder.
The rest is history.
