We’ve had the accident, and “The Lindsey Show,” and the next part is about the rest of it.

But, where to start? Do I tell you about the accident involving my mom, who also was rear-ended? Do I mention the incompetence of the body shop that was to do the estimate for the insurance company? Maybe I mention the generous gifts from kind family members, or the unexpected, beyond expectations assistance from a towing company, or the mysterious appearance of a pack of raccoons wearing tiny birthday hats?

Following the path of strongest emotion, I share with you the part where I said goodbye to my faithful friend. There it was, sitting in the parking lot of the body shop, where its heart still beating strongly, and its head still intact. It looked strong and vital in the parts that mattered, it still drove, and here I was, abandoning my good and trusty friend on field of battle, bleeding and wounded, still ready to continue the fight. Its headlights were clear and they stared at me, full of hope ready to go home with me. Those eye-lights were trusting me, expecting me to take care of everything, to make things better. They did not even consider that I might be sending it to a terrible fate in a junk yard or a heap of scrap. It was giving me its auto-puppy eyes, and how could I say no to those? How could I betray it so thoroughly?

I reconsidered the whole plan to let the insurance take the car. Maybe it wasn’t too late, I could get the major bits all fixed, and keep it.

But, the reality was that fixing the bits was like giving Methuselah a face lift. Spending finite resources on fixing it up would not solve the problem long-term. It was time to let it go, and face the horrors of car shopping.

The insurance money was a pittance, not nearly as profitable as 30 pieces of silver. Hardly worth the betrayal. When added to the generous contributions of family members, however, it amounted to enough to find a replacement, hopefully one with an engine and everything.

Finding myself with a day off work due to the flooding in Colorado, I went to a big dealer’s sale downtown. I kept being shown cars 1000-1500 above my maximum price, and I despaired that my expectations were too high.  “You mean you want a vehicle with a steering wheel? Are you out of your mind? I’m afraid a steering wheel is out of your budget.”

And then, they showed me a car which was in my range that had a mere 47,000 miles on it. It seemed too good to be true. It even had a steering wheel, and *four* other wheels.  It had breaks and seat belts.  It drove well.

Before I knew what was happening, and despite the fact that I had brought no money, I left with a wad of paperwork and a stomach full of anxiety. I no longer had the ability to say anything other than “What have I done now?”

It turns out, I had bought a car.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s time for the Lindsey Show!

At this moment, you’re thinking that the car accident must’ve jarred my brain, and I’ve forgotten my name, and that last week we had ended on a cliff overlooking the dreadful Puddle of Pain. How could I forget these important details?!

No car accident yet invented could erase you from my mind. And yes, I still know my name is Ms. Frederica Horglesnop. That is not a name that is easily forgotten, believe me, I have tried.

At any rate, we take up the tale at the point where I have arrived home to face the challenges of having to share the terrible truth with someone else. Once I proclaim it out loud, it becomes solid, a tangible and horrible reality.

Reality is incredibly inconvenient.

The good news is that reality can be muted for a short time if it is observed through the goggles of fermented beverages. I immediately took my sister up on her sympathetic offer of a visit to the land of food and ferment, where people will bring you yummy things, and I am rescued from having to carefully pile the plates in the sink and can avoid the hazards of possibly shifting the precariously balanced tower of unwashed dishes.  Not that I have ever seen such a monument in my house.

We were seated across from a young family, mom, dad, baby, and a little girl about two years old.  They had mostly finished their meal, and were relaxing, having a night away from home, where there could not possibly be piles of laundry taller than Big Bird, and the dishes were probably all spotless. I find myself jealous of their imaginary house.

As I watched the scene, the little girl noticed me.  She cocked her head to one side, and then pivoted toward me as if asking me whether I was noticing her.  I mirrored her motion, and she grinned from ear to ear.  She straightened her head, and then put her thumbs together and her forefingers together in a triangle shape, and peered into her finger teepee, and aimed it at me. I teepee’d her right back. The teepee became a side-wave gesture, and that one, too, was followed.

Then, she was stumped. No other gestures occurred to her. So, I helped her out by raising both arms straight up in the air and making a look of surprise.  The charming toddler burst into delighted laughter.

Charismatic two-year olds proved far superior to adult beverages this day.

At this moment, her father, amused by the proceedings said, “It’s a pity she’s so shy, isn’t it?”

A few minutes later, the youngster decided it was time for animated conversation, and became incredibly chatty, asking questions pointing to things, and reciting bits of knowledge she had gleaned.  Her father turned to no one in particular, and announced “Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s time for ‘The Lindsey Show!”

I told him it was a pretty good show, and I hoped it would be renewed for years to come.

Having gained a touch of perspective through babies and beer, I could put reality on the shelf for the night, and pick it up again another day.  And that is where I shall put this story for now. In next week’s exciting conclusion, the tale becomes one of unexpected outcomes.

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve finally finished the final hours required to achieve a Ph.D. in procrastination.

It’s a common achievement of writers, you can see the tell-tale signs of a writer in pursuit of procrastination by the number of times they call you “out of the blue” when a deadline is impending.  Other signs a writer is avoiding work include a sudden upsurge in completed household chores, including mowed lawns and trimmed hedges. Right now, I’m thinking longingly of the mountain of unwashed dishes and the pile of laundry in need of washing.  It’s tempting to stop writing this and go work on them.

I’ve also found useful distractions in the form of the Internet and television, as well as sudden interests in checking the fridge for something that I know isn’t there.

I realize it is strange that one would actually complete such a degree. After all, someone who fully embraces the tricks of the procrastination would probably never complete anything.

I figure that anyone that learns the intricacies of avoidance and learns the discipline to overcome them, deserves the advanced degree.  Because, it is in conquering the combined power of distractions large and small that we get to call ourselves writers.

I’m also fairly certain that all of this is a lie. I’m merely fooling myself into thinking I’ve achieved mastery over the forces trying to keep me from sitting my posterior in a chair and making words appear on a virtual sheet of paper.  I think the entire Procrasti Nation invented this Ph.D nonsense to make me think I’d done something worth celebrating.

They never give up. And they seem to get much stronger when I’ve made some progress against them. I start writing early every morning, and then a few days later, they convince me that an extra hour of sleep is a much better plan. They tell me that I’ve earned a break. They lie. And, it’s so much more pleasant to believe the lie and to get a bit of rest.

That is, until it’s the day of a deadline and all you can think to write about how much you’d rather be doing anything but writing something interesting to meet your deadline. Then they tell you how you’ve got “plenty of time,” so you might as well take a nap, and, hey, look, your favorite show is on, and you’ve not seen it in ages, and look, the weather is beautiful, and there’s a puppy and an ice cream man, and a guy with a jet pack comes and offers you a ride, and so on and further.

These distraction elementals like to also tell you that you’ve got writer’s block and that the story you’ve spent all week working on is complete crap. Then, they tell you to throw it out and start all over again, and the only idea they leave you with is to write about them.  Better than nothing, I say.

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If you’re under the mistaken belief that this word is lacking in magic, look no further than your office’s coffee station.  Hidden casually, in plain sight, is all anyone ever needs to prove the existence of magic in this world.

Powdered Non-Dairy Creamer.

All I can hope is that we don’t owe the existence of this magical substance to a dark ritual involving sacrifice of puppies or the burning of 15 million acres of rain forest or wearing polyester.  Please don’t tell me that it is harvested off of the wings of imprisoned fairies or unicorn dandruff, because we’re all better off not knowing.

I’ll grant you that the label says the first ingredient is “corn syrup solids.” That’s Muggle for “something magical we can’t explain, and you’re better off not knowing.” If you ask someone, they’ll probably just tell you it’s just sugar. That is just Death Eater talk, so, you shouldn’t listen to them.

Let’s look into the magical properties of this wondrous substance, shall we?

First, there’s not a bit of dairy in it, but, it makes coffee taste like it’s been given a touch of something that came out of the acceptable part of a female cow.  It’s even mostly white.

Then, there is its peculiar molecular structure, which mutates it into a liquid when exposed to a hot liquid, but gets harder and lumpier in cold liquid.  Even in hot liquid, it still somehow forms a protective barrier over granulated sugar, keeping it from dissolving.  I think that there should be some serious grants awarded to scientists to figure out how to harness these properties. It probably requires someone who knows everything there ever was to know about sedimentology and fluid dynamics. Can we get someone on this? There’s got to be some under-employed master of fluid dynamics in a temp job somewhere that is spending way too much time studying this. Like, what ratios of sugar to creamer result in which absorption rates? Does it matter if the sugar is added first, or if a part of the sugar is exposed to the liquid under the creamer? What happens if you homogenize the two?

You could say I’ve done some experiments. You could also say that no one should spend that much time thinking about coffee creamer.  You might even suggest that I have no idea what use could possibly be derived from a better understanding of non-dairy creamer. You would probably be right. The bad news is that I know next to nothing about fluid dynamics. But I do know that this stuff does some really weird (and that’s a technical term) stuff in liquid.

I probably shouldn’t mention this, as it’s not exactly in keeping with the product’s labeling, and while it’s not a secret, it’s certainly not something we want in front of those who would use the information for evil.  Non-dairy creamer is highly flammable. It can be used as an accelerant for improvised torches and fire-related naughtiness.  This is probably why fairies burst into flames if they get too close to a hot light source. Or maybe that’s just moths. I really hope that it’s not made of the wing scales of moths.  I just couldn’t take it.

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I don’t actually remember what prompted me to start or when it was that I first took up the art of folding paper. I have a vague recollection of coming across my uncle’s thick book of paper airplanes when I was about 12, not realizing it might be a gateway drug to more serious experiments with paper. When looking back through any hazy drug-related flashback, I don’t know if this memory was before or after I had started trying to force paper into animal forms. What I know is that paper doesn’t take kindly to being forced.

What I do remember is that I’d work at it intently for a few months, hit a road block made of crumbled wads of grotesque, malformed, animal-like lumps, and forget about it for a few years.

Usually, I’d return to it when I came across some really nifty paper, or one of my books, and I’d find that things that had been difficult years before, I could attempt with new eyes, and things looked marginally less lumpy.

I am not, in any way, a master of this art, and I keep the attempts that look like balled-up paper to myself. Perfected models I happily give as gifts.

There is a slight problem with this. The objects occasionally take on a whole new form when seen by people who are not me.

Grateful recipients of these carefully folded items will gush over the adorable frog I gave them (it was a butterfly), and I am entirely uncertain how to react. It seems churlish of me to correct their interpretation of the form, even though, for crying out loud, that’s clearly a butterfly. Frogs don’t usually have wings.

Usually, I just agree with them and go on with life, even when my mind is screaming “This is not a Rorschach test! It’s clearly a bird and not a horse. I have no idea how you came up with `horse,’ but can only assume it’s because you’ve never seen a horse.”

I take a deep, calming breath.

While I try and choose models that clearly evoke the shape of their inspiration, let’s face it, many are still somewhat on the vague side. I’m certain that some are complete failures, and the recipient is wondering if it’s really supposed to be anything at all.

I try to use papers with coloring to give further hints as to what I think it’s supposed to be (green means turtle, not bear), even though I’m sure a green bear is just as valid an interpretation as a turtle. They both have tails after all, and four limbs, and lying as a rug in someone’s den, I’m certain anyone could see the resemblance.

Deep cleansing breath.

In all art, there is room for interpretation, I know that. Certainly, there are a great many models which rely heavily on imagination to see the form intended by the designer. If I had seen a particular form without seeing the diagram name, I might also have seen something very different. Sometimes, butterflies are frogs.

It has always been a mark of culture to be able to correctly pair haute cuisine with the best possible beverage. This is meant to enhance the meal, creating a perfect harmony between plate and glass. Even people who don’t know a Merlot from a Burgundy know that those of good breeding should pair a red meat with a red wine.

And yet, for most of us, we’re eating our meals in the car, where adult beverage consumption is likely to be frowned upon, and possibly illegal. Where is the food pairing advice for the 99%?

For example, what is the best vintage to be ordered when selecting a Big Mac? What is the perfect varietal to serve with a Grande Meal from Taco Bell?

Your prayers have been answered, here is that all-important guide to everyday pairings. I know, I love you, too.

In most cases, if you are dining at McDonald’s, Coke is the beverage of choice. Perhaps a cliché, but, there’s a reason it’s a classic combination. If you are concerned about sugar, well, that’s understandable. Choose Diet Coke, and go ahead and super-size, because the taste of irony is so very delicious.

The only exception to the Coke rule at McDonald’s is if you’re having breakfast. Coffee is a fine choice, but, please remember that they tend to serve it hot. Unless it’s the new iced coffee.

At Taco Bell, the perfect companion for most of the menu, is Dr. Pepper. Sadly, this has become a tragic state of affairs, since they stopped carrying Dr. Pepper.

The remaining options, especially knowing that fountain Pepsi is very different from bottled Pepsi, are quite unsatisfactory. Despite the fact that they are owned by Pepsi Co, I find the varietal dispensed from Taco Bell particularly unpleasant. I typically solve this problem by not ordering a beverage at all, and taking the food home where I can enjoy it with its perfect compliment. My sister, however, will choose the Pepsi with hints of artificial cherry flavoring, which helps to balance out the tendency of fountain Pepsi to take on significant medicinal overtones.

At Wendy’s the drink choices are a tad more complicated. Salads should be paired with unsweetened ice tea. Wendy’s ice tea is consistently the best in the industry, and it goes very nicely with the chain’s superior salads. Frosties, while not precisely a beverage, do make for an admirable dessert. Some of my acquaintances contend that Frosties are a condiment for French Fries. Please do not molest potatoes in this fashion.

If you’re following in Jared’s footsteps and choosing Subway, pick cherry coke if you are eating a sandwich, ‘cause the fruits and veggies are free. If you’re having a salad, lemonade should serve you in good stead, unless you picked tuna salad. In that case, take it home and make some tea.

Learning the basics of proper food and drink pairings will separate you from the crowd, and give you a great conversation starter. And, if your dinner companions question your choice of beverage, just send them to me.

While I had every intention of ending the story with the second installment, I received a number of queries asking me if the story was really at an end.

And, in truth, there is something of a coda to the tale, which I had deemed uninteresting and frankly, embarrassing. I also had decided I had already gotten far more mileage out of the adventure than I had any right to expect.

Other readers expressed that they really enjoyed both parts, and so, being inclined to give my beloved audience what they want, I inquired if they even wanted to see a third part to this harrowing tale of nature and misplaced keys. All those I asked enthusiastically said “Absolutely.”

So here, by popular request, is the third, and final, part of the Deer Stalking Saga.

Having been freed of the need to wait for my sister to escape the parking lot of the convenience store, I went back to campus, and told her of the miracle of the glowing man with the keys. I also told her, given the hour and the drama of the evening, I would pick up dinner to celebrate.

Turning at long last toward home, and not feeling remotely like drive-thru fare, I stopped at a fast-casual establishment. I walked in the door, one fist clenched tightly around my recovered keys, and the other clutching my collection of plastic money. I ordered, and went to find my debit card to pay…

And it wasn’t there.

I looked again.

As I rifled through each of the items in my wallet, all I could see was the face of that convenience store clerk smirking at me as I returned, for the gajillionth time that night, to his counter looking for a valuable lost item. I went through all my cards three times, and it was very clearly, NOT THERE.

Exhausted from my earlier displays of futile emotional distress and noticing a much larger crowd of visibly impatient people ready to send me to an early grave if I took even one more second to hold up the line, I paid with a credit card, and sat down to wait.

With a growing sense of panic, I thought about racing out to the car and conducting a search for the missing card, but, I given how this night was going, I was equally afraid of someone taking the food I acquired for at 25% more than I had intended to pay, and I stayed rooted to the spot.

I couldn’t believe I had lost another debit card, which had only just been replaced about 6 months ago. The sadder part is that having to pay for a new one was looking like a more attractive option than facing clerk-o-smerk for yet another episode of “absent-minded hysterical female.”

My food, now worth its weight in gold, arrived, and I tried not to race back to the car.

I opened the door, and settled into the car, and looked around. It was not readily apparent.

My last hope was the bag which contained the paper and pens I had bought to amuse myself while I watched my “soon-to-be-stolen-by-a-hallucinating-thief” car. I pulled out the pens, I pulled out the receipt, I pulled out the paper. I shifted the bag just a bit, and, breathing a huge sigh of relief, revealed my misplaced card.

Offering thanks for yet another miracle on this evening of misadventure, I drove home with no further incident.

For those keeping track, one-hour photo development for 27 exposures and a photo CD cost me $16. I think the deer are laughing at me.

When last we met our heroine, she was phoneless, keyless and stuck inside a convenience store weeping and pulling out her hair in distress and agony. She had nothing but a disposable camera that cost a ridiculous $16 and a wallet filled with plastic money.

Before the convenience store clerks could call the police, she straightened her clothing, wiped her eyes, and stuck the handfuls of hair back on her head, where they drifted away in a gesture of nonchalant futility.

The clerk reviewed the security cameras and insisted I didn’t have the keys when I came into the store. I told him I remember hearing them as I set them on the counter to pay for the camera. He said, no, they aren’t there. We both looked around the store, around the car, under the car, and he was certain they must be in my car. His certainty was accompanied by the patronizingly knowing look of someone who is humoring the woman who has lost her mind. Which might be a reasonable conclusion had I been acting in any way as badly as I described here for comedic effect.

At any rate, I was getting nowhere with the searching, and the car was not going to move by sheer force of moral indignation at the rightness of my cause, knowing that the keys had been lost somewhere near the checkout counter.

This is when my brain inconveniently reminded me that the store I happened to have given my $16 in exchange for a camera is known for having the highest crime rate of any in the city. Actually, I heard of the entire nationwide chain, but, I was trying to stamp down a rising sense of panic that someone had stolen my keys to steal my car.

No one in their right mind would steal my car. The people not in their right minds that would steal it include people with hallucinatory issues who somehow saw a Lamborghini Veneno instead of a 1998 Saturn SL2.

I decided my best course of action was to walk back to campus to find a phone. The part of me that was still feeling paranoid kept looking back to check to see that my car was still there.

After exiting the building, I verified the car hadn’t moved and realized I was but a few feet away from the little critter that had started this whole adventure. And this time, I had a camera. Not only that, I had more than an hour to kill before my sister brought me the spare key. I might as well get a picture of the deer.

I returned to the store, and realized I had nothing to do but loiter. I hate wasted time. I figured, I could get a beverage to help combat the hot, get a writing implement, and paper, and write this all down. Another ridiculous $6 later, I turned to resume my vigil over the car, when a man walked into the store.

He was brightly lit from behind, with a golden halo around his head, and a cloak of light surrounding his silhouette. I heard a choir of angels as he reached out his hand and revealed a golden ball of light which, as my eyes adjusted to the radiance, I now realized, contained my beloved keys.

This beautiful figure holding joy in his hands, apologized profusely, and was a bit embarrassed. He’d gotten home, and realized he had an extra set of keys in his pocket, and couldn’t figure out why. And then he remembered there was a lady who lost her keys, and came back to the store. He’d been standing next to me in line, and inadvertently snagged the keys off the counter.

I glanced over at the clerk, who was honestly dumbfounded by the conclusion, and my ultimate vindication. I refrained from sticking my tongue out at him.

As I turned to go, I realized that I had gotten more for my $16 than a simple picture of a baby deer. I had a copyright free image to use for my column.

That was when I realized I would have to pay for film development.

I work on a lovely college campus converted from an Air Force base.  It has large open areas with well-maintained landscaping. Breaking up the pastoral scenery are uniform brick bunker boxes.  Most people just call them buildings.

There is no significant car traffic through the campus. This makes it a refuge for all manner of wildlife.  On any given day, you can see hawks, coyotes, geese, rabbits, magpies, students, and, lately, deer.

That’s right. Deer.

Did I mention that we’re in the middle of a city? As in, multiple, busy, two-lane roads between us, and wherever it is they go.

The deer don’t live on campus. They just visit at semi-regular intervals. I suspect they got a good deal on Priceline.com, with all-you-can eat landscaping and extra shady spots. They didn’t manage an open bar, which is probably why they usually eat, sit in the shade, and then take off just before sunset.

Normally, it’s a herd of 7-20 does, and I have never seen a single buck anywhere near them, which makes me wonder if we’re not so much the day trip vacation destination as the deer equivalent of the ladies room.

On Friday, I received, from one of my minions, that conclusive proof of the existence of bucks  had been spotted, in the form of a baby.

I got a basic description of the place where baby was hanging out, and resolved to go deer-stalking after work. No, I don’t have the appropriate hat.

Sure enough, I managed to locate the darling creature. And then remembered I didn’t have a camera. (No, not even on my non-existent cell phone. I’ve already told you about that. You thought I was lying, didn’t you? Well, I wasn’t.)

It being Friday night, and having nowhere to go, I figured I’d just stop at the convenience store a few blocks away, get a disposable camera, and get a picture of the little critter.

I grumbled when I learned that the camera cost $16, because, I am a frugal sort, and even though it’s been a decade since I bought one, I remembered them being much cheaper. Everything should always stay the same price as I remember, forever. This gets increasingly disappointing the older I get.  Yes, I realize I sound like a curmudgeonly old person. Yes, I was starting to regret the whole plan.

I managed to punch my inner oldster in the face by successfully arguing, “What’s a few dollars next to the opportunity to get close to a baby deer, and get a photo?”

Having made my purchase and grumbled, I went back to the car. And it was locked. And my keys were not in my hand.

I went back into the store. No keys anywhere.

I fell to my knees with my fists balled and my face uplifted to the heavens as I screamed “NOOOOOOOO!!!!” Tears rolled down my face, and I ripped out chunks of hair, and everyone was really uncomfortable.

And, that’s the perfect place to conclude the story for now. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion next week! Will Kate find her way home?  What had happened to the missing keys? Would there be a picture of a baby deer at any point in this sordid tale of inconvenient store intrigue?  Find out in the next exciting installment!