Here is my column in today’s Greenville News.  Enjoy!  And remember what you put in the cart at the store…

Everyone loves a good mystery, don’t they? It’s why we enjoy shows like CSI, and The First 48. The idea that we can take the evidence before us and construct an explanation for events, why that’s good fun! And I wonder, sometimes, if folks aren’t taking notes in anticipation of future misdeeds!

It all makes me wonder. Someday, when I’m long gone to glory and the children are far away, someday when these woods and fields are unexplored and wide open before other occupants, I wonder what they’ll think?

How will they explain the assorted animal bones that litter our yard and woods ? I know that they’re the consequence of keeping a pack of dogs around the yard. Thanks to the dogs, I am never surprised when the law-mower flings half a mandible across the yard, or a small skull crunches beneath my foot as I work around the porch. Not that the dogs take the energy to kill anything, mind you. But they’re great at dragging things out of the forest that have been killed by other, more enterprising carnivores. Of course, the collected skeletons may seem a little odd to future excavators, since this place clearly wasn’t an active farm.

Coupled with the scattered shell-casings, lost arrows, abandoned hatchets and machetes characteristic of boyhood, future excavators might take this for a battlefield, a sacrificial location or an abattoir! Small creatures buried in boxes might also make it seem like a burial ground. My daughter recently interred a tiny tortoise in a wee box She tenderly wrapped it in a leaf and flower, with the kind of gentility only a child can show for a thing that seems so inconsequential to silly adults. Of course, I had to dig the hole, but that’s papa’s work.

When the kids were smaller, I wondered what an investigator would think of my last car. Somewhere, under a back seat, there were probably a couple of forgotten diapers, at least two pounds of potatoes in the form of petrified McDonald’s French Fries, enough straws to make a snorkel, enough loose change to re-fill the gas tank and multiple forgotten crayons. The seats themselves likely had enough DNA from childhood incidents and accidents to reconstruct a very confusing crime-scene involving blood, saliva and urine. I imagined the detective scratching his head next to my body, wondering if I had been killed by a diaper wearing short-order cook with a creepy penchant for coloring books.

However, I never wonder about the ‘story’ more than when I’m in line at WalMart or some other store that has a wide variety of items. As I check out, someone must be asking, ‘why would he need 500 rounds of .22 ammunition, 50 pounds of dog-food, a blade for a power-saw and scented hand soap?Can I get a deputy on aisle 20?’

And there’s the dietary issue. Sometimes our kids have friends over to visit. I always enjoy the look in the clerk’s eyes as I check out with 10 pounds of hamburger, 6 boxes of Swiss Cake Roles, 10 bags of assorted chips, batteries for the X-box controllers, 10 liters of Coke products, three boxes of Oreo Cookies and an archery target. ‘You don’t want to know,’ I think to myself. The only thing better would be adding a vial of insulin.

So it is with a smile that I view a big screen TV, a leopard print bra, stiletto heels, four gallons of wine and a packet of steaks. ‘Happy Father’s Day,’ it cries out! It is with a laugh that I watch Star Wars action figures, a box of Vanilla Wafers, a pack of juice boxes and some frozen kids’ meals. Mommy needs a little down time, apparently.

It is with wonder and a little surprise that I see frozen dog cookies, a car battery, a stroller, a chainsaw chain and a set of socket-wrenches. Just what sort of vehicle are we building, eh dad?

And it is with a sense of foreboding that I watch as 100 feet of rope, a set of steak knives, a shovel and a gray tarp roll down the conveyor. Family coming to visit? Big plans? I wonder if someone is going to show up on America’s Most Wanted.

I’m fairly easily entertained. But few things entertain me like constructing stories, whether it be from tiny corpses in my yard to scary purchases at the store.

There are mysteries, and stories, all around. Just you watch!

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