Monthly Archives: April 2025

Jackie Wells-Fauth

Years ago, a government teacher explained the difference between the Russian KGB and the American CIA in the following tongue-in-cheek manner: “The American CIA is in charge of finding people and things and the Russian KGB is in charge of making them disappear.” I don’t know whether I accept all of that, but it was a simple enough explanation.

I’ve thought about that a lot over the years, though, and it occurs to me that in a past life, I must have been part of the Russian KGB. While fortunately, I have never technically made any people disappear—a few might actively avoid me—I make things disappear all the time!

These thoughts were in my mind this week because in addition to locating my keys and phone on a daily basis, I have managed to lose two pairs of scissors, a tape dispenser, two small knives and the lids to about 15 Tupperware-type containers. If I have the lid, you can be assured that I have no container for it!

While I was in a frustrated hunt for about a dozen socks in legal separation from their mates, I received a message from my cousin, Kristi, asking if possibly one of her blue washcloths might have gotten into my suitcase after a recent visit.

This is a bad thing because currently, I have in my eclectic towel collection a blue hand towel that turned up several years ago and I have two washcloths that I cannot identify as mine—neither one blue, though. This evidence, and my past life as a KGB agent probably mean I had some involvement in this latest towel-napping!

In order to see why this missing washcloth is important, you have to understand the meticulous housekeeping methods of Kristi. This is a woman who never allows dirty dishes to stay in her sink—some of mine are permanent residents there! She has dishes that match each other, and all of her glasses are of the same style. Some of my glasses are from the collection of Mason fruit jars!

She has high quality towels, and they match each other. So, when she puts a set of towels out, they are the same color and style. That means a missing washcloth throws off the whole ascetic. Now, I didn’t deliberately take the blue washcloth, and she is obviously not likely to call the cops to report it, but my Russian KGB gene could definitely be the cause. I have been carefully shaking out all of my laundry, for fear it will show up here (I’m hoping it will turn up under her guestroom bed or hanging off the deck or something) and I would have to admit that the KGB had struck again.

Forks at my house disappear like they are being swallowed with the food, and I have an inordinate number of bottles of aspirin because all I have to do is touch one and it immediately disappears only to reappear when I have bought a replacement bottle. I guess that makes me the KGB and the CIA!

I can make a remote control disappear without any effort and usually, unless they have made a trip down the crevice of a piece of furniture, they never appear again. The only time my KGB heritage doesn’t work is with clothes. I have clothes in my closet that I don’t even remember buying and some of them make me wonder if I was drinking when I selected them. I try to make them disappear, but my skills don’t work on them. Hangers, however, disappear right and left and they never return!

I haven’t re-discovered the missing washcloth, and I wouldn’t worry about it if it didn’t ruin a towel combination and if I didn’t have the sneaking suspicion it will turn up someday in my cupboard when I have completely forgotten where it came from.

In the meantime, I am headed to the store to buy a new garbage can for my sewing work. I know, I know, that seems like a rather odd thing to make disappear, but the fact is that it is gone and it’s not down the crevice in the couch, either. Maybe the washcloth is inside and my time as a Russian KGB agent will go on!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

It should be clear to anyone who sees me on a regular basis that I will never take the world by storm with my fine fashions. I see clothes as a necessity so that I don’t offend the human eye with a look at what is underneath. Beyond that, clothes don’t really concern me a great deal.

It’s not that I don’t admire fine clothes, I’ve just never had the ability to pick the color and the style that would best enhance me. And, as the years have gone on, it just became imperative to buy things big enough to cover me.

About a year ago, however, I had an intervention concerning my size which was staged by my right leg. That may sound funny, but it is very true. I was having trouble with my left knee which made it necessary to put all the weight of my body on my right leg when I stood up.

The first time I transferred all that weight to the right leg, it responded with, “All right, I think we need to have a little talk. You need to lay off the doughnuts or I’m going to lay off of you.”

For the next three weeks, that leg held protest by hurting worse than the left knee and so I came to the sad conclusion that at least some of me had to go.

Now, for anyone who has tried to lose weight, you know this is no easy accomplishment. I was used to my three helpings at a meal and constant snacking, not to mention my favorite thing: soda pop. I did some research and discovered the things that were the worst for me: sugar, salt, bread, fried foods, etc. In other words, anything I liked was bad for me. I could have fruits and fresh vegetables, but then what was my reason for living?

So for a year, now, I have been trying to school my voracious appetite, eating less at meals, avoiding the sugary snacks and having a messy divorce with my Pepsi…or at least a contentious separation. And all of this just to placate my right leg which didn’t appreciate carrying so very much weight!

Losing weight has been interesting – notice I didn’t say fun- and over the year, I have had some success. Like any addiction, I experience backslides. Occasionally, a Twinkee or HoHo will just be too enticing and I have to start all over again, convincing myself that those carrots are just as good.

The side effect, of course, has been what has happened to my clothes. As time has gone on, I’ve discovered that my clothes are fitting differently. My favorite fat clothes won’t stay in place anymore and pretty much everything else is a little looser than it used to be. I was told repeatedly that the best thing to do was get rid of all the fat clothes, but I have not done that for two reasons. One, I like those clothes, even if they are kind of baggy now. They stretched with me over the fat times and they deserve to hang around now. Reason two, of course, is that with all weight loss, it could easily come back. If my right leg is not vigilant, I could slip back into old habits and then I’ll need those clothes.

This attitude did not please my Aunt Jean. If you knew this lady, you would know that she valued good appearance. And when she saw me after a long period of absence, I think she was a little chagrined (she never got to angry or horrified) to see me wearing my beloved baggy clothes. The only pants I’ve completely quit wearing is the pair that will no longer stay on when I stand up. Everything else is still serviceable in my mind, but not in Aunt Jean’s.

She had a hard time figuring out a way to broach this subject, since she is, above all things a very polite and correct woman. And sadly, this last month, we lost her at the age of 91.

In her honor, I have begun working on getting clothes that are less baggy, but probably no more fashionable than ever. But it will always hold a special place in my heart that her last concerns for me were about the clothing of her most unfashionable niece.

 The last words my Aunt Jean said to me as we parted for the last time were concise and to the point. What did she say? “Go shopping.”

Alright, Jean—but I’m not getting rid of my fat clothes!

Jackie Wells-Fauth

All I needed was my credit card. I mostly use it for gas fillings because it’s convenient. The problem for me is that it’s also really small. And the longer we go through winter, the more coy and unreachable it becomes.

That’s what’s wrong with all plastic money for me. Those slender cards can disappear in your pocket or purse and never be seen again. Especially if they choose to disappear in MY purse or pocket.

You know how some people have a spot…a table or a chair or a counter where they tend to drop everything, and it is constantly a disorganized mess? Well, I don’t do that. I use my purse and my pockets. And when my credit card disappears in there, it’s the proverbial needle in a haystack.

I needed the card the other day and as usual, it had gone into witness protection somewhere and I couldn’t find it. I looked all through the sleeves of my purse, digging past pens, coins and appointment cards, but to no avail.

There was nothing else I could do: I had to look in my pockets. Roy is always fascinated (notice I didn’t say impressed or happy) with the amount of junk I can cram into coat pockets. After an entire winter of collection, the pockets were full enough to horrify him.

“What is all this paper trash?” he asked, running his hand through a bunch of litter I pulled from both pockets.

“Those are receipts. You are always lecturing me about getting receipts when I buy things,” I said virtuously. “So, I keep them.”

“Yes, but eventually, you are supposed to use them to reconcile your checkbook,” he said, smoothing out one crumpled ticket. “This receipt is from last October.”

“There you go, using fancy accounting words on me again,” I grumbled, and about then, I drew out two empty prescription medicine bottles.

“I know you have a good reason for those in your coat pocket,” he said (but he didn’t mean it.)

“Yes, I do. I finished up the prescription when I was out and put the bottles in my pocket…two months in a row. I just never took them out.” I added defensively, “That isn’t as bad as when I take aspirin with me. Then I rattle when I walk.”

“You probably waddle, too with all that stuff in your coat. Look at this, you actually have gloves in there.”

“I don’t use them very much, though,” I admitted. “It’s too hard to get them out—everything else falls out. Same with keys. I have them in my pocket, but it’s easier just to let someone else open doors for me.”

“Why do you have this novel in here?” he asked. “It’s right on top of the hair clip and ponytail holder in this pocket.”

“I sometimes have to wait in various places, and I like to have a book to read,” I said, “and sometimes I need to get my hair put up…when I’m on the road…you never know.”

“So, you want to read while you wait, but why is it necessary to bring War and Peace? Surely there are smaller books around.”

“I found my credit card,” I exclaimed, cutting off his inventory of my coat pockets.

“Great!  Where was it?”

“In one of those little slots in my wallet. No wonder I couldn’t find it!”

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I had everything handled, you know. I knew what the weather was going to be like every single day. And just as I was fully adjusted to what South Dakota was throwing out for this winter season, she pulled a fast one and went back to the third version of winter.

I know that when you live in South Dakota, you will take whatever winter chooses to throw at you. But on years like this one, I can kind of fool myself that I’m living in San Diego or some other year-round mild temperature spot. I will admit it; I have enjoyed the warm days and long walks not on my treadmill. Of course the dog has also enjoyed the times outside, running through dusty tracks and scaring up pheasants.

As far as I’m concerned, this could have gone on indefinitely, but in South Dakota that’s not how it works. Here we have many more than four seasons: There’s the One Day of Spring, Summer on the Equator, the Sweet Fall and the Evil Fall, Winter Part 1, Winter Part 2, Faking You Out That It’s Spring Winter and End of Winter—April Fools!

And End of Winter—April Fools is where we are now. I had all my winter things put away. I had transferred the junk I always carry in my pockets from my winter jacket to my spring jacket, my boots were stored, shovels were shelved and even the fans were set out.

Of course, this winter has not been very typical for South Dakota. We have had warm, dry, record-setting weather all winter to the point where my father the farmer would have said, “Gonna be a dry summer if we don’t get some snow pretty soon.”

Well, he would be pleased that we are in End of Winter—April Fools season now. It is wet, icy and very bright. For myself, I look out at the snow and think, “April showers, God, it’s April showers! A little rain wouldn’t have hurt anything.”

When you get snow in End of Winter—April Fools season it means shoveling. And since, thankfully, the snow is nearly liquid and very heavy, shoveling is hard work. And all the while I’m shoveling, I’m thinking, “If I let this go for a day, it would melt on its own.” It is in the soul of a South Dakotan to shovel, though, even during End of Winter—April Fools season.

I’m looking forward to One Day of Spring season before we hit Summer on the Equator, but from the looks of it, that will be a little bit longer in arriving. In the meantime, I’m slopping my way through icy slush and wondering how I got the mud mess on the back of my trousers. I’m trying to figure out how to convince the dog to wipe her feet and I’m watching the flocks of birds hovering in the tops of the trees while their food fields are covered with snow. And that scene reminds me of an old Alfred Hitchcock movie that still haunts my dreams!

I’ve scraped the latest snow off my deck and now it sits in a wet pool on the ground below, and I can almost hear the lawn sucking it down. I didn’t need hat or mittens to work out there and by the time I got back in the house, I was covered with sweat, all over the inside of the winter coat I had just dry-cleaned for the season. I forgot there is a season between Faking You Out That It’s Spring season and the One Day of Spring season, so now I have to do all those end of the winter things all over again.

I’m kind of thinking I’m going to set up the lawn furniture and grill and have a picnic tonight; you know, get a jump on that One Day of Spring Season—it’s always so short. I’m encouraged by the warming temperatures, but then again, I’ve lived long enough in South Dakota to know that there’s no telling about End of the Winter—April’s Fools season. Everyone needs to stay alert and not put those shovels away yet.