Tag Archives: fiction

July 31, 2026 · 6:12 am

Boiled Fly, Anyone?

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

Now, I know that every summer, we are inundated with flies and every summer I whine about hating them. So since it’s summer and there are flies, this column should come as no surprise to anyone!

Most of the time, I’m just irritated by their ability to annoy. They fly in my face, crawl up my clean windows and buzz when I’m trying to sleep at night. The one thing I have not written about, however, is their threat to my food supply. But this week, they even crossed that line.

I was preparing one of my favorite meals which requires a pot of boiling water to cook the pasta pockets in. I made the pockets, got the water boiling and then, took off the pan lid. I walked back to the counter, grabbed a pocket and came back to the uncovered boiling water. I threw in the pocket and then noticed there was something black on it. That made no sense! There was nothing black on the pockets!

That’s right, you guessed it. It was a fly. Now, I’m fairly certain that there was no fly on the pocket when I picked it up, so the only explanation is that the fly willingly jumped into a boiling pan of water! Isn’t that the way they used to execute people in the Dark Ages?

A full pan of boiling water and a pasta pocket that took some considerable work to make: what to do? Should I chuck the whole works and start again, or fish out the fly and pretend it never happened? Now, I’m gonna be honest; a lot of me wanted to do the second thing, but I have not yet been reduced to eating fly residue, and there was no way to be sure that Roy would be the one who got the fly-flavored pocket, so I chucked the whole thing and started again!

I try to be careful when I have food around  and it’s fly season. I cover things on the counter and try to keep the area as fly-free as possible. But those buggers have not gotten the memo that they are not welcome, and they are not particularly fussy about what they will eat.

Especially is it difficult to keep them out of drinks. I think liquid must be the fly equivalent of the Viking Valhalla, because they jump into every liquid imaginable, hot or cold! This must be a direct route to fly heaven and much preferred to being caught on a sticky tape or smashed with a flyswatter.

While I was still teaching, I had the awful habit of bringing coffee into the classroom. Knowing that flies crawling into warm liquid are at their worst in the early fall, you would have thought I would be more cautious. But on one memorable occasion, I was helping a young lady with her project, holding onto my coffee cup, and I took a sip. The minute the saturated fly touched my lips, I knew what had happened, and automatically did the reflexive thing. I spit that coffee everywhere, including all over the astonished young lady I was attempting to help. I apologized, sent her mother a note offering to clean her clothes and dumped that coffee with the fly carcass out the schoolhouse door. However, there is at least one student who does not remember me for inspiring her. She will remember me as the teacher who vomited hot coffee all over her! And it’s all that fly’s fault.

I have read reviews of restaurants where someone complains that they got a dish of something which contained a fly and they will never go to that restaurant again because of health issues, cleanliness failings, etc. However, anyone who has ever been in a South Dakota kitchen as July melts into August knows how easily this could happen…and it has nothing to do with health or cleanliness. Having said that, I would definitely send the fly-enhanced dish back, but I wouldn’t boycott the restaurant—unless I saw the cook stirring the stew with her hands!

And on that note, you are all welcome at any time for a meal at my house. I do know how to prepare most dishes without a fly as an ingredient. I will be very careful for your sake, but I do advise you to keep your eyes open. Cause you never know…the flies might have other ideas!

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July 11, 2026 · 10:44 pm

Missing in Action

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Missing in Action

Jackie Wells-Fauth

I have a recurring nightmare. In this nightmare, I am wandering in a thick, dense forest (could be a jungle; I’m not sure). In any case, it is obvious I am not going to get myself out alone.

The worse part of this nightmare? I know, in the way that dreamers do, that the only person who knows I’m lost and is looking for me is Roy. Now, don’t get me wrong: Roy would do his utmost to locate me if he could—most days. The problem is that Roy is not good at locating things that are missing, so unless I am two feet from him and singing the Star Spangled Banner, he’s never going to find me.

I make this criticism even knowing about myself that I lose many things as well. Sometimes I spend the greater part of a day just looking for my phone or my purse. But the difference between Roy and I is that I eventually find them…sometimes in weird places, but I find them.

Roy has been known to stand in front of the desk and lament, “Why can I never find a black pen in this house?” When I go out to help him find it, he will be looking down, searching the surface of the desk, while an entire pencil holder will be sitting at his eye level on the shelf in front of him, packed with black pens!

“Honey, can you go and get the electric skillet?” I will ask as I’m working in the kitchen. “It’s in the hall closet.”

“I can’t find it,” comes the frustrated answer as he looks wildly through the living room closet.

Of all of his many and useful skills, finding anything that is not out in plain sight and clanging a bell, is not one of them.

Today, I went to take care of some financial business for him, since I’m always ready to help. “They have the document,” he told me. “I looked in my files and I don’t have it, so they must.”

I relayed this information to the poor clerk at the front desk. “Uh…we don’t have the document,” she said, looking carefully at her computer screen. “Perhaps you really do have it?”

“Of course not! Roy told me he couldn’t find it,” I said confidently, sure that someone else was at fault.

“Maybe look one more time?” she suggested.

In a huff, I marched home and looked through all of the documents we had. No, the needed document was not there. And surely, he had looked through the whole drawer, even where the documents were not filed, but I would look again. Of course, there it was, having accidentally slipped behind other files, but in clear view…if you looked for it! So, I had to go back and sheepishly admit that I had the document all along. But I made sure to throw Roy under the bus for it.

In talking to other couples over the years, I have discovered that in most cases, there is one partner who can find a needle in a haystack and another partner, who needs someone to find both of their shoes and their keys and sunglasses. And I’m going to lose all my male readers when I make the gender-biased observation that the seeker is in most cases, a woman. And no, I haven’t got research data to back this up, so it is merely my opinion!

So back to my nightmare about getting lost in the forest and Roy being the only one to go looking for me. I finally shared this nightmare with him and his response was a little different than I was expecting. “That really might have an upside, you know.”

Now I’m really worried. I’m depending on the rest of you seekers: if I disappear into a heavily wooded area, don’t let Roy be the only one looking for me. I may have provided him with the incentive not to go search at all!

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July 5, 2026 · 12:02 am

Itsy Bitsy Spider

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

Before I begin, I should confess that I really don’t like Charlotte’s Web. I mean, come on—a story about a pig that was saved by an artistic spider? It’s a little hard to take.

I have spent my whole life despising this insect (my grandson corrected me—arachnid) above most others and as the years have gone on, I have sent as many of the multi-legged, multi-eyed pests to their heavenly webs as I can. I don’t mind destroying their stringy abodes right along with them, so I guess that makes me the Godzilla to their delicate homes.

This anti-spider sentiment came to me this week as I was conducting my monthly, well, bi-monthly, (okay, semi-annual) cleaning of the ceilings. Spiders are so prevalent that my house looks pre-decorated for Halloween and I’m quite sure they are reproducing faster than the rabbits in my garden!

While I dislike spiders, I have developed a certain respect for them. I’ve learned that they are not just eight-legged decorations hanging from my ceilings. They have strategies. I was knocking down webs and trying to squash spiders once not so long ago and suddenly, one of the spiders, having kept still as I crept closer, hopped on the end of the broom and headed down the handle towards me. Knowing that spider bites are no joke, I of course,  tried to scream it to death before it dropped off the broom to the floor and I was able to attach it to the bottom of my shoe. But I tell you, that spider had murder in its eye(s) and me in its sights!

When I was an elementary student, our music class always included the song, “The Itzy, Bitzy Spider.” It included hand movements demonstrating the intrepid spider going “up the water spout.” I always loved the part where the rain “washed the spider out.” I got in trouble, though, because I didn’t like that the spider survived to climb again, so I made a strangling motion with my hands on that part. I then motioned throwing the spider to the floor and stomping on it.

I have never regretted that action. I took a stand against making spiders lovable and admirable creatures when actually, they are nothing but creepy crawling wall-walkers,  lurking in dark corners to drop in your hair. I will say, however, that my elementary music teacher is probably surprised that I didn’t turn out to be a sociopath—but my only obsession is an unhealthy need to get rid of spiders!

I read many years ago that in our lifetimes we swallow about 16 spiders, who crawl into our open mouths when we sleep. I have since read that this is inaccurate, but I still have the urge to sleep with tape across my mouth after I have encountered a spider.

I can’t help getting the creepy crawlies when I see people with pet tarantulas crawling on them; it makes me want to run! The only thing that comforts me about spiders is that they are small. Makes me feel like I’m in control. So spiders like tarantulas scare me more than most.

 At one time, I happened to look up and there was an involved spider web up in the corner of my outside entry. And staring serenely down at me was the largest spider I have ever seen. Now, I know you’re waiting for me to tell you I killed it, but I didn’t. Remembering the small one that came after me, I was far too afraid of this queen of all the daddy long legs! So, I made it my friend. “Hello, Bride of Spiderman, how’s it going?” I warbled as I dashed into the house.

From then on, I always passed the time of day with Mrs. Spiderman, trying to keep her from dropping down on me. “So, I went shopping and got a new pair of shoes, what do you think?” I would say, showing my new sneakers. She never answered me, only crossing her eight legs to show that a mere two shoes is nothing.

In the end, I hated being looked down on (literally) by a spider and I waited for fall to fade into winter, at which time I scraped off the remains of her home in my entry with a snow shovel and buried it in a snowbank. I know, I know, she was long gone, but I felt more secure anyway!

As they watched me write this column, my grandsons were outraged at my hostility to spiders. They quickly pointed out that spiders are very useful creatures who do a great deal of good for our world. I think they have a good point, but they will never convince me to love “arachnids.” Is that the right word, Arthur?

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June 12, 2026 · 1:02 pm

Wanda and Me

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

We were sitting in the living room the other night when suddenly, from the stairs leading to the lower level, came what my grandmother would call, “an unholy racket.”

“What is going on?” Roy, startled from his reading, inquired.

“That’s nothing,” I replied, “it’s just Wanda.”

“We have a woman named Wanda rattling metal in our basement?” he said, astonished. “Why did no one tell me?”

“Wanda! Knock off the noise!” I hollered. “Don’t make me come down there!”

But I was just posturing. Wanda and I both know that when she is making those noises, I’m going to have to go down eventually and slap her around a little. It happens every time.

You see, Wanda and I have known each other for about ten years now. That’s how long she has lived in my basement, washing my clothes.

“Wanda, since you don’t seem to know, is our washing machine,” I told Roy in a rather superior voice.

“You’ve named the washing machine Wanda?” He seemed neither entertained nor surprised.

“When you work as closely as Wanda and I do, you get personal,” I explained to him.

And it’s true. Wanda and I have been together long enough to understand each other. We share more secrets and quirks than coffee klatch buddies.

For instance, I understand that if I want my underwear to not end up wound around the base of the washer, I will wash it on a gentler cycle. That way, Wanda won’t sling it around like she’s a stripper on a pole and twist it irrevocably into the inner workings of the washer.

When I put clothes into the washer, I understand that Wanda is a delicate and well-balanced flower. Therefore, I must lay the clothes in the washer with the precision of a master brick-layer. Because if I don’t, Wanda gets out of balance and throws a very noisy temper tantrum.

Wanda knows that when she does do the “jump and shout out of balance dance,” I will be down to jerk her back into place with a few choice words of my own added. To tell the truth, I think she enjoys my temper tantrums because I often think I see her hiding a smirk in the laundry soap bubbles!

And that brings me to the biggest argument between Wanda and me (outside of “what did you do with the other sock this time?”). We can’t agree on a laundry detergent. She favors the big jugs of liquid, the more additives the better.

I have tried everything (to avoid that). I even went to the pods, but she would chew them up and spit them back on the clothes so that nothing short of a hurricane could get them off. Finally, I thought, “Well, let’s try one of those environmentally friendly sheets or tabs. That should be good.”

Wanda scoffed in disdain. “I’m sorry, but did you mean for me to use that excuse for laundry soap?!” We have ultimately agreed to disagree—meaning we do it her way.

Roy has finally recovered a little from me giving the washing machine a name. “It’s a good thing the dryer is new, you haven’t had time to get hostile with it,” he joked.

“Dougie the Dryer? Oh don’t get me started! He eats so many socks, he makes Wanda look like she’s on a diet…”

If you see Roy at the laundromat, tell him Wanda and Dougie say hello.

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June 5, 2026 · 1:50 am

Rat in a Trap

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

It should have been so simple. I mean; most problems I encounter have simple solutions; if only I stop to work them out. Then, no problem, right?

But on the particular occasion in question, I couldn’t (okay or didn’t) do that. And consequently, the problem quickly became complicated.

My cousin was out of town but had graciously offered me the use of her house on the occasion of my needing a place to stay for a couple of nights. She is so sweet, and her lovely house was just the place for me to crash at night.

She gave me the garage door code and after my usual struggle with any technology, I was able to enter. I spent a relaxing and comfortable night and was so very grateful for the hospitality. Then, it came time to pack up and leave.

I had no key, so I couldn’t leave by the front door with its deadlock. I also couldn’t leave by the back deck door and lock it from the outside. This was a real pickle. How did I exit this beautiful home and lock it with no key?

Don’t worry, I found the perfect solution. I would just outrun the overhead garage door and get out that way!

Now, nobody has told me and I have never learned on my own, that you can actually close a coded garage door by simply stepping outside of it and punching in the code again. The door will then shut and everything’s locked up tight.

But since I didn’t know this, the neighbors were entertained by watching me hit the opener switch by the house door in the garage and then run for all I’m worth, trying to get under the door as it closes and not get caught, making the door automatically go back up again. It didn’t work. The door re-opened every time! I couldn’t leave with the garage door hanging open. Now what?

No problem, though. They have a side yard. I went out the back garage door carefully re-locking it, of course, and went around the outside of the garage. That’s when I discovered that when my cousin and her husband installed a high wooden fence, they enclosed ALL of the backyard–including the space on the sides of the house. I returned to the back garage door. Yup, I had locked that thing up tight.

I was boxed in and locked out. It was ridiculous! I couldn’t be trapped! But I was. I considered calling out, but what do you say?

“Can anybody hear me? I’m trapped in the backyard of this house that doesn’t belong to me! Could you help?” Talk about alienating the neighbors. They would be avoiding my cousin for years after that, telling each other that her relatives were nuts!

What to do, what to do? I should be able to reason it out. There were some supporting rails running horizontally along the inside of the fence. For one wild minute I considered climbing over the top, but I didn’t like my chances getting up on the backside, let alone surviving the sheer drop on the other side.

It was while I was on the back deck looking through the windows at the inside of the house like a stray cat, that I finally faced the fact that I was going to have to call the police and hope they believed my story and didn’t arrest me for trespassing. And it was at about the same time I remembered that my phone was in my car…on the other side of the fence.

Now I got out of that backyard on my own power, but I would rather not tell you how, because I want you to still think of me as a person of reasonable intelligence–and no prison record.

But I will tell you this: An overhead garage door will both open and shut by using the code. I can be taught!

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May 29, 2026 · 11:22 am

Book Bonanza

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

Did you know that one of Thomas Jefferson’s famous sayings was, “I simply cannot live without books.” It’s one of the few things that Tom and I can agree upon!

Did you further know that Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain) read multiple books at the same time? Upon his death, he had no fewer than seven different books scattered in various rooms throughout his house, which he was reading simultaneously. Sam and I apparently share this in common—that and a tendency to shoot off our smart mouths!

I have a lot of books. Imelda Marcos had thousands of pairs of shoes. Jay Leno collects cars. Angelina Jolie collects knives, Penelope Cruz is into coat hangers, while Corbin Bernson follows my own heart and collects snow globes. But above all else, I relate best to people who have more books in their homes than they can ever possibly read. Did I mention I have a lot of books?

Now this collection is not one of Roy’s favorite things. We often go round and round about the books I am reading and leaving around the house.

“Why did I step on a copy of Famous Hauntings of Europe on the floor of the bedroom?” he will ask on any random morning.

“Oh, that’s where it went! I was reading it last night and I must have fallen asleep,” I reply.

“Okay, we will pass over why you are reading about hauntings late at night and I will remark instead that this might explain the copy of Alexander Hamilton in the bathroom,” he continues.

“Well, what am I supposed to do when I have to use the toilet or take a bath?” I ask. “Alexander doesn’t mind, so why should you?”

In order to minimize the appearance of the number of books I have, there is a wide ledge in the stairwell that is big enough to hold several bookcases and best of all, it is usually obscured by a door. (I try to always keep that door open, thus blocking the bookcases.) Roy doesn’t have to interact too much with the books, and I don’t have to keep justifying why I possess approximately a thousand books, and I still check books out of the library.

Unfortunately, this comfortable arrangement hit a snag this week when Roy decided it was time to paint the stairwell. The same stairwell with the large, accommodating ledge, which was even at that moment piled from ledge to ceiling with my books.

There were two choices: either I could clear the books out of the way, or I could let Roy do it. Now I love him very much, but I absolutely do not trust him not to pitch some of those books into the garbage if he thinks I’m not looking.

I got out three totes and began to fill them with books. Surely that would be enough. Except I filled the three totes and there were still books left…a lot of books. So, I grabbed an old laundry basket. I filled it to the top, cramming books into every crevice. That took care of a few more. In the end, I decided to stack some of them in the spare bedroom to get them out of the way. There are four stacks, halfway up the walls and there are still some books that were piled on top of the totes. I was satisfied with my work. The books were out of his way and Jessica Fletcher wouldn’t have to solve the murder case of the missing wife…and her books!

“You moved all the books yourself?” I could tell he was impressed when he came home and found the empty ledge in the stairwell.

“It was the only practical solution. If you moved the books, there would have been a divorce or a murder by book to the head,” I said. “When you’re done painting, don’t concern yourself. I’ll put the books back.”

“You want to sort them out and get rid of some?” he asked hopefully.

“No, I have some new ones that I need to add in,” I replied.

Did I mention, I have a lot of books?

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May 8, 2026 · 7:15 pm

What are the odds?

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What are the odds???

Jackie Wells-Fauth

Picture the following: there are three very good books in excellent shape lying on the table. Two are books I own; one is a book borrowed from the library. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a glass of iced tea is overturned. How do we know for sure which book will lap up that iced tea like a thirsty tourist? Odds are, it will be the book that isn’t mine.

I have lived with these odds my entire life. Some people call it Murphy’s Law—whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. I just call it “odds are”. And odds are if I borrow a book from the library, I’ll end up returning it explaining how that tea got on the bottom of the pages or how that mark appeared over the picture on the jacket or how there appears to be teeth marks and a bite out of the back cover. Don’t ask.

Most times the odds aren’t for anything too serious. I can live with the fact that if I drop a glass, it will break and glass shards will scatter across the floor like flour in a windstorm. But odds are that whatever was in the glass will not be water—it will be tea to stain something or orange juice to live forever in the crevices of the carpet or worse, the very last of the soda.

I’ve never had a serious car accident, but if I bump fenders against the post in the parking lot, it’s going to leave paint marks…and they will be of some garish color that I will never convince my husband came from a careless child walking by. Not too long ago, I bumped the good car (that’s right, we have a good car and then there’s my car) against a wooden work bench in the garage. Now normally, the odds would be that the car would get a serious dent, but this time, odds were in my favor and the car bore no mark. No need to mention it to Roy, right?

Except that a month later, when he moved the work bench for some unknown reason, he found it to be slightly embedded in the wall behind it. What are the odds that he will believe that the bench has been sitting there so long it just became naturally embedded? My odds stayed steady, because he had the temerity to ask me if I might have hit the work bench with his car! Can you believe it?

If I’m printing something important, odds are I’ll run out of ink or paper (probably both) halfway through. If my bank account doesn’t balance, odds are always that it’s in the bank’s favor, not mine. For a woman who figures the odds, I don’t do that well with numbers!

I realize that my little troubles tend to be pretty minor. Most of the major events in my life have turned out well, but that has allowed me to focus on the little, annoying things; like the odds are pretty good that if a light bulb burns out, I’ll have every type of light bulb in stock except the one I need. And odds are always that if I go to write a check while out shopping, I will mess up the check—and it will be the last one I had with me.

If I schedule or plan entertainment, odds always are that something will come along that pushes my schedule off balance. “No, you can’t go to the doctor for a medical emergency when I have scheduled an evening with friends. Just put some ice on that bump on your head and let’s go.” Odds are, someone out there is going to think my attitude is pretty heartless.

If I paint a room, odds are that I will run out of paint on the last wall…that is if the paint roller doesn’t break or the ladder doesn’t fold while I’m at the top. Odds are that if I really am looking forward to a meal, I will burn it and if I try a new foot cream I’ll break out in hives.

I really don’t think I would have had any better luck if I had been born in another time. Odds are if I had married a king, it would have been Henry VIII, or if I had climbed to the top of the highest mountain, odds are there would already be a flag planted there.

If I had been one of the travelers heading west in the pioneer days, odds are I would have been with the Donner party. I’ve never been able to decide whether it would have been worse to die and be eaten or to have to survive that way. Odds are, the Donner Party didn’t feel too lucky either way!

By now odds are that you are really beginning to be irritated by my whiny little rant, so I’ll have to cut it out now. But I’m telling you, odds are as soon as this gets in print, I’ll have thought of twenty more things that didn’t go in my favor! I have to go now anyway to return that book to the library. Odds are the librarian won’t believe that those pages are just naturally brown and stuck together!

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April 24, 2026 · 8:44 am

Goliath Awakens

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

It had to happen. My peaceful, lazy existence over the past few months had to end sometime and this weekend was apparently the start of a new era at our house.

Between some health issues and a busy work time, Roy has left household projects pretty much up to me for the last few months. And I will admit that those “projects” have consisted only of the things I had to do. I like to call my attitude laid-back, but in reality, you’d probably label me lazy. Knowing that about myself, perhaps I should have searched for a lazy partner, but I like my choice—except when he decides to do a project. And even worse, when he decides I need to help.

That is how this weekend went. I have stacked, piled and otherwise mis-located the materials from three rooms of the basement. I had to do that in order for some work to be done in the laundry room and the two bedrooms. However, now the disorder is clogging up the family room and even worse, the weight room. Roy’s sensibilities are offended by this disorder, but up until now, he really wasn’t up to doing anything about it.

I believe the expression “Goliath awakens” had new meaning in our house. Roy had put up with the mess in the basement as long as he was willing to. He appeared in the bedroom doorway where I was contemplating the quiet and considering how many hours I could spend doing nothing.

“I want to do some work on the basement and I need your help,” he announced.

“Oh sure. I have a million things to do, and you think I should just drop everything and help you,” I snarled.

He looked at my prone position on the bed and my empty hands and replied, “I think I can live with myself.”

So down to the basement I stomped. And he was clearly determined to start a fight. His first question was, “What do we have down here that we can throw away?”

In my house, those are fighting words. Obviously, everything I have down there…for instance the three boxes of papers that came from my father, aunt and grandmother (all deceased for some years) is very important. Perhaps, among the old receipts, empty bank books and long-paid bills, there could be the deed to a forgotten gold mine. I can’t throw those things away!

He gritted his teeth and put them on the storage shelves. Then he picked up two garbage bags. “Are these both just garbage?”

One bag contained the remnants of the quilt my grandmother made me as a girl. Someday, I’m going to reconstruct it. I snatched that bag away and made a grab for the other one.

“You said this dehydrator hadn’t been used in years and might not even work anymore,” he said, holding onto it. “Or did this belong to your great uncle Harry and can’t be touched.” Sometimes he can be so ridiculous. I don’t even have a great uncle Harry!

It was a long afternoon. Instead of relaxing and enjoying the peaceful atmosphere, I was in a death battle with a man determined to throw away things like the crumpled remains of a Halloween decoration I haven’t put out for Halloween in 20 years. When it was over, the storage shelves could once again hold everything we were saving and he could use his weight room without having to squeeze past the Christmas decorations.

He was in a much better mood, but I wasn’t. He interrupted my favorite activity—doing nothing—for my least favorite activity—throwing away junk I have accumulated over the years. Goliath had truly awakened, but that in turn had awakened Hera—the most vengeful wife in mythology!

“I’m going to walk the dog,” he said, “you want to join us?”

“No!” I snapped. “I’m very busy right now. I have a column to write.”

He didn’t ask what it would be about!

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March 6, 2026 · 10:35 pm

In the year 2525…

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Jackie Wells-Fauth

I will admit that I have always looked on home communication systems (AI systems) as a challenge: What can I possibly do to mess them up?

“Hey Siri, what was my nickname in the seventh grade?”

“I am sorry, I do not have enough information to answer that question.”

“Uh huh, not as smart as you thought, are you, Siri?”

“I am sorry, I do not have enough information to answer that question, Red Top.” I will admit that one was a little unnerving! I’m glad I didn’t ask it how much I weigh or what the nuclear launch codes are—a couple of things, I wouldn’t want it to go looking for!

Climbing on my usual soapbox, I profoundly object to the fact that we are working on machines to not only dry our hair and cook our food, but to anticipate our every wish and answer questions that we did not necessarily intend for them to even hear.

I have been in homes in which the Alexa or Siri or whatever AI systems, have been installed. Okay, it’s nice to be able to tell it to turn off the lights, because I am getting too old and arthritic to want to do the “clap on, clap off” thing any more. But when I step in something unidentifiable and shout, “What the heck was that?” I am not really looking for Alexa to give me a list of vivid possibilities, “Milk, mashed potato, cat pee, feces….”

I’m uncomfortable with any device that can engage in conversation with me, but now I’m told they can actually drive me to the store and then comment on which dress looks nicest on me; that is a little too far. That is when I start singing that old 60s song, “In the Year 2525.” We’re getting there!

This week, I saw an advertisement for an AI system that will literally insult you if you ask it to. Truly! That is the limit. We have rampant hunger, disease and war in the world and you think the biggest problem is that I need help with being insulted! As my husband said, “Then what am I good for?”

It’s probably jealousy on my part, but I hold the hand phone responsible for a lot. You can pay for anything with it, order movies with it, start your car with it, make lists and calendars on it, check your mail deliveries and know just when packages and food will arrive at your door. Considering I spend half my time looking for mine, this could be a problem!

My favorite of all the recent innovations, however, is the camera that is in the doorbell. Now, for the past 30 years, I have struggled to find a way to make a doorbell work in my house. We have tried system after system and we still find ourselves telling people, “You may want to knock—that’s where you rap your knuckles on the wood—our doorbell is taking the week off.”

BUT if your doorbell works properly, you can attach a camera that, with the proper set-up, will show you your own front step! I suppose this is intended so that we are able to watch what’s happening around our property when we are miles away. We will know about but can’t help it if the outdoor cat gets sprayed by a skunk or it rains on the shoes we accidentally left outside. I think it would be most useful, however, for telling you if someone (or something) undesirable is outside when you are at home.  It could sound some sort of alarm telling you to stay away from the door!

For myself, I don’t need the camera, since when I’m away, I don’t want to worry about the house, and when I’m home, I have few enough callers that I never contemplate not answering the door…except for the time the guy was standing outside my door with an ax. I admit, I didn’t answer that call, but then again, I didn’t need a doorbell camera to tell me that!

I know, I know, these things are the wave of the future, but I will admit, I’m not all that impressed. I went shopping for a new stove recently. I saw stoves that adjusted their heat, could be set to turn on at a specific time, and had burners for boiling and burners for melting and burners for frying. There were stoves that told you when the bread is done and how many minutes they suggest for a good casserole. But me? I went looking until I found one with four burners, four knobs to turn them on and without the ability to utter a word when I’m cooking! It would be wrong for an appliance to swear!

How do you like them apples, Siri?

“I am sorry, I do not have enough information to answer that question, Red Top.”

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February 27, 2026 · 7:18 pm

Not Making It

Photo by Harry Page on Pexels.com

Jackie Wells-Fauth

Don’t worry, this isn’t some comment on my mental health. That remains as it always was—a little crazy. No, “Not Making It” is my official declaration on the state of the beds in my house.

Somewhere, far back in time, I imagine some uptight prehistoric woman. She was tidying her cave one morning, when she decided, “The furs in our sleeping nook need to be laid out straight.” So every morning after that, she spent ten minutes tugging and pulling and smoothing to make the furs look neat. And that was ten minutes less she had to spend on skinning whatever was for dinner.

A few millennia later, the lady of the castle looked at the bulging, billowing feather and straw mattresses and said, “You know what, the maids don’t have enough to do. In addition to the covers on those beds, let’s add some smooth undergarments that we can shove the mattresses into to make them look neater.” And so sheets were born.

And if I could touch a stone and travel in time like they do in Outlander, I would go back to both of those eras with one simple question: Why?

Also, where in our country’s Constitution does it say, “We the People (Women) in order to form a more perfect bedroom, must each day “make” the bed.” And I’m not perfect on the Bible, but I don’t remember it being in there either that while Moses was parting the Red Sea, some woman would be back in the tent, making up the bed so the Pharoah wouldn’t think they were slobs!

If you come to my house on any day where people have spent the night, you may not want to look in the bedrooms if the sight of rumpled bedding upsets you. I’m willing to bet most people in charge of the family’s housework won’t mind a bit! And while we’re being candid, the beds are more than rumpled. You’d be lucky if all the blankets and sheets were still on the mattress!

When I am truly distressed, I will have nightmares. The most traumatic dream is one in which I have been locked in a 20-story hotel and I can’t leave until I’ve made all the beds! The worst part is that when I wake up in a cold sweat from this nightmare, I realize I’m going to have to change the bedding. More trauma!

Perhaps the most heinous crime of all was the invention of the “fitted sheet.” Now, when it comes to putting them on the bed, I get it. It makes it easier to keep it in place. But when it has to be untwisted from the dryer and folded, it’s a little like hanging curtains in a high wind—there aren’t enough hands to do it! Everyone has their own method; mine consists of starting to fold, getting frustrated and wadding up the sheet and cramming it in the closet. This works for me!

And then, there are those people who think I really want to do these things; I just need some instruction on how to do it. They are wrong. I once read an article that said making the bed was easy if you just woke up in the morning, and before you got up, you used your toes to straighten the bedding. I tried that once; I put out both hips and got cramps in every toe. The beds stay unmade.

The day I read that it is actually healthier to leave the bed unmade for a time to let it air out, I celebrated for a week—the approximate time I left the bed open to “air.” Think about it: this is a great out. If someone comes and your bed is unmade, you just tell them, “Oh, I’m thinking of my health and letting the bed air out.”

I have decided that it is time for me to write some instructive articles on bed making myself. “Leave it open to air in the morning. Remove all lumpy objects: coffee cups, cracker crumbs, books, etc. That night, wrap yourself in the quilt and fall into the bed, it will have aired enough by then—it’s safe.”

And so I say to the overly enthusiastic cave girl and the ambitious lady of the manor—handling beds is very simple: I’m not making it!

I’ll sleep so much better tonight—and the blankets won’t be smooth!

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