Earmuffs. What are they?
That is the question I found myself pondering this morning as I sat in my converted apple barn, sipping a cup of coffee I did not pay for, courtesy of Lois’s Luncheonette. It was cold outside. Very cold. Moose County is cold in winter. Most people know this. My moustache was tingling, which told me something significant was afoot regarding earmuffs, though I couldn’t say what exactly.
Koko, who is a Siamese cat of extraordinary intellect, knocked a pair of earmuffs off the hall table at precisely 7:14 a.m. Coincidence? I think not. Yum Yum then sat on them. If that isn’t a statement about the commodification of winter accessories, I don’t know what is. These cats understand things. They understand things deeply.
But who can afford earmuffs these days? A decent pair costs eleven dollars. Eleven. I mentioned this to Polly Duncan, who suggested the K Fund could purchase earmuffs for every resident of Pickax. I told her that is not what the Klingenschoen Fund is for, although we did recently use it to build a decorative footbridge that leads nowhere, which was a legitimate community investment and entirely tax-deductible.
Speaking of Pickax, there was another arson last week. The fourth this month. In a town of three thousand people, one might find this unusual. I do not. What I do find unusual is that someone has been stealing birdseed from my feeder. I have my suspicions. I always have my suspicions. Curiously, every building that burns down is one I visited the previous day, but correlation is not causation, as Koko once communicated to me by blinking twice.
Do earmuffs even work? Are they fashionable? Does anyone care what I think? Probably. I am, after all, the only journalist within four hundred miles who writes with any distinction. You’re welcome, Moose County.
Stay warm. Wear something on your ears. Or don’t. It makes no difference to me. I have a fireplace, two brilliant cats, and a moustache that knows things yours never will.
Earmuffs.
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