Screendoors. What are they? Most people have seen one at some point in their lives. They are doors, but with screens. That much is obvious. But is it? My moustache tingled this morning as I stood before my own screendoor at the apple barn, and I knew — as I always know when the moustache speaks — that there was more to this subject than meets the eye.
Koko, of course, had been staring at the screendoor for forty-five minutes without blinking. Yum Yum sat beside him in what I can only describe as a posture of profound philosophical agreement. These are not ordinary cats. When Koko stares at a screendoor, he is seeing through the very fabric of reality. When Yum Yum sniffs the mesh, she is conducting an olfactory investigation that would put most Pickax law enforcement to shame — though, to be fair, Pickax law enforcement has been rather busy lately. Three arsons and a suspicious death since April. In a town of three thousand. But I digress.
Screendoors keep bugs out. Do they keep bugs in? Something to think about. I personally find screendoors to be an unnecessary expense, and I said as much to Polly, who suggested I could easily replace mine using K Fund resources. I reminded her that the K Fund exists for civic improvement, not personal luxury — though my accountant did note that the apple barn technically qualifies as a cultural heritage site, so the write-off is perfectly reasonable. One must be prudent with money, even when one has a great deal of it.
What troubles me is the squirrels. They press their horrible little faces against the screen, surveying my property, calculating what they might steal. The birdseed. The suet. Possibly the cats themselves. I have enemies in the animal kingdom and I am not ashamed to say so.
Koko just sneezed twice at the screendoor. Twice. He has never sneezed twice before without someone turning up dead within the week. I mention this not as a prediction but as a matter of public record. Things happen around me. I do not cause them. I merely observe, with great reluctance and personal sacrifice, and then I write about them in this column, which the citizens of Moose County are fortunate to receive.
Are screendoors important? Probably. Do we deserve them? That is not for me to say.
Screendoors.
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