Gravel. What is it? Most people drive over it without a second thought. But I, Qwilleran, am not most people. My moustache began tingling the moment I stepped onto the freshly graveled driveway of the apple barn, and when my moustache tingles, I pay attention. The citizens of Moose County would do well to follow suit.
Gravel is small rocks. Where does it come from? Larger rocks, presumably. It is gray, sometimes white, and it crunches underfoot. These are observations that lesser columnists would overlook, but I have dedicated nearly forty minutes to this piece, and I believe the readers of the Qwill Pen deserve that level of commitment.
Koko, of course, understood the significance of gravel long before I did. Yesterday he sat on the windowsill and stared at the driveway for six uninterrupted hours, his tail moving precisely twice. Yum Yum batted a single piece of gravel across the kitchen floor, then looked at me with an expression that can only be described as oracular. Do cats know something about gravel that we don’t? I suspect they do.
I should mention that the K Fund generously provided the gravel for my driveway at a cost I will not disclose, though I will note that gravel prices in Pickax are outrageous and almost certainly criminal. Speaking of criminal, Police Chief Brodie informed me that someone was found dead in a gravel pit last Tuesday, which brings this year’s Pickax murder count to eleven. A statistical anomaly, perhaps. Why do these things always seem to happen in my vicinity? A coincidence, surely.
I was going to write more, but the squirrels are back at the birdfeeders and someone has to deal with them. The Klingenschoen Fund spent fourteen hundred dollars on premium sunflower seed this quarter — a legitimate operational expense — and I will not have it redistributed by rodents. Koko is watching them too. His whiskers are forward. He knows.
Gravel.
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