"THAT was really scary."

JOAN, SECOND FROM THE LEFT

As you know, or don't know because you remain uninformed and for that I apologize, my baby sister, Joan, is down from Angola, Indiana, for a two week visit.
"YES!"
Oh, we do have fun! We both love junking ("thank you, Jesus!"),

she's a professional photographer and I have a camera and love to take pictures,

she doesn't mind at all for the top to be down on my convertible and

we both ride bikes.
Ahhhhh. Heaven on earth.
And to think, she's related and we love each other and are BFF's.
Isn't that just the best???

So, I thought that while she's here, I'd keep you abreast of anything interesting, odd, or just plain stupid because "stupid" can be REALLY funny.

Let's start with scary.
I didn't mention "scary", did I?
Well, I think that's because I didn't expect to have a sub-title, "scary"!
But, alas, my life is full of surprises.
Sometimes my art is scary (so say my boys, friends, husband......"Why did you put a fish on top of her head???" "Clay. It's ART.", blah, blah, blah)

Okay, I disgress.

So, Joan asks me if we have a meat market close.

See, she's an AMAZING cook and does all of the cooking when she visits.

Of course, the Tank is so excited when she comes to visit because his beautiful, though busy, wife doesn't do much cooking.

AND, when she cooks, she makes extra and freezes it.

BFF's - it's a perk!

Okay, so she asks about a meat market after we've just bought groceries at Stupid Wal-Mart (enough said) and I tell her there's one in the town down the highway from us. For the sake of the story we'll call it the "Comfort Meat Market".

We drive down to 'the town down the highway from us' yesterday and go to the Comfort Meat Market.

We walk in together.

It's small and old.

There's a stainless steel meat case across the front and on the right wall there's a hand written sign telling the public what they have to offer and the prices.

Okay, I didn't see any mention of "human cuts" but I swear I saw a man's thigh (plucked) cut into steaks. Joan said I was wrong, that there weren't any cut up humans *rolling her eyes*, but I'm here to tell ya, we didn't buy any steaks. Case and point.

Behind the meat case, leaning on it, is an older man who looks a little like this (exchange the hat for one of those white paper rectangle hat things):He looks at us and says nothing.

Joan says, "Hi".

He replies with, *definately not with a lilt in his voice* "Hi. Whatchawant?"

I think it was at that moment that we both wondered how we could back out of the door gracefully - "Oops, excuse us, we were looking for the Dairy Queen. We'll just back out of the door."

We approached the meat case and that is when we noticed his "helper" standing to the back near the large refridgerator/freezer, I'm not kidding.As we looked at the meat in the display case, both Joan and I (as we discussed while peeling out of the parking area) noted that all of the meat looked a wee bit dried out. There were two chickens in the case....I wanted to ask him how much his cornish hens were but thought better of it.

We stand there for what seems like forever, the meat man staring at me. *I'm the cuter of the two of us.* Joan turns towards me like I'm going to make some kind of decision. Shut up!

I'm busy keeping my eye on the helper.

I tell her to pick out what she'll use in her cooking over the weekend because I KNOW she feels like she needs to buy something.

As she looks over the porkchops she asks how thick they're cut and Mr. Meat tells her they're *narly-ish* "one-half inch".

She asks if he could cut some thicker for her and he tells her, *in a wierd way - you know what I mean* "I'm not going to pull out a big ol' slab if you just want one or two. I'll only do it if you want a lot.".

Hey, look Mr. Meat, it's not like there's exactly a line forming here.

Joan passes and picks out the thickest of the one-half inch thick pork chops, pays, and we head for the door............The minute that door is closed behind us both of us say to the other,

"THAT was really scary."

We hadn't spoken of our reaction to any of it until that moment (we couldn't exactly comment on the amount of blood dripping from the chainsaw) and we both had the same thought.

Of course, that started an entire litany of what had transpired and ended with us deciding to tell Clay (my 19 year old) that we needed some bacon and sending him to the meat market.... alone.... to see what his reaction would be. It was at that point that we couldn't talk in full sentences because we were laughing so hard thinking up different scenarios.

See? If you have the right attitude *warped sense of humor* you can turn "scary" into "PIMP" (Pee In My Panties).

The End.

Until the next adventure, remember that I love my readers and I live for comments and thick-cut steaks.

XOXO, Jan