Mystery Solved

In our last chapter, I came home from being away for two months to find Cheerwine sprayed across my drier, with no visible origination point...

Okaaaaay! Now isn’t this better?

I know that some of you are thinking it’s hot, but just remember some of the things I’ve said and with these you can really appreciate summer and not be afraid of it:

• Naps: A 30 minute nap at the hottest part of the day. For optimum napping, find a hammock.
• Moving air: You don’t need an air conditioner—especially around here—as long as you have a fan and two open windows (for a cross breeze.)
• Watermelon: The quintessential snack all summer long. (Just not right before you go to bed because it’ll make you have to pee all night.) (Sorry for the graphic nature of this e-mail, but you have to know how to do this right.)
• Lots of Water: Speaking of pee, you want it to be clear and copious!
• Sweat: Just think of it as getting the toxins out and embrace it. (It’s also what keeps you cool in that cross breeze.) And, while you’re sweating you think about how great a shower is going to feel that night and it does!

Not that I am trying to be condescending here; people were very helpful in teaching me how to stay warm all winter, and I’m just returning the favor.

I figured out the Cheerwine mystery! I want to put it in a murder mystery, as the weapon is so seamlessly perfect!

In our last chapter, I came home from being away for two months to find Cheerwine sprayed across my drier, with no visible origination point. To be sure, it was below a shelf where I keep the soda in question, but no bottles were broken, no cans opened, exploded or turned over.

I cleaned it all up, but then, this week, there was more right where I had already cleaned it up! (Dut dut daaaaaaa!)

I got serious with my investigation, picked up all the bottles and cans of Cheerwine on the shelf above the drier and LO AND BEHOLD! One can that appeared to be completely intact was . . . . nearly . . . . empty!

Further exploration, dear reader, turned up the following:

The can of Cheerwine in question had been sitting right on a narrow crack in the shelf; a crack that measures about a quarter inch in width, and somehow the aluminum can developed a hole on the bottom allowing the Cheerwine to slowly leak out the bottom, one drop at a time, threading the needle right through the crack in the shelf and on to the drier below. Hence, no explosion, no puddle on the shelf, no visible Cheerwine origination! Isn’t that brilliant? How can I turn this into a scary murder mystery where someone is killed . . . . by poison liquid dropping on their head where no one is the wiser? And,— in fact, no one even knows what happened, just like what happened in my case! So there is no villain! Wait. That’s not as interesting. I have to work on it. We need an antagonist.

(I just looked up aluminum and rust and, while it doesn’t rust, it does corrode, so that’s what happened.)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Nan Parati

Nan is the proprietor of Elmer’s Store in Ashfield, MA. A New England transplant from the Deep South, Nan shares her southern wit, wisdom and charm in her column, “Notes from Nan.”  nanparati@aol.com

(Photo credit: (ccl) Ross Catrow)