"Hold on."
After a silence, "Nope, the sky is as clear as a bell."
"You haven't heard any fire engines, have you?"
"Why?"
"Because I think I may have walked out and left the coffeepot on. I could just kill Macky. He rushed me, so now I can't remember whether I turned it off or not. I don't know why he thinks we have to get to the airport two and a half hours before the flight we left in such a hurry, God knows if I remembered to do anything, much less turn off the coffeepot. I am a nervous wreck."
"I'm sure you did, honey. If I know you, you probably washed it before you left."
"All right, Macky! Aunt Elner, do me a favor. Call Verbena at work. She has a key to the back door. Ask her if she will come over there and see if I unplugged it and if I didn't, to unplug it."
"All right."
"I tried to call her at home but she had already left and I have to get on this plane in one minute; that's all I need is to have my house burn to the ground… ALL RIGHT, MACKY… He's yelling for me, so I have to go."
"Don't worry, I'll take care of it. You run on and don't worry about a thing. Just put your mind at ease. I've left my coffeepot on all day and night and I'm not burned up yet."
"Thanks, Aunt Elner. All right, Macky. I've gotta run, I'll call you when I get there. Bye."
Aunt Elner put the phone down and went back in the kitchen. After she had finished her breakfast, she went into the living room and sat down at her telephone table and used the magnifying glass she kept by the phone book and looked in the Yellow Pages for the number to Blue Ribbon Cleaners. Then she dialed.
"Verbena, it's Elner. Norma just called from the airport about her coffeepot… Yes, again. I tell you if it's not the coffeepot, it's the iron. Anyway, she said for me to call you, so I'm calling you. I've never seen a person so nervous about electricity in my life. Whenever there's a thunderstorm, she runs through the house like a chicken with her head cut off and unplugs everything, puts on her rubber shoes, and sits in the dark. Can you imagine? I guess she thinks lightning won't hit her if she's in rubber shoes. Somebody told her about that boy over in Poplar Bluff that got hit by lightning. You remember, Claire Hightower's nephew. He was that little sissy boy who was the tap dancer. Anyway, he was running home to his momma one day after his lesson and forgot to change his shoes and got hit by lightning, bang, right in the taps. Knocked him twenty feet in the air. It was in all the papers, but you know, Claire says he had curly hair after that. It used to be straight as a stick until he got hit. She says he never was the same afterward. He never did marry, so we just don't know what kind of damage it caused. Anyhow, when you get home tonight, go over there so I can tell her that her house hasn't burned down to the ground. We can say we checked. Well, you take care now."
At 5:28 Aunt Elner's phone rang.
"Hello."
"Elner, it wasn't on, it was washed out and in the dishwasher."
"What I figured."
"But it's a good thing I went over, because she had left the back door wide open and two of those old dogs that Macky feeds were flopped up on the sofa in the living room."
"Ohhh, well… I'm not gonna tell her that. She'll have a running fit."
"Oh, don't I know it."
"Was it that old chow?"
"Yes, and the other one… that… whatever it is…"
"It's a good thing you got them out."
"I just hope they didn't bring any fleas in, don't you? If they did, I'm not saying where they came from, are you?"
"No. I am prepared to lie like a rug."
After they got back from New York, Norma sat at the kitchen table and wrote out a list to give to Verbena and the fire department, instructing them what to do in case of fire. When Macky came home for lunch, she handed it to him.
"Would you take this down to the store and run off about twenty copies? Make sure they're dark enough to read."
"Sure. What is it?"
"It's a list for us to give to Verbena to hand to the firemen so they will know what to look for."
"What list?"
"In case we are out of town and there is a fire. I want to make sure they get everything that's important out first, before it's too late."
"Oh, for God's sake, Norma, the house is not going to burn down."
"Maybe not… but better safe than sorry. And you don't know, what if lightning strikes it or something. I just think it's better to be on the safe side and I need to go over this list with you, in case for some reason I'm not here and you are."
Norma sat down at the table with Macky. "Okay. Now, the very first thing, number one: go and get everything out of the bottom right dresser drawer. I've got all the birth certificates, our photographs, our marriage license, wedding pictures, our yearbooks, things like that, all our paper goods that can't be replaced."
"Norma, I'm sure we could get a copy of our yearbook."
"Maybe so, but how are you going to remember all the little cute things that everybody wrote? You won't remember that… you can't replace that… And pictures of your family and mine, Linda's baby pictures, you can't replace those. Don't forget what happened to Poor Tot when her mother set the house on fire. They lost everything, photos, birth certificates she didn't even have one picture of her family or anything. I don't want that to happen to us…. That's one thing I learned, you have to prioritize, be prepared for the worst."
"Why don't I just strap a fire extinguisher on your back so you can be ready at all times?"
"Oh, don't be silly."
"O.K. But Norma, on the off-chance there is a fire, do you think the firemen are going to take time to read some list?"
Norma looked at Macky. "That's a very good point. They should have a copy of this in advance, so they can be familiar with it and not have to waste time to refer to it."
"I've got a better idea," Macky said. "Why don't we have them come over and practice while we're at it."
"Do they do things like that?"
"Norma, you are getting nuttier by the day. Let me see it."
Norma handed him the list.
"What's in the maroon hanging bag?"
"Your good coat, my good coat, my good hat, shoes… things like that. We don't want to wind up in rags, having to wear whatever we have on. Oh, and I put all the home movies in the bottom, you can't replace those. My jewelry, whatever I don't have on, my dancing storks, your Kennedy half-dollar, Linda's bronzed baby shoes, you don't want to lose those, do you? Can you think of anything I've missed?"
Macky ran down the list again. "I notice you didn't put down anything in my den."
"Well, what's in there that's worth anything, except a bunch of old dead fish on the wall? What would you want out of there anyway?"
"I have a few pictures… and a couple of books… and my baseball."