Elementary, My Dear Fred

I stood in front of my neighbor’s door - as is my want on a Saturday morning, when in need of fresh eggs for my famed kipper omelet—and read the note:

We’ve taken to the bunker! Run for your lives!

After reading the note, I ambled—more concerned that my egg needs would not be met—to the back of the house in search of the bunker’s door. It didn’t take long. I knew it had to be the bunker door because Fred had not removed the Big Beautiful Bunker tag that was attached. The tag lay atop the only patch of lawn that had not been mowed. Not mowed as a result of being a patch of artificial turf (I was the sharpest study at the Sherlock Holmes Boys Club, I was also its founder and only president and, quite frequently, the only attendee at the meetings).The back of the tag read: Removal of This Tag Revokes Your Right To a Fair Trial! Believe Me!

I pulled back on the turf and gazed upon the bunker door in all it’s gold-painted glory. I gave it a solid stomp, and was about to inquire about the eggs, when my foot went through the door.

“What in God’s name have you done!!!” Fred exclaimed.

I gave him my thoughts on over-exclaiming one’s point, but he didn’t seem inclined to debate the issue.

“You don’t have to yell,” I said. No exclamation points needed on my part, but I suspect the lack of one was lost on Fred.

His exclaiming continued.

“You broke my bunker door, you fool!”

“Fool? I’m not the one who bought a plywood bunker from the the Big Beautiful Bunker Company.”

“It was gold-plated for my protection!”

“What about my protection?” I said. “I think I may have compromised the integrity of my Persian bedroom slipper. You’d know better, as you are in the bunker and I am not. It’s similar to the one in which Holmes stashed his pipe tobacco. I beg you, remove it, and thrash yourself thrice across the cheeks. Then you're to replace the slipper and ever so gently guide my foot to its rightful place among the more sane populace. Also, toss me a couple of those lovely eggs your chickens are always squawking about.”

“Eggs!” he said.. “You’re lucky I don’t have you arrested for breaking and almost entering my Big Beautiful Bunker!”

“But you’ve got a perfectly good home up here,” I said.

“I wanted to get a jump on the Armageddon traffic. You know how we would always go to our place at the lake a day before the start of a three-day holiday weekend? Well, I figured if I hit the bunker a day before the day before an Armagddon, I’d stand a better chance of loading up on the bread and milk at the supermarket.”

“You know, Fred, unlike a raging storm that’s heading our way, you can’t always predict a good Armageddon. We don’t have the meteorology equivalent for that.”

“We have podcasters,” he said. “They can’t all be wrong.”

At that I pondered how Holmes would have choked on his pipe and said, “Egads, man! Have you lost your mind! It’s bad enough that you never showed up at my Sherlock Holmes Boy’s Club meetings when we were boys, but now you’ve gone and seriously deserted me. It’s hard enough being a self-absorbed know-it-all with a penchant for losing myself in thought. I mean, come on ol’ fella, who but me would know better than me. Goes without saying. But when I’d come down to earth and was in need of a tea and a chat, and a fresh egg or two, you and Gladys have always been there. It's selfish, I know, but you two have always been a good Watson to me. Gladys more so than you—she having the handsomer mustache. So what say we three abandon social media entirely and head up to the lake? A good snooze in a canoe would do us all a world of good. And may I emphasize that there is some good out there. Albeit, they’re all in a lake just waiting to be caught, cleaned and eaten.”

“Will you be making your famed kipper omelet?” said Fred.

“If you bring the eggs, I’ll bring the kippers,” I replied. “And together we’ll try to make some sense of the world—without all the screaming.”

“Gladys!” shouted Fred. “You go shave and I’ll grab the eggs. We’re needed elsewhere. Besides, the bunker’s been breached and I don’t think I’ll be getting my money back from the Big Beautiful Bunker Company. I know too well the seller.”

“That's a good lad!” I exclaimed. “To the boats!”

Photo courtesy of Wiki Pics:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Nicobarese_canoe_at_Nancowry.jpg