Conversations

     Just this morning, reflecting on the clear skies and steadily warming temperatures, I said offhandedly that it might be time to take Snidely, the Fortress’s nine-horsepower, 400-pound double-action snowblower, out of the garage and put him back in the shed where he summers. The C.S.O. immediately became alarmed:

     No, no, don’t! The Josephites have scheduled a big planning meeting for April 1, and the last two times they did that it snowed heavily!

     Of course I checked, and indeed, it was as my beloved has said. But that got me wondering. A set of observations such as this one suffers from the usual malady of uncontrolled peripheral variables:

• How many persons were at those meetings?
• How many of them were Catholic nuns?
• How many of them were practicing Catholics?
• What was served for breakfast and lunch?
• Was tea available, or only coffee?

     And so on. It’s possible that the mere fact of the meeting is what triggered the snowfall, but without the ability to exclude other, possibly contributing factors we’ll never know. There’s also this: The C.S.O. was at both those previous April Fools’ Day meetings, and she’ll be at the next one. Was her presence there what brought the heavens down on us?

     Over the years I’ve occasionally wondered if I’m married to the Anti-Christ. It’s not a pleasant thing to contemplate.