Progress Report on Chapter Two of Robert Chicory

Wednesday, March 25. 2020.

Snow and 38 degrees this morning; can’t even see the mountains from my patio.

Let us consider the fine art of piddling -- otherwise known as procrastinating.

Yesterday as I feverishly began Chapter Two I had no idea of what was going to happen. I knew I had to get Chicory out of his house and bring in Grandpa Snork again, but other than that I had bupkis. So I just started writing the first thing that came to mind, which was the booming voice of an educational pomposity -- and things took off from there.

But then I painted the wily Grandpa Snork into a corner, and was stumped getting him out without resorting to cliche or pure fantasy. So writing came to a grinding halt. In despair I made myself some fried Spam with sliced sauteed dill pickle (I sure miss not being able to get any pickled herring anymore . . . ) and had it with two slices of Grandma Sycamore’s White Bread. But even that didn’t kick start my imagination, so I gave up and continued my binge watching of The Office on Netflix (I’m at the end of Season Four.) 

Then the solution to Snork’s dilemma hit me -- I scribbled it down in my handy dandy little notebook, to write out today.

But now, today, I just don’t feel like getting back to it, even though I’ve left Snork in a kinda life and death situation. I’d rather piddle. So I took my time at Fresh Market this morning, picking out an egg plant to make eggplant and pasta tomorrow for lunch, and got 2 onions, and a package of chicken trimmings for chicken soup, and a 69 cent bottle of Shasta Cola, and a carton of cottage cheese. Then I moseyed on home and gabbed with my neighbor Clara for nearly an hour about our lack of hot water in the building this morning and the fact that the Salt Lake Food Shelf will be dropping off not one but two food boxes for each recipient, so they won’t have to come in contact with us in April. I’ve got to go get them this morning at 10:30, and then I’ll spend an hour putzing around finding places for all the dry beans and pasta and canned carrots and canned tomatoes and bottles of apple juice and cartons of irradiated one percent milk. My apartment is starting to look like an old-time grocery store, with food stuffs piled up on my couch and arm chair and running along the wall like a mop board. 

Then it’ll be time to serve lunch and then I’ll have to take two advil and take a nap until about four -- at which time I’ll spend an hour trying to wake up and reading the NYT and the WaPo. THEN I’ll be ready to go to work on Chapter Two again.

And lemme tell ya, you’re gonna love the gambit I figured out for Grandpa Snork. I pride myself that is it one of the most original plot twists in modern literary history. Unparalleled, if I may be so bold.

But . . . you be the judge.