“You're back already, Ed?”
Edna looked up from her coffee. She’d hoped to be alone for more than 30 minutes in the kitchen as Ed shopped that Saturday morning. They alternated shopping.
“I bought us a half dozen cans of herring, Edna.”
Whenever he talked about a reduced price, Ed was animated. He displayed one of the jars which featured cream sauce.
What did he mean by "us"?
“But we have a lot already, Ed.”
She didn't need to point to the refrigerator with an entire shelf of Ed's jars.
Who else eats that kind of stuff anyway?
Of course, Ed did get a terrific price.
She grimaced, looking at her coffee, but thinking of the unnecessary fish. She added a few extra frown lines to her forehead as she spotted another fly.
“How about the flypaper, Ed?”
Damn. He'd forgotten the flypaper. And that was the main reason he'd gone that Saturday at 8 AM, just to make sure the market wouldn't run out.
“Flies, Ed.”
How many times did he need to be told?
She brushed another one away from her coffee.
“When you have flies, Ed, you need flypaper.”
The stuff works. A fly on flypaper is as good as, well, dead. It's the end of that fly at least. But, on this Saturday, they had more fish – almost anyone but Ed would say way more – but no adhesive paper.
The flies of this world are a constant problem. There will always be flies. Long after Edna, Ed, and the entire human race exit this planet, there will still be plenty of the filthy bulbous-headed insects.
But fish? Marinated fish? That's, well, another matter.
And how often could Ed get three jars of herring for the price of one?
David Sydney is a physician who writes fiction in and out of the EHR (Electronic Health Record).
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