Hillary- Stop Reading This NOW. I Mean It! Move Along... There's Nothing Here You Want To See. (Besides, I'll Tell You All About It Before Saturday...)

The beauty of a small prairie town is the whole TRUST thing.

When I wanted to send my mother flowers, I phoned her small town florist/ bowling alley/ Sears outlet/ Avon Representative/ Video Renter and ordered some flowers.

Did they want my Visa number?

No.

Just send them a cheque in the mail.

Beauty.

Which brings us to this afternoon.

HILLARY- IF YOU'RE STILL READING, THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE. STOP NOW.

Hillary's birthday is Sunday, and I had written "Make brownies for Hillary" on Sunday's calendar square.

On Monday's I wrote "Post them".

But, Sunday I didn't have enough cocoa to make brownies, and the grocery store I stopped at was also out. I could have continued the cocoa search, but the lack of cocoa got me thinking about the value of baking VS the cost of postage.

It also got me thinking about the bakery in the town that Hillary's current school is situated in.

I decided to see if I could order something for her, and get it delivered instead.

The bakery isn't open on Monday, so I wasn't able to talk to them until today, by which time it is too late to bake and send brownies from here even if I had the million dollars it would cost to post them and have them there by Friday.

Ordering Brownies wouldn't be a problem, I discovered.

Delivering them and paying for them might be.

The bakery doesn't take credit cards.

The solution? They'll bake the brownies and are supposed to write "Happy Birthday Hillary" across the top, and I'll phone the girl and tell her that there is something waiting for her at the bakery on Saturday, and

I wrote a cheque which I will post tomorrow and which will get there Monday (at the absolute earliest, I should think) or more likely the end of next week.

But the brownies will be baked and picked up long before the cheque reaches the accountant.

Just another reason to love the small towns.