On a rainy January weekend, scores of robins swooped and scattered along the streets of our neighbourhood, all male, their red breasts flashing as they spiralled down to the grass before soaring again.
It was not a happy morning for worms.
Distracted by the aerial circus, it took me some moments to notice the odd object left by the curb, and a little longer to register what had been scrawled upon it in white. It was some kind of plug-in electrical fireplace, and I wondered what the story behind the inscription was, and if it was anything like what happened to us about twenty years ago.
In the pre-breakfast hours of a grey morning in Ottawa, the Resident Fan Boy and I had struggled to the icy curb with an ancient and extremely heavy television set that no longer worked.
When the RFB headed off to work at 7:30, the set had vanished from the sidewalk -- then reappeared after the garbage and recycling trucks had lumbered up the hill. Evidently whoever had made off with it had discovered the television was not viable, and had decided to return it to the exact same place. I've never figured out if this was misplaced helpfulness or petty vengefulness. We were certainly ticked off.
Cursing our unknown malefactor, we staggered back down to the basement to store our burden for another month, when the next appliance/heavy furniture pick-up was due.
We labelled it carefully this time - multiple times in proper English, not cod-Dutch, or whatever that white writing on the fake fireplace is meant to be.
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