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I was working at the meat stuffer and Erma was slowly wrapping the brats I'd just finished.

(Erma is John's wife. She is, oh, sixty something. She works with the agility of a turtle on land.)

"What shall I write on these," she asked me. "Breakfast brats?"

"Are they breakfast?" I replied, not looking up from the snakey rope of hog casing. Hog casing is slippery and mischievous. If you don't watch it as closely as you keep an eye on milk heating up, it will burst or create air bubbles.

"I don't know," she said.

"What does the paper say," I asked. Teaching Erma to think for herself is similar to teaching school children.

"I don't know," she said.

I stopped the stuffer and said, "It says s and p. Salt and pepper. Write salt and pepper brats down."

"Oh, okay, I see now," she said, and wrote down the proper label.

Erma! Breakfast is not a default label; you need to look beyond your own nose, as me mum used to say to us when we were young. Breakfast is a seasoning. What is the customer going to do when they see that they seem to have breakfast brats instead of salt and pepper? They are going to call Eugene and say, I ordered salt and pepper brats and it says here that it's breakfast brats instead.

Then Eugene will have to take it back and give them something else to keep them happy.

Now, customers are very interesting people. We have had meat returned for a good reason, but when we test that reason out, it doesn't pull through. The first thing for that customer to do is to open the package of brats and see if the label is parallel to the seasoning. If it's not, he received an Erma. Then he can be sure that everything else is salt and pepper.

Once a customer returned two beef orders to us, complaining that the meat was gristley. Eugene gave them the money back, and told his workers they can take what they want. That ribeye steak was really good.

If you're going to return your orders, don't lie about it. If you returned it because you suddenly needed the money, don't be ashamed. But maybe think beyond your own nose and don't get your beef processed if you need the money for something else.

On a different rabbit trail, it was quite crisp outside today. I walked to work in 25° weather. The wind was around, but not strong, and there were also some snow flurries. When I got to work, Abraham said, "Why five minutes late?"

"Abraham," I said solemnly, "when I come in five minutes late, I get scolded. When I come in five minutes early, I get scolded. Shut up."

Abraham was speechless. Then he exploded into gibberish. I ignored him. Enos laughed and laughed and said to Abraham, "You got told."

I plopped the tub onto multiple other tubs in the sink. Abraham said, "Raaaa!"

I looked at Abraham and kept my face blank. Later, I flicked water into his face. Abraham and I have a relationship that should be labeled Lukewarm Water.

Yesterday I took the grinder thingie(I can't think of the word for it)and held it over my shoulder and made as if I was going to smash it over Enos' head.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said, penitently folding his hands together and backing away.

I sent it sailing into the sink.

"I didn't think you were so much like Abraham," Enos commented from a safe distance away. Abraham has a habit of going after people with his knife, all fun and games, mind you.(He told me this morning we were processing six pigs, counting Enos.)

"Maybe I'm like Abraham all the time and you just found out," I said dryly.

On that tune, I'm out.