EMILY PRATT SLATIN

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She/Her/Hers Lesbian

Retired Career Fire and EMS Lieutenant-Specialist, Writer, and Master Photographer, living in Vermont.

My Radio Flyer Wagon

My friend Amanda stopped by at eight in the morning to help me paint Mom’s living room. We caught up on the years we temporarily lived separate lives. A lot can happen between seventh grade and suddenly realizing that you’ve both been friends for forty years.

Nora was upstairs hanging out in the room adjoining my parents’ bedroom while Amanda and I were downstairs in the living room listening to music and catching up. It was an ordinary morning at Mom’s house, which is something I have learned not to underestimate.

I had a pair of old Kidde fire extinguishers on the porch that Mom had reluctantly purchased before she died. I told her never to buy Kidde, as the extinguishers I used at work all had metal handles. Kidde uses plastic handles. Hell, at this point, they might as well post the STL files on their website so when the handles break when you actually go to use the damn thing, you can quickly 3D print and then glue the replacement handle and valve assembly.

Amanda asked what I was planning to do with them, as they had been sitting outside next to the recycling for months. I asked her if she had ever used a fire extinguisher.

Amanda had not, which meant that it was now my duty to teach her how to use one herself. We took it outside, I showed Amanda how it worked, how you should only hold the bottom handle when pulling the pin, and that after you aim, you then grab the upper handle and squeeze gently, moving the entire unit back and forth in a sweeping motion.

This was apparently much more exciting for Amanda than it was for me.

Twenty-two years in fire and EMS had reduced the novelty of operating a fire extinguisher considerably, but Amanda was excited about the experience. I found it to be underwhelming at best.

Glad she had fun. She thanked me and said that she was going to tell her son when she got home that Emily let her use a fire extinguisher.

As soon as Amanda left for her afternoon errands, I made tacos with a nice ribeye steak from Solinsky’s here in Stamford.

Solinsky’s on Main Street used to be a deli where Angie used to work as a manager. This is one of the hazards of spending enough of your life in the same general part of the world. Eventually, almost every building becomes something it used to be, and nearly every place reminds you of somebody.

Directions in rural communities frequently include people who are dead, businesses that closed, barns that burned, and trees that no longer exist. “You know where the old Agway used to be?” is a perfectly legitimate and acceptable geographic coordinate in much of upstate New York.

Nora and I then decided to take my Radio Flyer wagon to Family Dollar in Stamford and walk throughout the store with the wagon. I was curious to see if any of the store employees would notice.

They didn’t. In fact, the cashier didn’t even look up from the help wanted ads in the newspaper.

We placed our purchases into the wagon, along with a box of Modelo in glass bottles for Nora. Then we walked back to Mom’s, pulling the wagon behind us like two adult children who had been given money and temporarily left unsupervised.

There are moments in adulthood when you realize that nobody is actually going to stop you from doing something ridiculous.

I had the best time ever.

Matt Pop, Amanda’s husband, stopped by to mow Mom’s lawn. He had some documents to sign for the lawyer to finalize my purchase of 25% of his landscaping business. By comparison, the amount of paperwork was considerably less than if we had to visit the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Then Nora and I met at The Belvedere.

At some point, some tall guy walked under one of the pendant lights and managed to hit it with his head. The unexpected contact startled him, so he immediately ripped his hat off. Removing the hat allowed the pendant lights to inconveniently illuminate his head in an otherwise very poorly lit room.

Somebody looked at him and suddenly exclaimed, as a rhetorical question loud enough for everyone else at the bar to participate in the discovery:

“YOU’RE BALD!?!? HOLY SHIT!”

I have no idea why this information required an announcement. Apparently it did.