Enjoying an idyllic Saturday morning and delighted with the daffodils daring to dance in the warm spring sunshine as I lay on a blanket beneath the paper birch tree, I drank deeply of the fresh blue sky.  As I rested on my back while looking upward, my imagination playfully considered the parade of clouds high overhead.  This one might be an aardvark digging in the ground; there’s another that perhaps could be a barbecued chicken leg; oh look, that one over there is a mighty pirate ship; and, what ho, here’s one that looks like Aunt Ruth.

Indeed, it was Aunt Ruth!

“Aunt Ruth, what are you doing here?”

“I’m staring down at my lazy nephew who had promised to help me clean my tuba valves this morning.”

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“I did nothing of the sort.  Besides, you don’t have a tuba.”

“You are correct on the former, incorrect on the latter.”

“You have a tuba?”

“Yes sir,” she exclaimed before jumping in the air and shouting, “Whee!”

All the fauna in the area immediately stopped and stared at her, as did Mrs. Thigglebottom, my next door neighbor who was busily setting up her lemonade stand.

“Aunt Ruth, calm down.  You’re embarrassing me,” I whispered.  “Now, tell me about the tuba.”

“Well, nefarious nephew, I was at a yard sale.  See, I was out looking to expand my TV dinner tray collection.”

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“You have a TV dinner tray collection?”

“I do.”

“Plastic or aluminum?”

“Both.”

“When did you start that?”

“This morning.  That’s why I was out trying to expand the collection.”

“I see,” I said, but I didn’t see at all.

“So there I was, trying to decide between a 1974 Mrs. McFat’s Scrumptious Dinners tray and a 1981 Bob’s Big Belly tray.”

“Tough call.”

“Yep.  Anyway, I noticed this big brassy thing in the corner, with a large opening being used for garbage.”