A Good Day For a Mystery

It was showering lightly when I headed to work around 9. The weather may have been the main reason we were dead all day. I rounded up carts once, early on, and it took me less than a half-hour. Spent the rest of the day either doing returns or cleaning up leaks. Actually, the leaks around the freezers weren't that bad. The problem this time was in the back. The roof over the storage area is also very leaky. The drips were flooding the small hall where the lockers are...the one that leads to the back office and lounge area that everyone walks through. I had to vacuum that and get one of the big item totes to use to catch drips.

There was a reason for those leaks. When I got out of work at 1, while not pouring, it was raining a lot harder. There was no way around it. I just rode home and got a bit wet.

As soon as I got in, I changed and had a quick lunch. Ran a Garfield special while I ate. I thought the film noir spoof Babes and Bullets was rather appropriate, given the weather. Garfield imagines that he's hard-boiled detective Sam Spayed, who has to find out who murdered the college professor husband of a mysterious dame. I like this one - a funny outing with a surprisingly believable mystery for a satire.

Rain or no rain, I had DVDs that needed to go back. I headed out around quarter after 2. Took Newton River Park to Haddon Township. Needless to say on such a messy afternoon, they were dead. I saw a group of teens huddled in the stone barbecue hut and a couple of kids going home from school on bikes. Otherwise, it was me and the roaring wind.

The Haddon Township Library was even quieter than the Acme had been. There really wasn't much for me to do. I shelved kids' DVDs - couldn't fit the Ls in - and did audio books. There weren't any new releases to put away, and a sign said the other DVDs weren't to be shelved. I was in and out in a half-hour.

Stopped at WaWa on the way home. My head was still clogged, and I really wasn't up to any kind of cooking. I opted to use the $2.99 Shorti hoagie and free Reeces Peanut Butter Cups coupons instead. I was very happy to see that the Gobbler (turkey/cranberries/stuffing hoagie) was back in WaWa's rotation. I miss that when it isn't fall.

Hitting WaWa today may not have been the brightest idea I ever had. Besides the fact that the kids were out of school by then and parents were buying them treats, today was National Coffee Day. WaWa does free coffee any size on National Coffee Day. I don't drink coffee, but I'm in the minority, from the mob gathered around the hot drinks island.

When I got home, I went right on the computer. Luke and Leia attend to the bear, dressing his wounds. Obi-Wan comments that his wounds are burns - electrical burns, not exactly a common sight in the middle of the woods. When the bear awakens, Luke and Leia stroke him and play with him to make him feel better. They convince him to stay for the winter.

Ran Murder By Death while eating my Gobbler and a slice of (burnt) cranberry-apple bread for dinner. Five of the world's greatest detectives have been invited to the home of Lionel Twain (Truman Capote) to solve a murder. Twain has a lot more twists and turns than it seems under his hat, including the hi-jinks of a blind butler (Alec Guinness) and a deaf-mute maid (Nancy Walker) who can't seem to get dinner together. When people start turning up murdered, the detectives have a chance to show their stuff. But who really was murdered...or was anyone murdered?

Neil Simon wrote this all-star tribute to the twisty mystery novels of the mid-20th-century. Everyone's having a ball in their roles - I especially love David Niven and Maggie Smith as the Nick and Nora Charles expys. Elsa Lancaster's fun as the Miss Marple old lady detective, too. Peter Faulk was so well-received as the (not-so) hard-boiled dick, he'd do a whole move revolving around hard-boiled cliches a year or two later, The Cheap Detective.

If you're a fan of the real-life characters who inspired this movie, all-star comedies, or other twisty all-star mysteries like Clue and Radioland Murders, you'll probably get just as much of a kick out of this as I do.

And...ugh. Now I am sick. I registered a slight temperature tonight. We'll see how I feel tomorrow morning. I really can't afford to call out of work. I'll probably just take cold medicine or something and go.