After I dropped off the other kids Natalie and I went to Target to get supplies for the Fourth. Evil SWINE and DESPOILERS OF SUMMER: they put up the school supplies before the Fourth. GAH. Summer has been shoved off to a few aisles like last year’s fashions. No one likes this. No one wants this. No one will be banging on the door a minute after closing time tomorrow to demand admittance because they need a plastic pencil box now. You cannot sell fireworks, watermelons, backpacks and pencils in the same store in July; they should repel one another and be hurled to all four corners of the store. Well, we’ll never try that again. Someone call the Pentagon and tell them we’ve discovered a new elemental force that could possibly be weaponized. Honest to God, Natalie’s face was drained of color when she saw the displays. Noooooo!

If I’d had a bottle of lemonade in my hand I would have walked around like Max Von Sydow, sprinkling consecrated liquid to sear the demon. I cast you out! Begone, erasers  asleep in your plastic blisters! Away, spiral-bound notebooks emblazoned with licensed tween idols! The power of July compels you! The power of July compels you!