Usually, when I think about this humble little project, it fills me with all kinds of amourpropre. Even when I’m temporarily removed from my own devices (audiotorily speaking), I can’t help but self-congratulatorily pat myself backwise (I’m flexible) at keeping the motor of this anthology running.

Then sometimes…

My friends, a confession: I am a sucker. Little stray kittens and musty books and vegetably steamed dumplings…. these things were basically made for me. And stories like this belong on the list of things for which I’m a true sucker, and by “like this” I don’t necessarily mean Austrian (though I don’t mean “decidedly not Austrian” either). And I don’t necessarily mean the sort of story that plucks your arteries and uses them to serenade you corrido-style. Although, again, I don’t have anything against that either….

A saw a sign the other day while out on a drive, a sign that said this: Frost Heaves.

And I almost had to stop and compose myself, because I was so deeply distressed by the fact that frost can’t heave in private (and I’m not a histrionic sort of girl), and saddened that a frost’s heave has to be announced clearly for any old asshole who happens to be driving by…

A caveat for you listeners. Hell, a full-out warning: this is a long one, today’s story, long and, dare I say it, a little dark, and not in the “change the bulb” sort of way. Which is just my way of saying to you:

Allow me now to guide you most gently out of the first week of July: those of you in America, lie on your side and listen quietly, finding pause only to burp out the last taste of your hotdogmatic overindulgences. Just focus on the voice — the beer is two days old and will make its way to the outer side of your pores eventually, I promise — and let me repeat — you are NOT going to always feel this way.