Yesterday was a gorgeous Saturday morning and my coupon to Dairy Queen to get buy one, get one free Blizzards for my birthday was set to expire. The Teenager asked me if I would accompany her to the hardware store, and I said sure, if she would force me to go to Aldi for half and half, and she said, “Sure, then I can get more creamsicles with the popsicle outsides.”

It was 9:30 a.m.– The Teenager was on a morning break between pet sitting clients. She wanted to visit our neighborhood hardware store, Piscitello’s Home Center, for our first visit since the store changed hands. But first… I suggested we visit the other local hardware store in the small town a mile away from us, West Easton.

Now if you’re local to the Lehigh Valley of Pa., you might already know where I wanted to take her. You see the Teenager loves hardware stores, tools, doo-dads, mops and sponges. The Teenager took woodshop, engineering, and home repair in high school, all the hands-on, doing useful things kind of skills that she did not inherit from her father and I.

When she was about six, my brother had gotten a chain stuck on the pick up truck and Poppop on the Mountain was crawling around on the gravel parking lot trying to remove it. The Teenager– then the Wee One– crawled under the truck and gave it a yank with everything she had. Poppop laughed, and gruffly made the comment, “there’s my grandson.”

My father told that story, with such pride, at least once a year.

The Teenager doesn’t hesitate to tackle household projects so it was time to take her someplace special: Miller’s Hardware. It’s been around for more than 100 years, and our local television station even did a feature on it, click here. Most of us in the borough (Wilson) and in West Easton have homes that are 75 to 100 years old. So, to think that this little slice of living history with the bits and pieces we need to do things around our homes still exists is amazing.

They didn’t seem to take credit cards, and the cash register was very old, and Mr. Miller, whose grandfather started the business on Butler Street in Wilson and had been known for the in-house chickens, is a thin man who seems a tad slowed by age though he moves about the cluttered maze of rooms with precision.

I found some cash in my wallet that I keep for emergencies, and The Teenager bought a pair of safety googles, one of those long mixer drill attachments and some double stick carpet tape will dust glued to the box and graphic design that screamed of last century. I honestly encouraged her to buy it because of the box. The total came to $17.50.

We’re not sure how Mr. Miller did his math, but I think he sets the prices when he acquires the inventory and doesn’t increase them with inflation, because many of the prices were drawn on with marker and seemed way too low. But if it’s been on the shelf for twenty years, I think the merchandise is paid for.

I sent a photo of the tape to Gayle and asked her to give a guess when this product was made.

“1970s,” she said.

So is this double-stick carpet tape as old as I am?

Miller’s Hardware is an overwhelming and amazing gem.

But then we did have to go to the new Piscitello’s, where at one point, the Teenager almost had a part-time job if only she hadn’t worried about it conflicting with marching band season. We got a new hose, a hose splitter, some new hose nozzles and even some hose gaskets.

And then we went to Dairy Queen for blizzards. Now, with my recent health issues, I pee a lot. And even though I peed before we left the house, I had to go again already. So, The Teenager pulled over to Wawa and ate her blizzard while I ran in to use the restroom. Here is what we learned: Getting ice cream at Dairy Queen and people watching in the parking lot of Wawa might be our new favorite hobby.

And then on the way home, on the side street, right by our house, there was a turkey vulture in the middle of the road with a dead possum. And he made it quite clear, dragging that carcass around, that it was his and he was keeping it. We didn’t want to disturb him, so we sat and watched for a while, afraid to scare him away. But others didn’t share our special consideration for the vulture.

We made a video:

We did, by the way, get the half and half and popsicles so all is right with the world.

And today, The Teenager was chatting with me about her sudden appreciation for plain, old yellow mustard to which I said, “best thing on a hot dog, mustard and a puckle schmear.”

I really want my brain fog to lift. And then I offered her a piece of “chicky” because apparently my half-brain thinks chicken is too fancy a word.