Me and Minnie’s been together so long now, we talk to each other like we’re not even there. We can have entire conversations with each other without the other person sayin’ a thing. And lately, I realized, we can have two conversations at the same time without even realizin’ it.
Take last week, I came in from tryin’ to change the wipers on my truck and Minnie 
was sittin’ at the kitchen table with a bunch of bills laid out.
I can’t figure out these damn wipers, I said, takin’ a seat the table with the old wiper and the new wiper. There’s supposed to be some kind of latch on these here new ones where you flip it over.
Oh yeah, says Minnie, in a way that tells me she wasn’t listenin’ to me. I was thinkin’ since the power’s not due for a while yet, and we could put off the phone bill for two weeks, that’d probably leave enough for – oh, of course, there’s Grading Day in there, too, eh?
The thing is, I said to her, you’re supposed to be able to unclip this part, and it swings over this way, or that way, or up this way like this. And that way, it don’t matter what the connector is on your wiper arm, you just adjust it to the way it’lll fit, eh?
The other thing we could do, Minnie says, bangin’ away on the calculator, is rather than puttin’ half the rent away when this cheque comes in, we could just take the whole thing out of your pogey when that comes in, and that way we’d be able to use the money we got now.
The problem is though, I said to her, if I move the clip this way here, that sets it up to take the J-shaped connector, and that ain’t what I got.
I don’t know if that’ll work either, Minnie said, lookin’ at the calculator.
No, I said to her, lookin’ at the wipers. That’s what I’m sayin, I need this part here to flip over so it’ll take the U-shaped connection, which is what we got on wipers on the truck, eh?
Because I never figured in when the water bill is due, either, Minnie said. I gotta check and see when that is.
See, that’s what Cyril’s truck has is them J-shaped ones, I said. The hook goes the other way, eh? But that don’t do me no good for my truck, like.
Minnie finished riflin’ through papers. Ahh, she said. There it is there. That’s due the week after your pogey comes in, so I guess what we could do is…
I guess I could call Cyril and see if he knows if there’s some kinda trick to flippin’ that latch over to make it connect the other way.
… I guess we could sock away some of the rent now and then the rest of it from your pogey, plus enough for the water bill when that’s due the next week, Minnie says.
Yeah, that’s what we could do, I said, scoopin’ up the wipers and standin’ up from the table.
Good then, yeah, that’s what we’ll do, Minnie says. Wait a minute, where are you goin?
Over Cyril’s place, I just tol’ ya, to see if he knows how to get these here wipers to move the latch so they’ll fit my truck.
Wait a minute, she says. What wipers? How much did you pay for them? Do we gotta figure out all this money again?
Oh, I said. If you’re figurin’ out bills and that, don’t forget I bought them hip waders from Tommy the other day.
Hip waders!? She damn near flipped her lid. You don’t even go fishin’! she yelled.
Well maybe I will now that I got these fancy hip waders, I says to her. That’s when she fired the roll of paper towels at me (it was the only thing she could find to throw).
Anyways, the long story short is, when I got over to Cyril’s the only problem was, I had the wiper upside down, and he got them clipped onto my truck with no problem.
Oh, and I guess Minnie must’ve paid the rent and the water bill and all that. I wasn’t really listening.
John McNeil 