Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller When I got home from work last Friday, I stopped dead in my tracks as I stepped on the porch. My eyes beheld a strange, white object, with holes and levers, a handle, a pour spout, drain spout, and round seat. It stood three feet off the ground, and was made of heavy white plastic, like a five-gallon bucket. Just then, my mother-in-law came out of the house. “Hello, David,” she said with more confidence than she normally uses when greeting me at our house. In fact, her voice had a tone of victory in it, not unlike my wife’s voice when she points out a mistake I made in the checkbook. “Hello,” I answered in a voice that echoed my deflating spirit. I kicked at the white object, lifted it off the porch to feel its heft. “Where’d you get it?” “From the neighbors, the Pudases,” she answered in that same, aggravatingly cheerful voice. “They had it in their cabin, and they don’t use it anymore, so they gave it to me for only $15.” Grandma relaxed better when she...