Collecting Urban Firewood

Friday night it stormed bloody murder in Omaha. We're talking violent destruction--huge trees torn from the ground everywhere you look, half the city without power, limbs falling on houses, a couple of deaths.

Last night I was in Omaha to see King Lear at Shakespeare on the Green (which got rained out in intermission) and visit with my buddies Melissa and Zach. Zach recently moved to O-town from Lincoln, and as Zach's dutiful girlfriend, Melissa practically lived here too. So it was super to see them. I miss their witty insults and dirty mouths.

But the highlight of the evening, by far, was driving through town with ZachandMelissa, laughing at Zach's exclamations about the massive amounts of money he was losing every time we passed a downed tree. Each one, he explained, was days worth of free heat for his new apartment, which has a fireplace! "Shoot!*" he said. "I'm not payin' a cent for heat all dang* winter!"

Soon enough we were pulled over at the side of the road in the middle of Omaha, loading logs from someone's front yard into Zach's trunk. I could hardly lift the firewood for laughing. It was some of the most fun I've had in a while. I suppose that doesn't say a whole lot about my social life, but I can't imagine collecting firewood would be nearly as exciting in any other circumstance.

*Of course, he didn't actually say "shoot" and "dang," but if I tell you what he really said, or quoted nearly any other sentence from his lips, my parents and grandparents might think that their little girl grew up to be a big, bad, potty-mouth.