Morning all and Happy Monday. Tis the season for scammers and card theft if you didn’t know. This weekend I had to deal with fraudulent charges and luckily my bank was easy to work with. It also means that I now get to change all of the numbers on all of my automatic withdrawal bills. Isn’t that fun? I’ve had to do this before and there is almost always one I miss. So fingers crossed I don’t miss an important one this time. Fun stuff. More than happy to switch to thinking about the prompts. So timers set and off we go.
I like the set up of the argument between those who move with changes and those who refuse, I am just not sure salt and snow is where I would put it, but I do like having the two characters irritated by the same thing in different ways. That I will use, even if I don’t use the salt. It has also been a while since I lived in a place that got regular snow.
Monday, November 18th: The bags were filled with salt.
The bags were filled with salt. I stared at them, the salt crystals throwing up rainbow prisms where they gleamed in the light. I sighed. Alvin came in.
“What’s the hold up?” he asked. “We gotta get moving with this.”
“We can’t,” I told him.
“What do you mean we can’t?” he asked frowning at me.
“It’s salt,” I told him. I gestured to the bags.
“Yeah, and what, you are missing the pepper?” he joked.
“We can’t use salt.”
He rolled his eyes. “Of course we can. It’s what we always use.”
I could hear his defenses rising and I swallowed back my irritation. “We haven’t used salt in fifteen years,” I told him. “It was banned because it isn’t good for the roads or the plants or the stone of the buildings. We use the other stuff now that doesn’t cause damage but still melts the snow and ice to keep the roads clear.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he huffed. “We always use salt.”
“We can’t use the salt,” I said patiently. “It has been banned. There are fines.”
He snorted and waved his hands towards the bag. “They are going to fine everyone?”
“No,” I said. They allowed everyone a year or two to use up the last of their stored salt before they started fining everyone. That was almost fifteen years ago. They fine now.”
“That is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,” he said. “I know for a fact that Marston County uses salt.”
“Yes,” I said. “Marston County does. They banned it within all town limits but still allow it in the county. We are in Merton County. They banned it completely. Mostly because they have more small towns with limestone buildings.” I vaguely recalled seeing a recording of what the salt did to the limestone when the ban went into effect. There had been cost estimates as well. I couldn’t now remember the details. At the moment they didn’t matter. Alvin wasn’t going to listen to details.
“I don’t see why we can’t use the salt,” he said stubbornly. “We have it, so it should be allowed.”
“Where did you even get it?” I asked. “It isn’t for sale anywhere in the county in these sorts of bags any more. You shouldn’t have been able to purchase this here since we are prohibited from using it.”
“I didn’t buy it here. When I went to make the purchase all they had was some sort of pink and green pellet-y looking things so I went to Marston County to stock up.”
“We can’t use this we needed to get the pink and green pellet-y looking things.” I told him. I put them on the list specifically so that you wouldn’t look for salt.” I could feel my temper start to fray. I felt paranoid, but specifically put it on the list so that he wouldn’t get salt.
Ten til Midnight 