[5:52]Fallon:We use event planners
[5:52]Fallon:Good luck though!
I frown, slightly annoyed, and start to pocket my phone without answering. Then I shake my head at myself. It’s not Fallon’s fault she’s successful enough to afford event planners.
[5:53]: Thanks! Good luck with the website promo!
Fallon sends back a fingers-crossed emoji and a string of money-bag emojis.
The line moves forward again—another worker has come to help out the new girl—and I unload my cart onto the conveyor belt, sorting Mrs. Finnamore’s, Doris’s, and Jim’s things into three separate piles. They’ve all given me cash to pay with (Doris kindly explained that she didn’t trust me with her credit card), and after I check out, I carefully count their change into individual Ziploc bags.
“Are you sure you got everything?” Doris asks a quarter hour later, as I carry the last bag into her kitchen.
“I’m sure,” I say.
“Hmm,” she says skeptically. “Don’t scare the cat.”
Her cat, whom she hasn’t named (“Names are for people, girl, not animals”), is asleep on the top of the fridge. I don’t know how I could possibly scare it, since I’m pretty sure it’s possessed by the devil. I love cats, but this one seems to exist solely to hiss, bite, and scratch. I think that’s why it gets along so well with Doris.
She and the cat both supervise as I unpack all the groceries. I nod absently while Doris tells me her opinion on the day’s weather (“Far too hot”), the evening news (“Why would I care about all that foreign nonsense?”), and her nephew’s recent haircut (“Stupid”). Honestly, I don’t think there’s anything in the world that Doris doesn’t have an opinion on.
Which, now that I think of it, actually might be useful to me.
“Hey, Doris,” I venture. “If you were in a nursing home, would you want to go on field trips to museums?”
“If I were in a nursing home, I’d want to be shot.”
Okay. I probably should have seen that coming.
I bid Doris good night (“What exactly do you think will be good about it? Don’t you know I’m eighty-six?”) and head to Mrs. Finnamore’s.
“I don’t think anyone is that interested in barrels, dear,” she says, when I ask her the same question I asked Doris. “Plus, that old building is far too drafty.”
“Okay, but if youhadto go,” I press. “What would you want it to be like?”
“I don’t know,” she says uninterestedly. Then, perhaps seeing the disappointed look on my face, she heaves a sigh and adds, “You should put in more seating, if you’re going to drag folks there from their nursing homes. Those wooden floors are terribly hard.”
“More seating.” I nod. “Thanks!”
When I ask Jim, he has even more helpful ideas. In fact, it sort of seems like he’s been waiting for someone to ask him about it.
“That place is too dark,” he says. “You can hardly read anything on those tiny exhibit signs. Not that anyone really bothers reading them. People spend most of their time watching Trey.”
More lights, more Trey, I mentally add to my list.
“So if you went on a tour there, would you just want to watch Trey?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Jim says. “Might be nice to sit around and chat a bit, maybe have a pot of tea.”
I nod thoughtfully. We could set up tables outside, maybe serve tea and snacks... I wonder if I could even find some mugs shaped like barrels. That seems like something that should exist, like for pirate-themed birthday parties.
Hang on a minute.
Birthdayparties.
What a genius idea! What kid wouldn’t want to have their birthday at a barrel museum? Once I add the super cool barrel-themed playground, I mean.
I thank Jim enthusiastically and head home. After dinner, I hunt down the contact information of the local schools and nursing homes. There are only two schools—an elementary school, and a combined junior high/high school—and one nursing home just outside of town. There are more nursing homes in Summerside and Charlottetown, but I think I’ll wait to approach them. I don’t want their residents to drive an hour to get here until I’m confident I can give them an awesome day.
