In which Doris finds the watch she suggested that I had stolen when she couldn't find it at our house when they were here for our wedding

You guys, I could have sworn I already told you this story, but I searched the site for "watch" and "lost watch" and I got too many hits and you all know I am as lazy as can be and I decided it would be easier just to write this up again than to keep searching.

Do you remember that when Sly and Doris were here for nine days for our wedding? When they ate all of our expensive cheese and drank all their own booze and then started on ours? NB - we do not buy cheap booze. We almost never drink hard liquor - I might have a Bailey's cut with half and half and I make rum balls at Christmas. Primo has a few sips of scotch a few times a year. We buy the really good stuff so that when we have friends over, we can offer them something nice. We still have almost all the hard liquor that Primo had stored in the bottom cupboard in his kitchen in his apartment when we met nine years ago. All of it except what Sly and Doris drank when they were here. Their palates do not deserve the good stuff - their mouths and tongues are pickled by now and surely cannot taste anything.

Anyhow. They were here for nine days of drama and I was so happy when they left, only there was drama with their leaving - Doris could not find her drivers license,  because she could not find her wallet, because it had fallen out of her purse when we had gone out to dinner and she had not noticed because she was drunk, and I was panicked they would not let her on the plane, but I insisted that Primo drive them the 90 miles to the Big Airport where Sly and Doris could get a direct flight home - better Primo drive 180 miles round trip than Sly and Doris be forced to navigate an airport like the hoi polloi (I first wrote, "hoi pollo" and thought, "Does that mean ordinary chicken?") - and let security deal with a frail 70-years-old woman, which they did. They let her on the plane even without her ID. Sometimes sense does prevail.

The other drama was that Doris could not find her watch. Why she did not notice this until just before leaving, I do not know. Is it not the practice of people who wear watches to wear them all the time? I have not worn a watch since I was in 7th grade and got one for Christmas. I don't like wearing jewelry - I don't even wear my wedding ring and you all know I never got an engagement ring because I did not want one, I wanted a Good Trash Can instead (and a paid-for house and a trip to Paris). Perhaps I am not as au courant on watch-wearing practices as I should be. But if you have a watch, why wouldn't you wear it?

Doris did not notice until just before they were supposed to leave that her watch was missing. Half the team looked for her wallet, the other half looked for her watch. No luck in either case.

Primo assured Doris we would look for her watch and mail it to her.

He and I scoured every inch of every space where Doris had been. We got on our hands and knees and looked at the entire living room and dining room floors and the bedroom and kitchen floors as well. We checked in the bedding, in the sofa. Took out all the sofa cushions. Even checked the guest room, where Doris had spent only a few minutes. We looked and looked and looked, but never found a watch.

Primo told Doris with regret that the watch seemed to have disappeared.

For the next six years, every now and then, Doris would ask about the watch. She even suggested once to Primo that perhaps I had found it and was keeping it for myself.

1. I do not wear a watch.
2. I do not like Doris.
3. Why would I wear something I would not otherwise wear belonging to someone I do not like? It would be a constant reminder of that person!
4. Perhaps she thought I was keeping the watch as a trophy, stuck in a drawer. I would occasionally pull open the drawer, look at the watch, and cackle.

I don't know what she thought except she thought that I was somehow responsible.

Six years she spent being ticked off at me about the watch.

Wait.

No.

Five years.

Why five?

Because last month, when Primo visited Sly and Doris, Doris laughed - oh, how she laughed - that guess what? She had found the watch! She had put on a sweater that she had not worn since they had visited, stuck her hand in the pocket, and found the watch!

Isn't that funny?

She found it a year ago.

A year ago.

After five years of asking Primo about the watch and implying that there was some nefariousness going on with me and the watch, she discovered that she had had it all the time.

And had not bothered to tell Primo.

Because. Because. Because I don't know why.

In which Primo and some of his comrades plot to change - not overthrow - the party

You guys, I keep thinking there is nothing more to tell but guess what? The drama just keeps coming.

1. Primo might not want to run for the county government after all. I don't blame him. It would not be fun work and the county representatives do not seem to get a lot of appreciation.

2. Primo is at a meeting right now with a grassroots organization that did a lot of work on his campaign. The leader is a super nice lady - Renee- whom I really like. She is so sincere and so sweet. I think I may have told you - but perhaps I did not - that the local party apparatchik tried to take over her group - which she had founded - to do the party's will. The party's group the next town over - the group that had fired the drunk/scabies guy, was not going well and the party wanted to use  Renee's group to pick up the slack. But Renee and her group had already made their plans. The party tried to order Renee to do what they wanted and she told them to go to heck.

They are having a meeting tonight - Renee, Primo, MaryJane, a few of the other local activists - to talk about their next steps. They are considering splitting off to form their own group so they can work on reforming the party. There is some unhappiness with the way the elections turned out and of course blame is being assigned, as is proper, because that is the first step. Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to cut people out of photographs, otherwise I am sure the scissors would have come out along with the long knives.

They want to reform the party and get rid of the current leadership and I wish them well.

In which it turns out that the Scabies Kid might not have been fired for scabies

You guys! Primo found out that that guy who was fired for not showing up for work because he had gone to the hospital with scabies and then had to move in with someone else because who would want to stay in the house where he caught scabies? (although who would let someone with scabies move in with her?) might not have been fired for not showing up for work.

The woman who let Scabies Kid stay with her the 17 days between his being fired and the election cleaned out the room he had been staying in -

and discovered NINETEEN EMPTY VODKA BOTTLES.

So there may have been more to this story.

In which Primo waits to be thanked but I don't think he should hold his breath

It's been a week since the election and Primo has not gotten one single phone call from anyone in the party to thank him for running. He ran at the party's request. He put a ton of time into the campaign, as did the volunteers. We put our own money into it - although not like last time, when we put in enough to pay for a semester's worth of tuition at a fancy school and enough that would have covered my entire three and a half years of college and room and board at a semi-fancy school.

Wait. Now I have to do the math. About $6,000 a year tuition and room and board when I was there - yes - $20,000 would have covered most of it.

Primo is a bit cranky that nobody has called to thank him. He has made an effort to thank everyone who worked on his campaign and everyone who voted for him. He has called his opponent and has been gracious in his defeat.

All he wants is someone in the party leadership to call or email and say, "Thank you." It's not too  much to ask, I don't think.