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July 20, 2003 standard operating procedure The telephone rang and I answered it. "Daddy?  Can you talk?" The whispered voice was female.  Only two women call me "Daddy" and one is my daughter.  I ventured a guess. "Hammer?  Is that you?"  My daughter's initials are M.C. "Who the hell do you think would call you 'Daddy.'  Of course it's me." I don't tell my children everything. She continued sotto voce.  "Look, I'm working an estate sale and, get this, I've spotted 13 volumes of the OED for just $200!" While on vacation at her aunt's, my daughter accidentally found employment at an estate sale.  Unemployment in the country raged at 6%, but my little Democrat was working among vintage $5 sweaters and bargain-priced antiques that awaited new homes among the living.  She knew I had long pined for a set of the Oxford English Dictionary and she had spied one at work.  Most parents would be amazed by a child aware of her parent's yearnings, but not I.  This was Standard Operating Procedure for Hammer. "Are you in some kind of danger?"  I was jerking her chain in hushed tone.  She jerked back. "Right.  I'm in danger.  I need to come in from the cold.  No, you idiot, I'm whispering because there's a nerd in here who reminds me of you, and I'd rather not call attention to the OED I've obscured behind old Bibles and Nancy Drews." "Don't call your father an idiot."  I was smiling. "Don't be one." "Raaaht," I said.  I used my best Dr. Evil voice.

©  2003 by the beastmaster