I need to cheer up so this is from 2007. It is one of craziest conversations I have ever had in my life. Talk about disparate realities. I was on the phone with the soldier, this was as we were getting together. I don’t think we’d reunited in person yet but it was seeming we would.

There had been some surprising revelations around what we both believed. I told him to forget about talking to me… that he should go find some Catholic woman to talk to and I was standing in a Home Depot at the time…

“I don’t take orders from you!” he said.

“What? What orders?” I asked, curiously.

“You’re not a colonel.”

“A what? A kernel? I’m not a kernel?” I didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Yeah. You’re no colonel, P, so I won’t be taking any orders from you.”

“Kernel? Kernel? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not popcorn,” I said. “Why are you calling me popcorn?”

“No, not popcorn!” he laughed. “Colonel! Colonel! You’re not a colonel.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re saying.” And I didn’t. “What is that, kernel? Popcorn kernel is the only kernel I know.”

“P, a colonel has stripes.”

“Stripes? Stripes! What the hell are you talking about?” I had this picture of popcorn in my head, with candy cane stripes on it. “I’m sorry but I don’t understand what you mean. What are you trying to tell me?” I asked.

“COLONEL,” he bellowed. “A COLONEL is a military person who has stripes on their sleeve!”

I laughed. “Ohhhh! Well I know that,” I said as if I’d never heard anything so ridiculous in my life. “I know I’m not in the military. I’m in Home Depot. So yeah. No soldiers around here… there is no war, but I do need a bag of cement.”

He groaned.