We sold our house in 2014. Twelve years ago this month. And I still get newsletters from our realtor. And they aren’t like, newsy-neighborhood newsletters. They’re just one or two lines asking us to consider listing our house with them. Which we already did. Twelve years ago. There’s no opt-out, no unsubscribe. I mark it as spam every time, but the punchy little missives keep getting through.

My insurance agent sends out random “Happy Easter!” newsletters that are also mildly irritating, but every once in a while he offers free Chukars baseball tickets to the first ten people to reply and tell him what kinds of eggs they like to dye. “Ostrich!” I say, and then patiently wait for my two tickets in the mail.

I’ve never actually dyed ostrich eggs, though I did once visit an ostrich egg farm. With Matthew! The absolutely unhinged former fiancé of mine whose story/series here is unfinished because it turned into a behemoth of a memoir manuscript and I’m still picking over it when not wracked by post-traumatic-stress shakes.

How about an excerpt from that unwieldy WIP? I’ll tell you the ostrich farm story. It meanders through Matthew’s first and second missions, his liaisons with an underage girl, a prosperty-gospel family in Heber, UT, and the reason why I own an old velvet catsuit. Buckle up!