Mat Board $1.75, Gas $10

Small town life is still an adjustment at times.

On one hand, it takes as long to get across town here midday as it does to get across Lafayette. I'm not sure where all the traffic comes from--Sometimes I think this is actually a huge movie set like the Truman show and these are all paid extras. I suppose it's because we're the BIG town among the itty bitty towns around us.

On the other hand, it's next to impossible to buy certain things here in town. And there is no making a quick dash to Hobby Lobby when you discover you need mat board at 6 in the evening.

I needed mat board to mount my photos for the fair. Since it's required for the county fair, it seems reasonable to me that I would be able to buy it somewhere in the county. Easily.

Turns out the fair expects around 1000 entries in photography and the local mat board supply was devoured ages ago.

By the time I discovered that the only place I could purchase 16 x 20 mat board was in a neighboring tiny town, it was too late. The streets had been rolled up for the day (at 4:30 in the afternoon).

Needing someting that's not available locally can get pricey at $4.09 a gallon for gas. The $1.75 pieces of mat cost us ten bucks in gas once we drove into the Dayton suburbs to purchase it. We decided to make an evening of it and treat ourselves to dinner out.

Small town life and chemotherapy have limited our eating out and having the options wide open was like winning the supper time lottery for Kevin. He's gradually leaving the nutropenic diet plan we followed for the months he was on chemotherapy. He had fesh lettuce and onions on his sandwich last night for the first time in 10 months and it was a feast. Mind you, his taste buds have still not recovered from their chemo wipe out and iceburg lettuce doesn't exactly pack a high flavor wallop anyway. But the idea that he could safely eat what he wanted was liberating and he enjoyed the freedom.

We drove home on county roads instead of the interstate and enjoyed the scenery. A couple of deer were in the field as we turned on our road and mama skunk and her babies waddled across the edge of the woods when I walked out the back door. It was quiet and there were fireflies starting to show up across the meadow.

There are some things you can't put a price on and small town life--even with its limitations--may be one.

I am, apparently, becoming more local than I know.