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Life Among the Hostiles


Article # : 14418 

Section : LIFE
Issue Date : 6 / 1988  1,370 Words
Author : Kathryn N. Hardin
Kathryn Hardin's humor articles first appeared nationwide thirty years ago. This Arkansas grandmother draws on her life, past and present, for her current anecdotes.

       We have a kitchen pantry that is so treacherous it makes the Bermuda Triangle look like the Blue Lagoon. For a while we wouldn't venture into it after dark, even for a roll of toilet paper.
       
        It wasn't always that way. It started out with a docile, gentle disposition, but over the years it acquired a personality not unlike that of Attila the Hun. Finally it reached the point where we sustained an injury every time we went into it.
       
        One Saturday morning, within the space of an hour, it had jabbed my husband in the ribs with a roll of heavy-duty aluminum foil, dropped a plastic thermos on my head, and slashed the ankles of our cleaning woman with a bundle of shish kebab skewers.
       
        Then we declared war on it... but several days of battle were necessary to bring it to its knees, and it was a costly victory. Our cleaning woman suffered a severe case of battle fatigue and didn't come back to work for three weeks. After its surrender we lived in a state of uneasy truce, until our younger daughter lost her job and moved home. She stored some of her household goods in there and the next thing we knew, it was back to its old vindictive self.
       
        Let's face it. We live in a hostile world. Man's inhumanity to man is bad enough, but for downright hatefulness nothing can compare with hostile inanimate objects. Even children are aware of the perverse nature of some of the things we are in daily contact with.
       
        When I had lunch with my five-year-old niece one day, I heard her ... (2000 of 7473 Characters)
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