Ruffly Speaking

cash to implement the ten-year plan to replace the leaky old storm windows with tight-fitting new ones, Rowdy would relocate to colder turf in the winter, and the immediate success of the five-year plan to scrap the rattly old air-conditioner and have a new model set in the wall would dislodge him in the summer, but, as it is, the grain harvest has been a little disappointing, and even if I could afford the window seat, I’d have to stage a forcible invasion of Rowdy’s little satellite republic to grab it from the dogs and reclaim it for the people. So much for Soviet communism.
    In contrast, consider the benefits of Japanese industrial long-term, think-big capitalism with its fifty-year plans, hundred-year plans, two-hundred-year plans perfectly designed to achieve a desirable arrangement of affairs in the distant future and to avoid disappointments and embarrassing failures in the near future as well. Take my fifty-year plan to buy the little, long, supernarrow spite building, as it’s called, that occupies the comer of my lot at the intersection of Appleton and Concord. Spice ? Two people had a property dispute. One got even. Or so I assume. Anyway, one of the long brick sides of the spite building runs along my yard and helps to fence it in, but—here comes the plan—it would be no trouble at all to knock a door in that wall, get my plumber-friend Ron to install a tub, move in a few odds and ends, put up some sturdy partitions, and presto! The cold-weather grooming area I need, and kennel space for Malamute Rescue. I could use both now, of course; I wish that the spite building would come up for sale and that I had the money to buy and renovate it. But do I actively covet it? No. Why? It’s a fifty-year plan, that’s why. I have lots of time left.
    But back to the immediate future, the plans for which had originally included, in addition to the installation of the long-deferred window seat, the purchase of two comfortable chairs to flank the fireplace in the living room and the acquisition of a microwave oven that was supposed to pay for itself in no time by enabling me to produce almost-no-cost-as-if-freeze-dried liver treats that the dogs wouldn’t be able to tell from Redi-Liver. Then Leah got into Harvard, and my plans... Well, not that I expected her to live here, of course. If the dogs had known, they might have. I did not. What I did expect was that she’d spend some time here, and I wanted to make it comfortable for her. My misguidedly girlish redecoration of the guest room and the installation of the extension phone hadn’t cost much. The real money had gone into the TV, the VCR, and the cabinet that hid them from view when they weren’t in use.
    At that moment, however, they were. How anyone could even think about watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers on a full stomach was beyond me, but as soon as Matthew and Leah had finished their ice cream, Leah brought the dogs in from the yard, and she and Matthew took the video to the living room and started watching it. Then the phone rang. It’s not just my plans that get changed; it’s everyone’s. I answered. The caller was Stephanie Benson. She startled me by almost shouting: “Hello? Can you hear me?”
    “Perfectly!” I yelled. “Can you hear me?” To Rita, I mouthed: “Stephanie Benson.”
    After Stephanie and I had exchanged another couple of bellows and concluded that each could hear the other just fine, Stephanie apologized for bothering me. I felt alarmed. Had one of Ruffly’s episodes culminated in coma? Had he injured himself? I was relieved when Stephanie explained that she’d thought there might be something wrong with her phone. Then she paused and said that maybe the trouble was with her hearing aids. They’d been malfunctioning lately, she thought. She wasn’t sure what the problem was. That was why she’d called. Could she speak to Matthew?
    When I summoned her son to the kitchen phone, he showed no sign of being irked at the interruption. He just took the receiver and said, “Mom?” Then he listened and said, “It’s probably a wrong number.” He asked Stephanie some questions and gave her some instructions. Had she put new batteries in her aids? Was she positive they were fresh? She should check to make sure that the phone connections were tight. Was the volume control working? He made her experiment with it. Then, evidently at her suggestion, he hung up and, after politely requesting my permission, called