by Barron B. Hoffbeck (no. 12513)

Eden Prairie winters are famously cold but we Grand Locks have a secret for surviving these long dark months. It is through lodge-hall fellowship and brotherhood that we kindle the coals of affection’s warmth. In this, the season of St. Valentin, Eros’ arrow has found even myself, I confess!

Some background: my mother, aged 97 had happily resided in the local Minneapolis Grand Lock Retirement Pleasure Dome for the last 18 years. Sadly, a collapsing roof and a string of poor “investments” (mostly bankrolling failed Greek insurgencies) has shuttered the doors of her shady acres and left dear mater bereft and homeless. Faced with the prospect of moving to the Daytona Beach Pleasure Dome (a mad proposition given that we’re on the brink of a newly renewed shadow war with the Guardians of the Orb and Daytona is practically Orb HQ), I offered my home and dear mother accepted. I daydreamed of a “Golden Girls” scenario in which I play Dorothy, mother–Sophia, and my three Gouldian finches are Rose (There’s no Blanche. I don’t care for Blanche).

However, the fact of the matter was that my floorplan doesn’t easily support a sundowning nonagenarian with a vision impairment and a leaden foot on the pedal of a mobility scooter. The downstairs privy would need renovating–to let out the door frame, reposition the loo, install a handrail. I would need the services of a handy-man. And thus Yegor came to be in my life.

He appeared through the Minnesota February mists like a ship’s masthead, beckoned hither by “Angie’s List.” His eyes–the color of a calm, cold ocean–made me dizzy. I tittered like the call of a kookaburra as he asked, with a thick slavic brogue, “Where is bathroom?” As I watched his soft, prosaic frame amble through my home, pausing intermittently to stretch out his measuring tape or to spit tobacco runoff into a styrofoam cup, I felt a stirring I hadn’t felt since Ted left. There’s a certain intimacy in exposing one’s W.C. –the most private room–to a stranger. We didn’t have to say it but we both surely felt it–a palpable electricity crackling in the bathroom air.

By the week’s end, I had a renovated bathroom and something like a friend. Yegor is a most attentive handy-man (and a great fan of my snickerdoodles). As the week whizzed by, I couldn’t help but wonder–just what are we? And arguably just as important–what is Yegor’s fraternal lodge affiliation? Attempts to reach out with “The Gesture” prompted only a quizzical expression and a conciliary “Is ‘Full House!’ You got it dude!”

There’s a real danger in opening your heart to a potential Guardian of the Orb or even worse–a Kiwanis. These are trying times for the Grand Lock and the risk of infiltration has never been greater.

I don’t need to remind you, dear readers of the Guardians of the Orb orchestrating a terrible shipwreck that may or may not have killed our Leader/First Dog. Furthermore, the Winter Games are in full effect and the disorder within the Grand Lock has never been more visible. Why the men’s two-man bobsled ended in a tie. I have to think that this never would have happened with a strong core in place to steer the invisible hand of competition.

As for me, I have invited Yegor over for a thank-you dinner next weekend and we shall just have to see what happens next. While the Grand Lock principles of “Secrecy, subterfuge, solicitude” are never far from my mind, well…the heart wants what it wants. Toodle-oo for now!

From Volume 872 Issue 13 – Subscribe here, members, to be the first to get the next newsletter!