It started with the Auto Hammer, the world’s first one-handed automatic hammer with twenty nails stacked magnetically in the handle, guaranteed to eliminate the worry of hammering your thumb.

Next came the Bug Vacuum with its stylish, extendable nozzle, high-powered suction, and trap door that captured unwanted pests and fried them on a low-voltage grid.

Glen Ann liked a good product. She liked the surety of knowing something was going to work the way it was supposed to. The springform pan would spring and form, the Magic Bullet would magically blend.

“Glen Ann?” Walter calls from the living room. “Where’d you put my fishing encyclopedia?”

Glen Ann rolls pie dough on the kitchen counter with an old RC Cola bottle.

“I wish you’d leave my stuff alone,” she hears Walter grumble. “Oh, here it is.”

Right where you left it, she says to herself.

“Glen Ann,” Walter calls again, “have you seen my glasses?”

Glen Ann walks from the kitchen to the arched entryway of the living room where Walter lifts pillows off the sofa. She claps her floury hands, one, two, three and the eyeglasses beep, beep, beep. Walter follows the sound to the recliner and pulls eyeglasses out of the pocket of his discarded overcoat.

Glen Ann returns to the kitchen satisfied that Clapper Eyewear was money well spent. Outside the window, the snow flies and Glen Ann wants to leave the pie dough and Walter and fly helter-skelter through the cold atmosphere, to crystallize in a moment of beauty then melt, natural as a snowflake.

Instead, she preheats the Tappan. The car keys are in the candy dish, she thinks, the Buick’s in the garage. I could drive to the ATM and be miles away before the pies start to burn.