'Pix or it didn't happen'? Oh, it happened, all right ...

An email thread with "family and loved ones":

Forwarded Conversation
Subject: 'Pix or it didn't happen'? Oh, it happened, all right ...
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From: Uncle Scott
Date: Sun, Aug 2, 2026 at 4:07 AM

Now with links (and ironic parenthetical italics)!

Via Walmart and FedEx, and the TLS and USPS, it is our great pleasure here at Uncle Scott Productions of Superior (the other USPS) to present to you, from a retrieval in the vestibule this afternoon so heavy it demanded the Walmart cart in the ante(and Uncle)room right of the lobby "just to get up that hill", four packages:

1. Mainstays (Walmart housewares line, as with Great Value groceries, Equate personal care,  Hyper Tough hardware, Ozark Trail outdoor gear, &c.) 2.2 qt. Air Fryer, a steal on Rollback, in Sage Green, at only $19.98 (reg. [autocorrect: "regaining"] $29.98). 

After having had a Gourmia 14-qt two-basket model that went kaput! on me some months ago - always saying "PRE OPEN" even when not - I wondered if this 2.2 qt. one might be a bit pinched in the way of capacity, but no: it took on successive waves of, e.g., Tyson Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast (34 oz. of 96 oz. bag from, where else, GFS), 11 oz. of 25 oz. Tyson Game Time Chicken Nuggets (see my protein-packed review) and 8 oz. raw shoestringed Russet potatoes* like a champ and with room to spare - the basket, solid and opaque rather than wire mesh, really does hold the full 2.2 qt. though you are probable best advised not to load your food too high above one layer for best air circulation.

*Rather than preboiling (autocorrect, 2x: "prevailing") per my usual oven-fries method, I followed the recipe in the instruction booklet and, after soaking the shoestringed (via my new favorite knife and not my favorite alone, say my recent giftees from recent deliveries from China's web-site answer to the Wild West, AliExpress [not to be confused with ... KrisDispatch]) potatoes in cold water for 30m (remembering to pat dry - or if pat is out shopping [or ... in chopping ...], a ... dave dry will do just fine ...) sprayed them with 1/2 tbsp. oil (avocado, my favorite along with coconut) before adding Lawry's Chili Lime Seasoning and sliding the basket in at 400F for 20m, shaking after 8m and 16m.

2. and 3. Clear American Sparkling Water. I discovered Clear American way back in our early Jerome Street years thirty-seven years ago, and with the exception of Diet Dr. Pepper (accept no substitutes: not to be confused with such knockoff fizzies as, e.g., Nurse Salt, Physician Assistant Cayenne or Nurse Practitioner Chili Powder) I much prefer them to soda, or, as they say in the midwest, pop. And with 12-packs of Blackberry Lemonade (a delivery of which Lady Leffewatty of Beach Court has recently received) and Key Lime on Rollback at a respective 48c/33.8 oz. bottle and 54c/33.8 oz. bottle (reg. 84c/bottle, thus a respective 42% and 35% discount), I was off and running or, with each box clocking in at almost thirty pounds, at least shuffling.

4. As when cooking my chicken and wild game after my vegetables, I've saved the breast and beast for last: two copies of the June 26, 2026 number of the world's most august - or at least june 26 - lit paper (lit paper: as when, e.g., starting the fire [to cook us] in the sauna) The Times Literary Supplement, whose Marquette Bureau Chief would like, and in fact did have, a word, or in (t)his case, 225, with the Editor, via his thirteenth letter therein. A steal, via the paper's NJ-based fulfillment agent Fulco (get it?), at only $5.00/copy (cover price: $9.99).

Oh, and one last among today's deliveries, this one in my Spam folder: as the blond spokesemodel Annette Figueroa claims in round-the-clock commercials promising, as her senior lady co-anchor yelps it, to "get rid of BAGS! under your eyes", "I am SO excited!" to have received the greeting below from "Jenni":

-------- Forwarded message ---------

From: Jennifer <dimisovae3@gmail.com>

Date: Sat, Aug 1, 2026, 4:41 PM

Subject: Scotty.

Afternoon Scotty

Its Jenni!

She called me (commences to swoon) ... "Scotty"!

Who is this "Jenni", you ask?

Why, I can only assume she is that so-named from the old 1981 Tommy Tutone smash whose number be all "for a good time call" ... "Eight Six Seven Five Three O Nah-Ee-Ayn ..." 

What other "Jenni", Spammer or not, is there?

By the way, speaking of the proverbial "good time" of a decidedly and happily Superior sort, if you ever have a dental appointment in Marquette, especially one a mile due north of your apartment on the other side of the (Carefree or Ventura) highway, 

and you have a freezer crammed to bursting from which you might compensate your driver, 

Just because - because the co-star of Blair ❤️s Michael is now also co-star of Grand Uncle Scott ❤️s His Refrigerator

then by all means call KS "Sister from the Same Mister ('far as we can tell)" L - not only has she extended her almost forty-years' passion for All Things Dental (Est. 1988) to include giving rides to the dentist - saving her fraternal 55+ passenger $1.30 each way for discounted Marq-Tran Door-to-Door bus fare - but as that same passenger discovered 

on or about September 20, 1965, there's no better baby girl in all the world with whom to share a dairy-rich lunch (if from rather differing supply chains, back then at least), in last Wednesday's case, Home Run Inn Cheese Pizza and Hudsonville Double Chocolate Almond Ice Cream to go with our clamshell-crammed GFS Broasted Chicken and Clear American Sparkling Water (q.v., above). See the next volume in the popular "Uncle Scott" series, Uncle Scott and the Girl Uncle John Used to Call 'Krissy': Commencin' Their Seventh (!) Decade as Eatin' an' Drinkin' an' Nursin' Buddies (pub. date, of course: September 20, 2025).

After the "PUNCH LINE" closing Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth, following the title character's wild 300-page confessional monologue to his old-school, presumably Viennese, shrink,

"So [said the doctor]. Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?"

Brother/Uncle/Grand Uncle Scott

Uncle Scott Productions of Superior ("The other USPS")

Font by Garamond

Photo credit (above): Uncle Scott Productions of Superior 

Photo credit (below): FedEx

Current/eternal listening: Sacred choral music

Current (re)reading: Letters page, er, The Times Literary Supplement, June 26, 2026 issue

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Walmart.com <help@walmart.com>
Date: Sat, Aug 1, 2026, 3:06 PM
Subject: Arrived: Your Mainstays 2.2 Qt Air F... +2 items
To: Uncle Scott

Your packages arrived! 📦  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌  ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

Order date: Thu, Jul 30, 2026 Order #2000149-06875233 Your package arrived, David!   You can start a return for refund or replacement from your order details.   Left at front door View order 3 items arrived   Part 1 of 3     1 item     Sold and shipped by Walmart   Part 2 of 3     1 item     Sold and shipped by Walmart   Part 3 of 3     1 item     Sold and shipped by Walmart How was your delivery experience? Select a rating to begin quick survey.

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From: Michael
Date: Sun, Aug 2, 2026 at 7:21 PM
To: Soul Brother Scott

Looks like a solid machine at a damn good price.

Fry on, dude! 

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From: Kristen 
Date: Sun, Aug 2, 2026 at 7:25 PM

To: Brother Scott

I agree and I love the color! 

Sent from my iPhone

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From: Scott Lahti
Date: Sun, Aug 2, 2026 at 9:36 PM
To: Kristen 
Cc: Michael, other sister, two nieces

Why, thank you, Bro'hawk from Another Mo'hawk, Sister from the Same Mister: it's always touching when someone compliments you on your good taste in store-brand small appliances on Rollback at under $20!

It's like when last fall I gave one of my famous school talks, over at USA - The Uncle Scott Academy: it was Homecoming Week - when I said

"Someday, kids, when, or if, you grow up, or at least older, you're going to find a countertop cooking appliance about which you care deeply and cannot wait to get home to because you have not eaten since breakfast and you are too tired to bend over a hot stove, which like Groucho Marx said to Margaret Dumont in Duck Soup, I can just see you doing right now: "but I can't see the stove ..."