Night Owls: Part II

Emma wiped the dust off her pants. I was just going to go through some things up in the attic. Grandma was a pack rat. I know that she was your mother but I bet you are happy that she is gone

off to the retirement community in Florida. She can play golf, or bingo, or swim in the pool if she likes. But she left all this junk for us to deal with. There are a few treasures in this attic, so we’ll have to go through the boxes carefully.

This box is filled with 13 different air fryer cookbooks. Does she even have an air fryer? Here are my old toys. Snuffles, my old stuffed elephant! She told me she threw him away! A broken lamp...toss that. But what's this? A crate full of books with her name. She wrote a novel?

“The Little Air Fryer”, “I Believe I Can Fry”, and many other novels. All about air fryers! She dedicated her whole life to air fryers ever since the day of its invention, truly the best invention, since sliced bread! If you don’t get it, well… Clearly you don’t own an air fryer.

But who needs an air fryer when you have a deep fryer? What does an air fryer fry? Air? And what do toasters toast? Toast? As an Italian plumber once said, “All toasters toast toast.” Miss that guy. But I digress. Speaking of novels on air fryers, the writer now released a book —

‘Air Fryer’s 101’. To which I scoffed to myself. See the thing is, gadgets have become far too complex nowadays. What’s wrong with normally frying something. God forbid if I ever showed a youth a frying pan, they’d probably ask me “Where’s the on button?”. But anyway I continued

"How hard could it be?" I chuck the instructions to the counter. It slides off and into the trash, and I couldn't care less. I crack my knuckles, "Home made french fries here I come."

The first step was arguably the easiest. I gathered all the ingredients: Potatoes, oil, salt, and ketchup for later. Next I began peeling the skin off the potatoes, I had seen my father to this plenty of times. Of course, he was a three star chef.

The following step was where things got substantially more difficult—the start of the ritual. I placed the skinned, oiled, and salted potatoes in a circle around the dog, then drizzled the ketchup across them. The dog whimpered longingly at the potatoes surrounding her.

I chanted the ancient words that would bind the dog's soul to mine. Her snout elongated, her fur receded, then, miraculously, standing before me was my long lost sister. It made so much sense—tater tots were her favorite food. We hugged and cried amidst the smell of fried spuds.