George Mackenzie and Dave Winston  were preparing to order at Mabel’s Grill, the other morning, when Dave set his menu aside and started: “You know I hate to complain ...”
    “Oh, oh, here comes the big but,” chuckled  Molly Whiteside as she arrived with her pad to take their orders.
    “Hey, I resent your comments on the size of my butt,” grumbled Cliff Murray as he arrived at the table.
    “No,” laughed Molly out loud, “I wasn’t talking about the size of your bottom, it’s just that Dave was beginning to complain about something. Well, what was it, anyway/”
    “Oh, it doesn’t matter,” said Dave haughtily as he picked up his menu.
    “Come on, you’re only going to bring it up again later when I go back to the kitchen anyway,” Molly chided.
    “I was just going to say I know it hasn’t been a bad winter, all told, but I’m ready for spring,” said Dave.
    “I think we can all agree with you there,” agreed Cliff.
    “Yeah, I just bought a nice spring dress for my daughter and I can hardly wait for her to wear it to church at Easter, come April,” said Molly.
    “It’s been a pretty good winter, though,” said George. “I mean Christmas got kind of messed up but we had hardly any snow on the ground most of January,”
    “Now he’s going to tell us about winters in the 50s,” chuckled Dave.
    “Hey, I’m not that old,” grumbled George. “I was thinking back to the 1970s and even then I was only a kid. Some of those winters we got weeks off school because the buses couldn’t travel. I remember one year when they had to put a bulldozer out to widen out the road. I’m telling you, we had winters back then.”
    “Hard to believe we live in the same country,” Dave said with a wink at Cliff. “I guess that was before climate change.”
    “Climate change!” George sneered. “We’ve just had a few easy winters lately, that’s all. We’ll get our share of bitter winters again.”
    “But we’ve got to go back to the school memories of old guys to remember when we had them,” chuckled Dave.
    “Enough with the insults, okay?” grumbled George.
    “Alright, I’ll just take your orders before you gents come to blows,” Molly said, and waited until the guys made their selections.
    “I’ve got to go to the Co-op and get some bird feed after breakfast,” grumbled Cliff. “We have a squirrel who hangs upside down to get to the suet. It’d be funny to watch him if he didn’t scare all the woodpeckers and chickadees away and steal half the suet.”
    “Sounds like too much trouble just to watch the birds eat,” Dave said dubiously.
    “Yeah, I have a cat that comes up from the barn and chases the squirrels away,” said George. “Now that can be fun!”
    “Sounds hilarious,” Cliff said sourly.
    “Here’s your order,” said Molly as she delivered the tray with a plate for each of them.
    “So how much did these eggs cost?” George asked, looking at his bacon, eggs and toast as she was turning to head back to the kitchen.
    “I don’t know, whatever they’re charging at the grocery store, I guess,” replied Molly. “Why?”
    “Well the wife was home with the flu and she was watching TV and the guy on the show said the price of eggs was so high, he keeps hens at his California place and flies their eggs to his place in New York,”
    “Oh, I’m sure that is a big saving,” scoffed Molly.
    “So this guy’s a TV star with houses on both coasts and the price of eggs is more than he can afford,” sneered Dave.
    “Well, I mean, the price of their airfare is nothing compared to the price of eggs,” mocked Cliff. “I mean the poor guy can probably barely survive! ◊