““I’ll have bacon and eggs and orange juice,” George MacKenzie said as he delivered his order at Mabel’s Grill the other morning.

“We don’t have orange juice anymore,” Molly Whiteside replied as she wrote down their orders. “It’ll have to be Canadian apple juice. It’s Mabel’s small protest against Donald Trump.”

“I thought she was always telling us  how we had to leave politics behind at the front door,” Dave Winston said. 

“Mabel said she’d leave politics behind if Trump would,” Molly replied. “But the guy just can’t seem to help himself.”

George reluctantly agreed to accept the apple juice and Molly, having already got Dave and Cliff Murray’s orders, headed back to pass them on to Mabel in the kitchen.

“I’m going to be glad to see the warm weather get here,” Cliff said. “This old-fashioned weather this year was a bit more than I could take.”

“Yeah, I got the loader stuck in the snow one day when I was trying to get a bale of hay for the cattle,” George agreed.

“That’s the nice thing about having pigs,” Dave chuckled. “Everything’s indoors where it’s warm.”

“Yeah, rub it in,” George grumbled.

“I was reading that world-wide, we had the warmest January in recorded history,” Cliff said. “Hard to believe from things around here.”

“Yeah, well how do you believe any of that stuff you read about the climate,” George sneered. “I think they just make it up!”

“I hardly think so,” Cliff scoffed. “I mean these people are often professors at universities.”

“Who’ve got a good thing going for them, earning a lot more than people like me ever will without ever getting manure on their shoes,” George said.

“Well climate change or no climate change, there were about five or six days I didn’t even get any mail this winter,” Dave threw in. “When I complained to my post master, she said some days it was too stormy for her mail carrier to be risking her life and some days I hadn’t cleaned out around my mailbox.”

“Yeah well it won’t be long before you won’t even need a mailbox,” Cliff said. “I mean we were already getting so much less mail and then the postal workers went on strike just before Christmas.” 

“Except you’ll still be getting 20 flyers a week,” George grumbled.

“Yeah, for stores that used to support our weekly newspaper but now spend so little on advertising that the editor and reporters had to be laid off,” Dave sighed.

“Are you guys complaining about the post office?” Molly asked as she delivered their orders.

“Just saying there soon won’t be anything for the post office to deliver,” George sighed.

“I had a couple of postal workers in here the other day. They didn’t leave a tip. Said they couldn’t afford it because they hadn’t won the strike. It made me mad enough I went home and looked it up on the internet. The median salary for a Canada Post worker is $24 an hour. My salary, with tips, is $16 an hour”

“Yeah well, my salary’s less than that and I don’t get any tips,” George grumbled.

“Yeah, but the value of your farm keeps going up,” Molly answered.

“So my kids can get more money in my will,” George replied.

“Only because you’re too stubborn to retire and collect that money before then,” Molly sniped.

“I don’t want to retire to town and sit around all day and compare the weather with a bunch of other guys who have nothing better to do.”

Cliff couldn’t help smiling. “Which was what we were doing while Molly was in the kitchen.”

“Yeah, well I have to go home and do chores when I finish here,” George grumbled.

“It wouldn’t matter anyway,” Molly said. “He wouldn’t leave a decent tip even if he had a million!”◊