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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Here it is.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Warm Regards,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>DeAnna Quietwater Noriega<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>It contains 444 words.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>The List<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Dolly pulled the magazine, Sunday Supplement and a torn envelope from where they had wedged down between the desk and the wall. Myra could be such a slob about things. She never bothered to dump discards in to a waste basket. She just piled them in stacks on the arms of chairs, corners of tables and wherever she happened to be. Eventually, if Dolly didn’t clear them away, the piles teetered and slithered to the floor. For thirty years now it had been a minor irritation. They had moved in together when Myra got a divorce and Dolly needed someone to help make the mortgage payments on the house her mother had left her.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>At work, they had gotten along so well. Dolly's attention to detail balanced Myra's ability to think outside the box. They had shared so much over time. Dolly was too shy and Myra too disillusioned to allow any men in their lives. There had been no possibility of children. As old age overtook them, they had only each other. They shared favorite books, took little jaunts together on their vacations. They devoted their energies to church and charitable activities.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Now that they were both retired, it seemed they could do nothing but pick at each other and squabble. They had become like some bizarre old married couple.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Dolly glanced down at the envelope and a feeling of uneasiness settled like indigestion in her stomach. It was nothing of course, just a list. But what could Myra want with:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Dry ice,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Garden hose,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Sleeping pills,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Hair dryer,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Granola,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Rat poison,<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>“Get a grip, old girl. You’re being a complete fool! You've been reading too many trashy mysteries.”<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Surely Myra wasn't angered as all that at Dolly’s occasional carping about her messiness? She couldn’t possibly be contemplating adding rat pellets to her granola? Myra wouldn’t slip sleeping pills in her herbal tea, place Dolly in her car and run a hose from the exhaust pipe then leave her to die in the garage with the engine running; while she went out for her regular Wednesday night bowling league. Myra wasn’t thinking of putting dry ice under Dolly’s bed to evaporate and suffocate her with carbon monoxide, or dropping a hair dryer accidentally in to Dolly’s bath, Was she? Well of course not!<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'>Still, perhaps it was time to sit down together and try to figure out some mutually agreeable rules to make it easier to live with each other. Even fast friends need to air their feelings and figure out how best to share a home without turning the small stuff into reasons for making their home a war zone.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal align=center style='text-align:center'><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>