Please check your E-mail!
"They were judgmental."
(rushing over with a stopwatch) "Not yet. I need to time the egress. On my whistle, you will pretend to be a panicking 12-year-old me."
"With all due respect to Pastor Jeff, his plan didn’t account for the time I got stuck in the pantry because Georgie stacked the canned beans in a non-Euclidean geometry. I was trapped for four minutes and seventeen seconds. I named those beans 'The Watchers.'"
"That’s your emergency whistle?"
"My clutter is a tool chest. And a lawnmower."
"It’s a naming convention, Missy. VP1: front door. VP2: back door. VP3: the garage service door via a temporary egress corridor created by moving your clutter, Dad."
"Exactly. A lawnmower with a combustible fuel source. In a fire, that’s an accelerant. In a flood, an anchor. In a home invasion, a tripping hazard for the invader—fine, I’ll concede that one."