“You have no spirit of culinary adventure. You need to be more like that snarky guy on the Travel Channel. He goes all over the world eating kangaroo a**holes and snail throw-up. He'd eat anything. He don't care how sick he gets. He's another one of my role models, except he needs ironing.”

“He blew himself up.”“Get out! You mean like guts all over the place?”“Not all over the place,” I said. “He was pretty well contained, all things considered.”

“When something needs to be ironed I put it in the ironing basket. If a year goes by and the item is still in the basket I throw the item away. This is a good system since eventually I end up only with clothes that don’t need ironing.”

“God's a busy guy. He don't have time to micromanage. What are the chances he heard that? It's early in the morning. He's probably having breakfast with Mrs. God.”

“I guessed my mother figured if my father got right down to the task of eating he wouldn’t be so inclined to jump up and strangle my grandmother.”

“Mr. Landowsky was eighty-two and somehow his chest had shrunk over the years, and now he was forced to hike his pants up under his armpits. "Oi," he said. "This heat! I can't breathe. Somebody should do something."I assumed he was talking about God. "That weatherman on the morning news. He should be shot. How can I go out in weather like this? And then when it gets so hot they keep the supermarkets too cold. Hot, cold. Hot, cold. It gives me the runs." I was glad I owned a gun, because when I got as old as Mr. Landowsky I was going to eat a bullet. The first time I got the runs in the supermarket, that was it. BANG! It would all be over.”

“Is there anything else you need from me?" Ranger asked."Not right now.""There will come a time," Ranger said. "Let me know when." And he disconnected.I opened the freezer and stuck my head in to cool off. If there'd been any more innuendo in that conversation, I could have fried an egg on my forehead.”