The blare of the commuter train horn on its Saturday schedule precisely every one hour and forty nine minutes was the only major event in our quiescent little hamlet that humdrum morning. Beyond the typical procrastinating of household chores on my day off I was left alone and prosaic while the rest of my family were scurrying about to a schedule that included stops at a doctor’s appointment, field hockey practice and the mall. It wasn’t the type of start to the day to begin playing some sort of a culinary adventure like a chef de cuisine like my friend Jared in my own kitchen. I had better opt for a visit to the deli or caffe down in the center of our bucolic town to seek out some sustenance.

I passed the deli and spied far too many townies in their Silverados and F-150s in the parking lot fresh from their late evening/early morning big-game hunting of Bambi’s mother. My brother-in-law raced by me in his charcoal Toyota Tundra doing a speed in excess of five miles per hour over the posted tortoise limit. I said a quick prayer hoping that the sheriff’s deputy I had just seen was preoccupied with his Kill Shot Bravo game app or scrolling through some of the recently divorced local talent on Tinder to notice his “speed”. The last thing he needed in his weekend was an upcoming date in front of the town judge. I’d see him later to find out if he dodge the deputy so I didn’t bother to text him at that point.

As I passed town hall on my left, I spun my steering wheel to the right before the railroad tracks and headed down the road running parallel to the station. The “downtown” area is far from the epicenter of economic development – there’s the Chinese takeout and a natural healing something or other storefront in what looks like it could have been a general store from a hundred years ago, a standalone structure that does some type of high-end artisan restoration of haughty picture frames, a very small unassuming bodega that I don’t think I have every stepped foot in, our town post office which seems to be closed for lunch anytime I’m in need of mailing something (or checking our post office box), a fine art gallery that seems like it would be in the perfect setting if it weren’t completely overlooked by our entire bedroom community, and last but not least, my early meal destination – the caffe.

You may have asked yourself why it is caffe instead of café. I just don’t know and haven’t mustered up enough interest to inquire as to the origins of this peculiarity. I parked my truck in the usual spot in front of the post office. While I was gathering my iPhone and personal effects and before exiting my vehicle, I saw this very smartly dressed senior-aged couple leaving the post office.

They were both dressed in that itchy, stodgy estate tweed that reminded me of some well-aged college professor or some gentry in Scotland. He held the door for her as they exited the post office and then quickly readjusted his brown newsboy cap. The timing of our intersection on the sidewalk seemed somewhat oddly cosmically prearranged. I originally wanted to overlook them as I had my objective clearly set on obtaining a grilled breakfast panini from the caffe when I overheard the highlander country woman state to her handsome husband, “He’d be perfect for the job. He’s a cannie lad.”

I pretended to ignore them for a moment but my Catholic guilt and good social graces got the better of me. I turned to both of them, smiled, and said good morning.

The diminutive woman then asked “Foos yer doos? Can we have a craik laddie?”

Thanks to my UK-based colleagues and having recently returned from a business trip to Ireland that took me to Shannon and Cork, I knew they were asking how I was and they meant that they wished to have a chat.

The perfectly put together older gentleman then shared a brief background that they had a “clarty” bastard that had been performing the work but they had no other options at current – no one and nowhere to turn for help. This didn’t seem like a typical scam like those emails from Somalia or Botswana so I continued to listen to these two otherwise innocent and quite lovely little couple. While I was listening to them I began to feel some hunger pangs and heard my stomach start to offer some color commentary to his play-by-play. I abruptly interrupted and asked what precisely was the task at hand.

Gathering himself, the gentleman looked at me and confidently stated, “Laddie, it is two jobs actually, we desperately need a pimpmaker and a knocker up.”

Without hesitation, they both now continued to ramble on to each other about their recent experiences when I interrupted for a second time and asked what in all of God’s creation were they talking about. Apparently a pimp was a bundle of firewood. The couple had a number of trees cut down on their property and thus needed a pimpmaker. For this first task, they needed a reliable person who could help bundle the wood for them and to potentially sell. I was somewhat relieved but knew I wasn’t qualified (or interested) in the first task at hand. I offered the name of the best landscaper in our area – my wife’s cousin Eddie. While I’m not sure his wife would embrace the idea of his potential new title, I knew he was the superman that could come to their rescue in their time of need for “pimping.”

There was still the other role of the “knocker up” which still desperately required some much needed definition and clarification. While I admit I did blush a little when I asked about the role and responsibilities of the knocker-up, they did nothing to ease my anxiety. The woman offered a bit more, she shared that the alternative name of the role saying it was also called a knocker-upper. I shuddered to think where we were headed next down this rabbit hole. Apparently with their advancing age, they were on multiple medications and some of these caused them to sleep. Their excessive daytime sleep often made them miss some of their other daily doses of medications and they were in need of knocker-upper, which I was soothed to find out was simply someone who would ensure they would wake up and in this case, help them take their prescription regimen at the required interval.

I shared with them that there were visiting nurses and home health aides that were trained to assist seniors still living independently in  their own homes. I asked them for their phone number (and gave them mine) and that promised that I would personally see to it that they would be connected to the correct local services. They were both overjoyed to know that there were “quality” knocker-uppers that could come to their home. I was just hoping at some point they would stop saying those two words so emphatically.

Thankful for all of the guidance, they asked if I would join them for some tea in the caffe. As we began to take the remaining steps towards the caffe, they began to argue over the correct spelling of the word caffe with the man insisting that people should really be more careful about the words they select. He then mumbled something about “words really matter.” That’s when she turned to me, smiled and said to him, “Och, Angus MacKenzie! You’re a right numpty.” I didn’t have the heart to touch that one and just closed the rickety screen door of the caffe behind me.