Dear

“I don’t go to the Acme anymore,” said my Aunt Fran to my mother, while I was lounging on the sofa, letting them have a nice visit. “They’re too dear.” I raised my head and furrowed my brows. What on earth? She repeated that same judgment. “I used to go there for the butcher’s shop, and they’re just too dear.”

I tell you, my good reader, I was at least twenty years old, and I’d never heard the word used that way before. My mother didn’t respond in kind, though she agreed, and I saw that they both understood what was meant. Aunt Fran was complaining that the prices were too high. As for that Acme, it doesn’t exist anymore, though I used to like going there when I was a little boy tagging along after Mom. One year, they got the idea to pass out free hardcover novels for children if you bought a certain amount of groceries, and that’s how I ended up reading The Swiss Family Robinson, The Call of the Wild, The Jungle Book, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, and, among others, Treasur…