Last month I told the story of how I fell in the Awenasa River and was saved by a lady with a beautiful face and a good grip.

I suspected it was my new neighbor, Joy, who has been living here for months but I'd never met, and it turns out I was right. I finally ran into her in front of the post office and we had a very friendly conversation. I also thanked her again for pulling me out of the water.

"Oh, don't worry about it," she said with a flip of her hand. "I know you would do the same for me." She's right of course, even though I still find it a bit odd that a single woman would move to the little town of Nubbins out of the blue without knowing a soul. But that's none of my business. She's certainly been friendly with all the folks in the neighborhood. Johnny Mac, the middle schooler I've been tutoring, talks about her so much, I'm beginning to think he has a crush on her. Even Johnny Mac's mother LuAnn seems to know every little detail about Joy's life.

"She's writing a book, you know," LuAnn told me the other day when we happened to meet in the Piggly Wiggly. It hadn't taken long for the conversation to turn to our new neighbor. "She said her publisher wanted her to write the book a certain way, but Joy doesn't want to write it that way," LuAnn went on conspiratorially, acting like she knows all about the publishing business. "But what's she going to do? She's got to have a publisher! I told the poor dear she was stuck between a rock and a hotplate."

Now, you know and I know that the phrase is supposed to be "between a rock and a hard place," but I just nodded pleasantly and tried not to laugh. I wouldn't have dreamed of correcting LuAnn. I happen to love her malapropisms, which she drops into conversation with amazing frequency. Here are a few of my favorites:

"I just found out a member of my church was in a bad car accident and they had to take him to the drama unit!"

"Sometimes people have to just step onto the plate and do something."

"I read the other day that it took Michelangelo more than four years to paint that ceiling in the Sixteenth Chapel."

"Did you know she made that chocolate cake out of scratch?"

"I had to take my car into the shop. Something was wrong with the Cadillac converter."

"It was so cold, all I could do was lie on the couch with two Africans on top of me."

They're just too enjoyable to correct.

Eventually the Piggly Wiggly conversation moved on from Joy and her glamorous life of publishers and hotplates to more mundane subjects like my life.

"Isn't your friend Merl coming for a visit soon?" asked LuAnn. Uh-oh, I thought to myself. Nothing spreads faster in a small town than gossip about bachelors and their goingson. "Any special reason he's coming?" she asked innocently.

"No, not really, just a little visit," I said hurriedly. "Oh dear, I'm late, LuAnn. Nice chatting with you."

The truth is, I'm not completely sure why he's coming. Merl has been acting very strange lately. Two months ago he left me a birthday present to open since he wasn't going to be with me on that day. I proceeded to lose it and had to spend all afternoon on my birthday rummaging through closets and drawers, finally finding the stupid thing on top of the refrigerator. Don't ask me why it was there - I have no idea. When I opened it, there was a nice little pair of earrings and a simple note that said "Keep June 4 open on your calendar."

For heaven's sake, what does that mean? Merl has refused to say any more about it, and the day is quickly approaching. Why do people enjoy these types of surprises, when they only throw me into a tizzy?

Perhaps he just has in mind a fun date to the ... to the what? The local movie theater where Shrek the Third is still playing? What else could it be?

Oh well, there's no sense in trying to figure it out. I'll just enjoy my day and look forward to seeing Merl when he gets here. I'm sure I'm over thinking the whole thing. Or could I, as LuAnn would say, be making a mountain into a molehill?

")