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does almost make you not want to even try and help people, doesn’t it?”
    “You got that right!” she said, stuffing cotton behind Norma’s ears. “All my hard-earned tax money going around the world, and do I even get a thank-you? I used to have faith in the world, but it’s turned out to be as bad as my own children, nothing but gimme, gimme, gimme all the time…and it’s never enough.”
    Tot’s daughter, Darlene, who was as wide as her mother was thin, was working in the next booth and heard her last statement. “Well, thanks a lot, Mother!” she said over the partition. “See if I ever ask you for anything again!”
    Tot rolled her eyes in Darlene’s direction, and said to Norma, “I can only hope.”
    Although Norma did not like to think about it, Tot was right of course. After the terrorist attacks on 9/11 everything had changed. Even in a small town like Elmwood Springs, people had been so shocked, they had become a little crazy. Right after it happened Verbena was convinced that the Hing Doag family that ran the little market on the corner might be part of a terrorist sleeper cell. Norma told her, “They’re not Arabs, Verbena, they’re Vietnamese.” But Verbena had not been convinced. “Well, whatever,” she said, “I still don’t trust them.”
    But mostly people were just sad about the shape of the world their children and grandchildren had to live in. And for those like Norma and Macky, born and raised in the forties and fifties, it was such a drastic change from that era when everyone felt safe, and your only knowledge of the Middle East was a picture on a Christmas card of a bright star shining down on a peaceful manger, not the place full of hate and rage they saw daily on the television and read about in the newspapers. All Norma knew was she couldn’t take it anymore. She didn’t want to, so three years ago she just stopped reading the newspapers and watching the news. Now she only watched the Home & Garden network and the Antiques Roadshow on PBS, and more or less just stuck her head in the sand, and hoped that somehow things would work out.
    About forty minutes later, after Norma had been brought out from under the dryer, Tot continued the conversation.
    “You know me, Norma, I always try to put on a happy face, but it’s getting harder and harder to keep up a good attitude. They say civilization as we know it is done for, doomed.”
    “Who says that?” asked an alarmed Norma.
    “Everybody!” she said, removing Norma’s hairnet. “Nostradamus, CNN, all the papers, according to them, we are on the brink of total annihilation at any second.”
    “Oh Lord, Tot, why do you pay attention to all that stuff? They are just trying to scare you.”
    “Well, Norma, Verbena said it was in the Bible that this is the end of times, and the way things are going, I think it’s just around the corner.”
    “Oh, Tot. I’ve been hearing things like that all my life, and they’ve always been wrong.”
    “So far,” said Tot, pulling a roller out of Norma’s hair. “But one of these days they are going to be right. Verbena says all the signs point to the apocalypse. All the earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and fires we’ve been having lately, and now that turkey flu thing—there’s your pestilence right there.”
    Norma felt herself starting to hyperventilate and, trying to use her “Replace a Negative Thought with a Positive One” exercise, said, “People can be wrong, you know, remember when rock and roll came out? Everybody said it couldn’t get worse, but it did, so there you go.”
    “I don’t see how it could be any worse. But if the end of the world does come before I can collect my social security, then I’m really going to be mad, after I’ve been looking forward to retiring for years, shoot…Life isn’t fair, is it? Aren’t you worried about the end of the world?” she asked, picking up a brush.
    “Of course,” said Norma. “I don’t want it to happen just