“I hear they’re talking about another hot day today,” said Molly Whiteside as she delivered the menus to the guys at Mabel’s Grill the other morning.

“Yeah, I hear we’ve already had a stretch where we had the highest  world temperature ever recorded for several days in a row back in early July,” said  Dave Winston as he flipped open the menu.

“Oh, sure, here we go with a whole new argument about how the climate is changing,” grumbled George Mackenzie as he tried to decide between his usual pancakes and a nice, cool, half a grapefruit – with a hot coffee, of course.

“As long as we get enough rain to keep the pasture growing, my sheep can survive the heat,” said Cliff Murray as he perused the menu.

“Kinda funny how the rain has been,” said Dave. “Some areas they say they’ve had enough – even too much – and others not that far away say they haven’t had enough.”

“My brother-in-law has a cottage and he’s complaining there have been too many cloudy, rainy days,“ said Cliff. “Naturally I didn’t agree.”

“He doesn’t have that $30-million island up in Muskoka does he?” Dave piped in.

“Heck no, he’s only a school teacher with a place on Lake Huron,” said Cliff.

“What $30 million island are you talking about?” Molly wondered.

“Oh it was on the TV the other morning. You probably had to work and missed it,” said Dave.“There’s this private island with a few cottages on it that’s for sale in Muskoka. Apparently there haven’t been too many offers.”

“Ha! I think I’ll call with an offer,” laughed Molly. “Of course with my salary the price might have to come down to about $6.98, what with the tips you guys leave.”

“If you can afford a $30-million island, I’m already tipping too much,” chuckled Cliff.

The guys put in their orders and Molly headed back to the kitchen.

“Imagine,” George said shaking his head after a moment of silence, “somebody wants $30 million for a place to relax in. That would buy 10 or 15 farms – and to me even farm prices are out of whack.”

“And the thing about it being on an island is that they’re left alone to enjoy it,” said Cliff.

“Well not too much alone, apparently,” laughed Dave. “Did you see one of the photos on TV was of a dining room table that looked like it sat about 20?”

“Now that part I could use when the family all comes home for Thanksgiving,” sighed George.

“Well they haven’t sold it yet so you haven’t missed out” laughed Dave.

“They need to find some movie stars with lots of money,” said Cliff. “Remember when Goldie Hawn and  Kurt Russell had a place up there?”

“I don’t think even they have that kind of money,” said George.

“How about Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg? They must have a few extra dollars with this fight they’ve been in lately over Twitter and Threads,” said Cliff.

“Twitter I’ve heard about but what the heck is Threads?” George wondered.

“Threads is Zuckerberg’s challenger for Twitter after people got fed up with Twitter,” said Dave.

“Oh good grief, why am I wasting my time keeping people fed when I could be making real money making things for people to play with?” grouched George.

“You ain’t kidding. I remember watching this movie only about 10 years ago or so where Zuckerberg started Facebook to get back at a girl who threw him over,” agreed Cliff, “Now I hear his net worth is over $100 billion.”

“Good grief!” said George.

“And he’s a pauper compared to Musk who’s worth $245 billion,” said Dave.

George sadly shook his head at all this. “And all I do is keep people alive, not important stuff that excites them.” ◊