Author: Tim Cotton

The odor is strong. It is a cross between New York extra sharp cheese, Garnier Fructis Color Shield shampoo (it’s paraben-free), and a bucket of white perch left behind under an aluminum boat seat in mid-July. While the added detail of the material used to construct the boat might not be necessary for you to…

I wasn’t trying to be nosy, but I cannot deny that I listened to the conversation between the store employee and the patron who waited his turn at getting to the cream dispenser. It was a counter area where I don’t spend much time, and I am a bit timid to admit that there are…

The pickup truck was wallowing about on my last journey to the east coast. While it is heavily sprung, and the roads are bad from here to eternity, I felt that the steering inputs caused it to be a tad more squirrely than typical. I had a heavy trailer in tow, and that certainly exacerbates…

The fleeting thoughts don’t always stick around long enough for me to find the time to jot them all down. As of late, I have much about the blooming spring— and the chores that come with it— on my mind. There are undertakings at the camp that demand my attention. While I am not the…

I perused my food stores this past Sunday. I was apprised that my significant other had recalibrated the cupboards in an earnest effort to protect me from future bouts of food poisoning. These were her words, not mine. She told me about this newfound and—apparently— life-changing event as we drove through the pre-dawn darkness on…

My sixties-inspired raised ranch has limited closet space; the designer had more minimalistic homeowners in mind during the building phase. It’s not so much that I don’t have enough closets, it’s just that the closets that I do have are too small. The coat closet— and there is only one near the entry door—would better…

I could have charged the wireless headphones a bit longer, but I didn’t. The Air Pods were fully operational during the early morning flight out of Pittsburgh, but they gave out soon after I landed in Charlotte, North Carolina. I could have taken an opportunity to pull out a pair of wired headphones that I…

He walked into the house and was immediately overwhelmed by the smell of stale cigarettes. No one smoked in this house; the odor was stowed away— invisibly— in the fibers of the dark blue uniform. He went directly to the basement, scuffed across the cold floor, and then pulled the chrome beaded chain to turn…

Cedars are not particularly handsome trees, but they are hardy and grow very well in this climate. This specific cedar is huddled-up close to my dining room window. So close that when the wind comes out of the north—and it does most of the time—it claws at the siding and sometimes bumps the window as…