Johnny-on-the-Spot … by John Foster …

We got up the Sunday morning a week before Super Bowl LX and learned that it was 20 degrees below zero outside..

In southern Indiana.

That’s even cold for Greenland where I was stationed with the USA F in the early 70’s.

It marked a week of sub-zero readings.

In southern Indiana.

If the driveway is already plowed or shoveled, what’s there to do?

Lucky me.

The extreme cold caused my tire pressure to drop so I got to crawl around of the frigid cold garage floor with my battery-powered tire pump to secure some good inflation.

Once I figured out how to properly attach the nozzle.

So that’s done.

Now what?

There’s a man-made hill in town where many locals go to sled but since snow is not a big feature normally south of Interstate 70, there’s often not an abundance of of goodies to ride downhill on.

As kids in northern Ohio, we had “Flexible Flyers” with metal runners, those shiny metal saucers, an actual wooden toboggan that would easily seat four frosty Fosters and an inner tube or two.

But that was then.

So what do the resourceful Foster’s do when a “polar vortex” comes to call?s

We look inside.

We clean.

The shop vacuum worked overtime.

I pulled up all the cushions on the living room sofa and chair and swept away the remnants of snacks that missed mouths.

Neav ran “Hazel”, our latest robot floor cleaner after I used the shop vac to sweep all of the laundry room, kitchen and dining room hardwood floors.

Cobwebs and dust bunnies like that normally ignored or overlooked part of the room beneath the cupboard doors.

I even pulled out the stove and swept up the greasy dust beneath it and degreased the floor.

I scrubbed remnants pf meal preparations that that got slopped out of the skillets and down the side of the stove or cubboards.

Pulled out the refrigerator and found a nest of greasy dust bunnies that I moved to the cannister of the shop vac.

Then Neav and I got into the cupboards where the canned goods and snacks reside.

There was at least one bottle of something for a once-planned recipe that we never tried and two partially used bottles of soy sauce that we combined.

Found out we didn’t really need that new bag of Doritos we bought Thursday since we discovered a half bag that still crunched.

We even designated one pull-out cupboard drawer for back-ups to replace containers currently in use.

The plan is to check there BEFORE we go grocery shopping in the future.

I give the concept a month.

All the bathrooms got scrubbed up, too.

We ventured out prior to the cleaning blitz to replenish our wild animal feeding supplies.

Suet cakes, 25 pounds of unsalted peanuts plus a 10 pound bag of seed corn cobs to keep the jays, cardinals and squirrels nourished.

Now here’s where I get a bit anal.

I drill a hole in the end of each cob that goes over the screws I placed in to the corn cob platform in the back yard.

“Where’s Foster?” you ask.

“Out in the garage drilling corn cobs.”

It’s a conversation-starter when you include in a job resume listing of work experiences you have.

I even make my own suet cakes for the birds which they devour.

That tasty combination of lard, peanut butter, a dash of bacon grease, plus oatmeal, cornmeal and some dried meal worms is a leader at the bird feeder.

(Neav still thinks she sees some of those dried meal worms wiggling.)

I also baked some cookies,

Back in the day when we had kids in college, I’d bake up a batch and split them between the two.

So now, I do a half recipe and I take two dozen into work to nourish the troops.

That still give Neav and I a taste treat but not enough to make us let the belt out a notch.

So far it’s been oatmeal followed by peanut butter and since we cleaned the kitchen cupboards, I’ve rounded up some chocolate chips I thought we were out of.

I just checked my outdoor thermometer and we’re up to a blistering 5 degrees.

Hmm?

Now what will we do?