Harold Dibble sat up cautiously. It was better than ending up on the floor, he figured. He’d been lying back in his rickety old swiveling deskchair for more than an hour and a standing floor fan full in his face. He enjoyed lounging, usually, but today, especially. It was hot. Ninety-two degrees. "It’s got to be hotter than that," he thought, as he blotted the sweat from his brow with a towel.

A big thermometer hung on the wall behind him, next to Vermont’s current scenic calendar. Mountains, lakes, and cows this year. He liked to take in the date and the temperature in one panning glance. He felt it required less effort. An old Seth Thomas railroad-clock hung on the wall as well, above the calendar, tracking time with railroad clock exactitude. "In mint condition," he’d point out, whenever a customer asked.

It was hot, for sure. Thank God for the fan.

Harold was a pleasantly pudgy, congenial, sixty-year-old entrepreneur, the proud proprietor of a first-class country store. Four stars, three years running. He figured he’d earned the right to lay back when the weather got equatorial. Besides, he didn't think sweating around customers helped the business. For that reason, he stayed behind the counter during July and August’s doggier days, frequently prone and equally frequently fan-bound.

He wheeled the chair to the right, tipped his head and peered around the cash register, his pride and joy, a huge ancient NCR. He wanted to see what was happening at the front of the store. But he didn’t want to have to move a lot to do it. He refused to abandon the fan completely.

He’d been scanning competitive ads in the Burlington Free Press. His place had not been doing as well as it had been, and he wanted to see what the other country stores had been up to. His own ads, he felt, looked good. Photos of cheddar cheese chunks and maple syrup in maple leaf bottles. “Harold Dibble’s Vermont Country Emporium is offering a few delicious…” Hmmm. Bit of a mouthful. "Maybe that’s the problem," he thought. "God knows why though." He‘d been in the business thirty years and had done just fine. Or maybe… just maybe the problem was Wal-Mart! That was it. Wal-Mart! "They’re dying to gobble us up, the scum."

Thinking of Wal-Mart made him edgy, so he thought about something that bothered him less.

The bamboo wind chimes that hung at the door. He detested the clunking noise they made, the dumb, annoying, arrhythmic way they’d butt into naps and conversations. He’d hung them years before because friends had talked him into it; friends who continued to praise their “je ne sais quoi.” The problem for Harold was the eternal, clattering eons it took them to stop clunking. He’d be closing a sale or having a chat, and off they’d go. Clickety, clackety… clackety… clickety… … CLUNK! If you tried to grab them, they’d slip through your fingers and start to clunk all over again. Harold had sworn he’d get something refined and dingly to hang at the door, but he kept putting it off. Everyone loved those wind chimes. "Good for business," they said. But the fact was, the chimes ... were driving ... Harold ... nuts.

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