Once the problem has been identified, it is Marguerite’s job to locate the best global expert on the subject and to bring them to the United States. So using her International connections she sifts through hundreds, if not thousands, of geniuses and decides which brain is larger than the problem. Her problem is getting the thinker to the tank. Now it doesn’t take a genius to deal with geniuses, but after listening to Marguerite’s stories it obviously takes a mastermind.

Like when one worldly whiz kid, after receiving his airline tickets, decided he needed to cook on Bogatell Beach in Barcelona for a few days before his brain could stew in a tank in Washington. He told Marguerite he’d come to D.C. after a couple days of R&R. This was not acceptable, of course, so Margarite used her skills to get him here ASAP. Whether she used enticement, encouragement, bribery, threats, treats or womanly wiles, she did not say. She only said she managed to get the cerebrally gifted playboy on the right continent (minus a Spanish tan), but that the effort left her pale.

Or the time she battled the Department of Immigrations for several weeks to get an unscrupulous smarty here and finally out of frustration called the State Department. The smarty was sitting in the tank the very next day. She said that experience made her feel like she’d been hired to cook without aid of a spoon or the convenience of a kitchen.

“Seems like a lot of unnecessary work to me.” I told her. “You only need to go to Trails End Bar up in Eustis during happy hour. The world’s problems are solved daily between four and six O’clock.”

“I’m sure.” She said.

We also had a three-year-old sweetie from Regan, Tennessee here. She brought her entourage: her stuffed toys, her hair ribbons, barrettes, and her parents. This couple, a southern Baptist minister and his first grade school teacher wife, stopped hoping for a child after fourteen years of trying, only to have Madeline in year fifteen. Madeline with a thick Tennessee accent.

“I’m tard.” Madeline said.

“You can sleep in the car” her mother answered.

“I thank ma dawg masses may.”

“Your puppy is having a wonderful time at Grandma’s.”

Madeline doesn’t like to have her hair combed and was rather vocal on the subject this morning- her southern manners flew out the northern window of her room and she cried out in unintelligible twangy objections. Her mother swatted Madeline’s butt and said, “Hold still while I brush! If you have messy hair they’ll think we all are hillbillies.”

The Preacher and his southern belles sat across the table from the think tank filler.

Now, being a Hillbilly might be a bad thing, but diversity is not and once again my breakfast table confirms that. No think tank necessary.

L.E. Hughes is a columnist, writer and owner of Diamond Corner B&B in Stratton, Maine. She welcomes your thoughts and comments: dcorner@tdstelme.net.

© October 2005 Lew-Ellyn Hughes. All Rights Reserved and Retained by the Author.