Cheezus saves.

Now that I'm living elsewhere after all that time in New York, I sometimes feel like I'm only just discovering things about adult life, in general, that everyone else has known forever. Things like the fact that people would rather drive five minutes than walk for ten. And that they do weird things in their cars during highway rush hour -- like, orifice-picking, nipple-scratching things -- even though they must be aware on some level that everyone see them. And that heating oil is apparently the most rare and expensive substance on the planet. And that outside of the cramped honeycomb of the city, household appliances are terrifyingly large and make conspiratorial noises in the night.
And then, of course, there's the part where, if you have a yard, one corner must at all times be designated as a shrine to the Gods of Junk Food and must always contain one or more highly processed, preservative-laden, brightly-packaged items in order to appease the angry and volatile deities of all things cheez-with-a-Z.

...Or at least, I assume there's a Cheez Shrine Rule written into our local ordinances? Because this is the state of things: at any given time, in the northwest corner of our little pocket yard, there is a half-eaten bag of Cheetos. Or a partially gnawed Slim Jim. Or -- once -- an un-drunk, unopened bottle of Arizona Raspberry Iced Tea with its safety seal still in place. (The nostalgic urge for a taste memory of middle school was overwhelming, but I mustered all my self-control and left it alone just in case it was a test of faith sent by the Cheez God.)

These items appear sometime during the night, or possibly the early morning, and stay for awhile -- untouched by anyone, I assume they are all also terrified of retribution at the hands of Cheezus -- and then ultimately vanish as mysteriously as they appeared. And since this is apparently just a Thing That Is Done out here in not-New-York, I've been rolling with it (albeit keeping an eye out, because if this isn't a gifts-for-the-oracle kind of situation, then some school-aged kid on our street must have one serious hole in his backpack.)

But today, it has all officially gone too far. Because when I walked out the door this morning, there it was.

  DUN.

DUN!

DUUUUUUUUUUN!!!!

Let me be clear: it's not that someone flouted the rules of the junk food shrine by leaving an empty Kit Kat wrapper in the yard.

It's that I am the God of Kit Kats, and SOMEONE HAS EATEN THAT WHICH IS RIGHTFULLY MINE.