There is lots of snow in the mountains but in our golden valley it's warming up and the winds are not howling. Our daffodils are peeking up out of the ground. That can only mean one thing: It's time to polish the golf clubs.

That's what I was doing. I went out into the garage and started cleaning my golf clubs. I haven't played golf for ten years. It was something I did about once a week with my company's handicap league and on special company-related occasions.

Recently, I haven't really been able to play golf but I now have the aortic valve of a wonderful hog in my chest that can handle snow shoveling and weed pulling. What I was thinking was that it could handle golf too, if the opportunity came up.

That's when Xrytspet plopped her bottom on my work table after pushing to the floor an old paint can, a three foot board, a perfectly good fan heater I had taken out of my neighbor's garbage can, and a can of nails and screws.

I said, "You can levitate that stuff right back there after you get your butt off my work table."

She pointed her sixth pinky at my treasures and levitated them into the garbage can. Then she levitated to the garbage can all the other stuff from my table except three pairs of pliers, two screw drivers, a coping saw, a sledgehammer, and a pack of sandpaper. She levitated the tools to my Sears roll-around tool cabinet except for the sledge which she parked in the corner of the garage.

I knew my wife would be so happy. I said, "Don't stop now."

Xrytspet said, "I want you to teach me to play golf."

I said, "You can't appear in public and people will think it weird seeing a golf club swinging in the air all by itself."

She popped into a golf outfit that looked as crazy as some of the other golf outfits I've seen on the public golf course. She wore big sunglasses that covered a good part of her face. I figured she had shopped at http://www.ladygolf.com/ and said, "Okay. Nobody is going to notice. What are you going to use for clubs?"

"There in the corner."

I looked and sure enough there was a WAILEA Tropical Print Golf Bag, red with tropical flowers. I knew it was $369.00. The clubs were different however. I said, "Where did you get those strange clubs? They look electronic."

She said, "They are a gift from Silzrack. He gave them to me as a gift for my 17456th birthday. They are almost, as you would say, handmade."

I said, "Holy Cripes! What birthday?"

She said, "You humans live such short meaningless lives."

I said, "You heard that in Men in Black, Xrytspet."

She blinked her eyes, blinding me for three minutes. I said, "I told you to stop doing that."

"Sorry, Taylor Jones, the hack writer. But that was not the first time I heard that. Moses said it when he waved goodbye to the riff raft who would not help him build the ark."

I said, "It was Noah and you probably have the wrong ark too. Let me explain it: Noah-Arc: Moses-Ark of the Covenant. Noah's ark is now an aberration on Mount Arafat. See http://arksearch.com/ and also seehttp://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a001.html.

"Nobody knows where the Ark of the Covenant is. Ethiopia? It either carried God's Crown or the Ten Commandments or both. See http://www.crystalinks.com/ark.html."

She twitched her nose and said, "Whatever! They're not that much to look at."

I said, "You haven't seen them. You are just spoofing me again."

She reached into her pocket and handed me two very small pieces of wood. She said, "I knew you wouldn't believe me."

She gave me her pout.

We played eighteen holes on the public golf course. The scar was: Taylor Jones, the hack writer 133 and Xrytspet 18. It was a new high for me thanks to that hog.

I drove up to Moscow to our great University there to see Professor Samuel Greenberg, a dendrologist. I found him on the campus thumping a large oak tree. He said, "Do you know that trees can talk?"

I knew that Dr. Greenberg no longer taught at the University because of his strange behavior. But still, he knows more about ancient trees than any man on earth and still has his little laboratory behind the power plant.

I said, "Dr. Greenberg, can you look at a couple of pieces of wood for me."

He looked at me through thick glasses and said, "Wood?

"What kind of wood?

"Why did Taylor Jones, the hack writer, drive all the way from Magic Valley clean up here to Moscow?

"It must be very important. Very important! Where is the wood?"

I said, "I put them in these glass vials."

He said, "Very scientific. Let's go to my laboratory behind the power plant."

At the laboratory, Dr. Greenberg looked at the two pieces of wood under the microscope.

He had labeled my vials "A" and "B."

He said, "No doubt about "A." It is gopher wood.

"Now, let's look at "B." My God!

"This is acacia or shittah-tree wood.

"Wait, there is a hair here. It's from a beaver skin.

"Here is a blue fiber.

"There is a trace of gold on the end of the piece of wood.

"Where did you get these, Taylor Jones, the hack writer? I must have them."

The last time I saw Dr. Greenberg he was running as fast as he could to his immaculate vintage Ford station wagon with the wood panels.

I'd give my left ventricle for that car.

I learned later from the department secretary, Hazel Elm, that Dr. Greenberg had been institutionalized because he thought he had obtained wood from Noah's ark and the Ark of the Covenant.

I had been the cause of all the trouble. I should have believed Xrytspet.

The End