That is Priceless by Steve Melcher for March 17, 2023

Evelyn brought her laundry to the pond, only to realize her clothes will end up dirtier after “washing” then.

/// Her farms’ wells had run totally dry.

She’d been told she should come here to buy

jugs of pure mountain waters

from a gal with six daughters.

They’re not here, and she may start to cry.

/// She peers into the distance, bereft.

Needs to buy all the jugs she can heft.

Sights, beyond border barriers,

The (far-off) Water Carriers

who’d poured out all their jugs here, and left.

Dam it! My feet are soaked and my shoes are ruined. I thought California was supposed to be a desert!

Somehow, I thought the Colorado river would be more impressive.

Shara, lookin out to the sea for her husband’s return from a fishing trip. He lied and is actually at the local pub.

She should have know her uBer driver would never come all the way out here…

Alexandra’s Lowered Expectations: “No More Swamps to Conquer”

“I guess my roomie was right. It’s cockles and mussels, not c*cks and muscles.”

Some of a beach left me here and took off with that bleached blonde half wearing a thong. I’ll rip her hair out by it’s black roots.

Rachel had always been the high school drama queen. Even now she wanted to be the center of attention. No one liked Rachel…not really.

Sheila was beginning to question the “Florida Paradise” she purchased over the phone

“Somewhere, over the miasma. . .”

I do wish this haze from the Krakatoa eruption would clear up.

Nice Crocs.

Marjorie Taylor-Green voter, looking for her left hand.

“I can see Russia from my front porch. “

For some reason, Pennsylvania Dutch Baywatch didn’t quite reach the popularity of the original.

Hermione, satisfying herself that there was enough “mud, mud, glorious mud” here to make her pet hippopotamus happy.

They said, “If you go down to the beach, look out for crabs.” It would be a long day.

Testing the grip of sabots on slippery rocks is probably not a good idea.

“Me new crocs oughta be floatin’ by any minute now, mate…”

Not a worldly person, Sophie wondered as the ship sailed away, what did that handsome sailor mean…a one night stand?

“So now after that storm I own a houseboat.”

There’s an app for that. Surfline dot com.

“Well, there’s water over there. And more water over there. And over there is more water…”

Good poem

The Water Carriers: 

Paste (including the quote marks) 

"Category:Paintings by Daniel Ridgway Knight" site=commons.wikimedia.org 

(syntax supported by the Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and Ecosia search engines) in the browser address bar (or search for it using one of those search engines) and choose the first Category: found and once there find the text string Carriers, and click its link for info and links that point to more info about this roughly B4 paper size painting.

Again, a larger strip image is shown by (Ctrl- or right-) clicking the image in Mr. Melcher’s MASTERPIECE #3098 (March 17, 2023) blog entry, accessible by the Check out the blog! box after the last comment, and using the dropdown menu (even larger, if you trim what’s after .png from the URL). I have added a comment there pointing to the blog entry with my comment pointing to info about this artist I used to point to here. So far, 8 works by this artist have been used here, the March 15, 2023, strip bring the prior.

The “side single biceps”is not her best pose.

Sweet Molly Malone can no longer find any cockles and mussels due to pollution.

sally is looking for her husband or was it a clam.

“Excuse me, mister. Is this where the auditions are being held for the new White Rock girl?”

/// She peered into the distance to track

the dark cloud from a vessel’s smokestack.

Her man left with the tide.

As she watched it, she cried.

Her love— unlike high tide— won’t be back.

There used to be a house here! Dang spring floods!

On WAvZE

I can see the future, this basket will be in tomorrow’s Priceless.