There's nothing quite like standing up in front of 25 or 30 elderly cranky people and trying to inform and entertain them.

Take it from me--if the bull run at Pamplona hasn't provided you with the death defying thrills you crave, that's the way to go, elderly cranky people.

Monday nights I give an hour's talk at the village Elder Hostel on local history and such like. I try to spice it up with lots of funny stories about the local cross-border brothel, Prohibition, stuff like that, so's folks get information but something more than a dry recitation of facts.

Usually it goes pretty well, but tonight was the Hour That Would Not End.

Our local Elder Hostel is a sports-oriented one, it offers hiking, tennis, golf. Now I won't call the guests tightwads, (after all that's SUCH a perjorative word, don't you find?) but they had paid for a day's golf and most of them decided that come heck or high water they were going to play their 18 holes.

Only today it rained non-stop. It was a rain of Biblical proportions, the kind of rain that makes you look up the word "cubit" and build-it-yourself ark plans. The kind of rain that if you see animals walking around in pairs you get very, very nervous.

These people played 18 holes of golf in it. Fine.

I knew I was in trouble when they trooped into the church hall to take their seats. Normally I can make eye contact and joke with a few folks. Nothing. Stony faces. These were people who had faced off against Mother Nature with clubs, they weren't cutting ME any slack.

So I begin my talk, hit them with my first funny story, about the local brothel that was built half in Canada and half in the U.S. by an enterprising woman. That way she could circumvent liquor and sex trade laws in both countries.

Somehow Queen Lil always got a warning when authorities were about to raid her, so if it was the U.S. law she'd just move her ladies and liquor to the Canadian half of the building.

When the Canadian law was coming, the barrels and ladies decamped to the U.S. side of the building. It was a sweet system, and over the many years she ran it, she became very wealthy.

The railroad even had a stop there during Prohibition for the convenience of parched Americans, and I make a lame joke about "one stop shopping" which usually makes folks laugh.

But not tonight.

Nothing. Zip. Nada. Rien.

You know that old Sprint ad with the pin drop segment? It was quieter in that hall than that. The only way to appease these people for the day they'd endured was blood sacrifice. It was starting to feel like it might be my blood.

Somehow I made it through that hour, but it wasn't pretty.

Now I'm not a religious person, but I'm thinking there's only so many mobs of club bearing elderly cranky folk that a woman can face before her luck runs out.

So, if any of you are of the praying persuasion, can I ask you to put in a word on my behalf, ask for sunny Mondays for the rest of the summer?

I'd 'preciate it, really I would.