I worked a half-day today. Our corporate bosses, pleased with some sales and budget figures produced earlier this summer, were kind enough to give us all a half day in July and August. We take them with eager thanks. It isn't that we're oppressed and never get time off, far from it, but most people in this office, I think, realize that, Hey, they didn't have to give us this time off.

But they did. And we're taking the time. It is a gratifying feeling, really: working for a company who rewards you for doing your job. It is expected, but it is appreciated at the same time. A lot of you work at places like this, and I'm glad. This is my first job that really did this, and even though I've been with the company for more than three years it is still an unexpected nicety. Some days I dislike waking up so early (who doesn't?) but you never feel like a gear in a machine here. If you've been in places where that isn't the case, you're appreciative of all the half days you get.

Then, of course, you want more, but that's the human condition.

So The Yankee and I met for a chicken salad lunch and then hit the links. We drove through a huge rainstorm, where the temperature fell 30 degrees, from 101 to 73, in about 20 minutes. Happily the skies cleared just before we reached the course. The temperature returned to its prickly high as well.

I have a coupon, two it turns out, for the Montevallo Golf Course. They are, they say, Shelby County's best kept golf secret. We shall see about that. I was immediately impressed by their ability to charge for the cart as they do, but we're playing 18, it was hotter than, well, a lot of things out here and it was determined that there would be no walking today. I intended to drive up to every ball not on the green.

So, on the first two holes, I could have done better. Truly I could have, but the first hole, one of those up-and-over-a-hill types, let me use the recovery wood and that made things better. The second hole had a nice dogleg to the right and I played it well early, but the irons quickly hurt me. By the end of the round I'd like to take two or three strokes off of these holes.

The third hole was a par three down. Well down. It reminded me of a course I played in Tennessee once. That one, if you didn't fly it from your mountain perch onto the green it was lost in the woods for forever. Here you are on the top of a rolling hill, looking down onto a green that was supposed to be surrounded on at least two sides by water. Being in the drought, this saves a lot of lost balls. I thought I flew the green just to the left of the pin, but it fell just shy, and I quickly recovered to make it a manageable experience.

The fourth hole went up and to the left. Having never played there you just had to imagine what happened around the bend. I cared little for this hole or the fifth. The sixth, I believe it was, was a par four in which I came with a few feet of driving the green. I then managed to two-putt for par when I should have been celebrating a birdie. But still, the swing was working well and things progressed smoothly through the turn. I wasn't keeping a close watch on my overall score, but it felt like a good round.

And then things fell apart on the back nine. There was a three hole stretch where the game came unglued and I went into the water. Not the ball. Me.

By now the ridiculous heat has lessened. We ducked lightning early in the round, dodged raindrops on the back nine and were facing an early sunset because of the clouds. I was alternate a little upset about walking around in wet socks and laughing hysterically at the most awesome thing I'd ever done on a golf course. \

On the fifth hole I drove a ball squarely into a tree from about 60 yards. The ball came directly back to where I was. I hit the ball as well and as solidly as you could possibly hope and the net distance was about 30 inches. It was several minutes before I could compose myself to try again, where I then lashed the ball almost onto the green. Later I ran a ball up a tree. It hit the bottom with so much front spin that the ball ran up the bark about six or eight feet.

Around the 14th hole another golfer we'd kept bumping into offered us some water since he was done for the day. the light was leaving quickly and leaves on the ground started to look like golf balls, so we had to hurry to finish. At 17 we found another hole much like the third one, instead of an iron I took out the old 17-degree loft and played it just under the green. I should have used the five-wood.

On 18 my foot was hurting and my form had just died for the day. The last half of the hole was just an exercise in getting up a hill. And there I repeated my earlier feet, sending a ball off of a pitching wedge into a root that actually returned the ball six inches behind me. And that typifies my golf game. There are moments when it is close to being good, but those moments are far outnumbered by the bad and the bizarre. In parts this was one of my better rounds, but in other places it seemed like the typically bad. The final score was a small improvement over where I usually end up (and I'm nicely terrible at his) but I left thinking If I could only eliminate a few shots here and there ... If I could get a few of those back, I'd be proud to tell you my score.

But I can't.

So I won't.

There's an old golf joke, when some duffer starts to give you his swing-by-swing description of the round, about how you avoid that. When he's on the third hole in his tale, ask him what he used on his approach at 17. It cuts story time right down. But you didn't know that joke, did you? So you got stuck with the whole hit-or-miss recounting. Just think: I'd considered doing this with the scorecard by my side. How long this description would have been then.

Slightly sweaty -- and blue, because the flags bled onto your skin -- we made our way to Pie Day. Melissa joined us today. She works at the store de pie, and took her break to dine with us on the patio. It is a hip group and a cool place like that. Melissa is a lot of fun, so we're now arranging it so that she works on Fridays to visit with us. We have some pull, having certainly paid the mortgage on the joint a few times over the years. In fact, Ward now introduces us to other customers. I expect headshots on the wall soon. Possibly something named after us on the menu within the year. A pie, no doubt.

We were given the patio largely because Ward was out there and because, well, we'd been golfing all afternoon in three-digit heat.

Had the ribs. Got a box for the leftovers. Promptly left the box on the table. I hate, hate, hate when I do that. Hopefully Ward, with whom we're all so familiar that he now just occasionally takes things from our plate, took them home to enjoy them himself, because they were delicious.

So no leftovers tomorrow, unfortunately. I'm sure I'll make do somehow.