With a foot of snow forecast for our region, the Big Box probably won’t be selling a lot of patio furniture this week. But it’s March, so the new models are all out on display. The 2017 collection includes some new styles and new colors, including one the manufacturer has decided to call “Augustine Frost.”

I think maybe the “Augustine” bit is meant to conjure up thoughts of Florida, connoting something vaguely beachy? In any case, it’s a strange name for a shade of light-grayish aqua. But that’s what it says in big letters on the sign: “Augustine Frost.”

Walking past that sign several times overnight, it eventually occurred to me that while this is a silly name for patio furniture decor, it would make a pretty terrific name for the protagonist of a series of pulp mystery novels: Augustine Frost, Calvinist detective.

And that thought made me realize for the first time how noir Calvinist theology can be. Maybe it’s the fatalism. Maybe it’s the way it regards women as either damsels in distress or femmes fatale. But they go together well. Some call it predestination, some call it fate. Either way, Mac, your goose is cooked.

So anyway I wound up wasting a bit of time this afternoon doing this: