One Toe Over the Line

This is a stock photo of woman milking a cow.  I can promise you Mother never smiled like that when milking.

My mother was so rough on my poor daddy, but thank goodness, she was punished for her sins.  She was a hulking five feet tall at best, so she was well able to best for six foot three inch husband any time she wanted.  Not only that, he was so bashful he’d barely speak up for himself.  Big joke!  Daddy wore the pants in his house and made sure everyone KNEW it.  I think he’d seen way too many John Wayne movies and had no intention of being taken for a softy.

I rarely saw Mother even bother to tangle with Daddy.  She understood her life was much easier if she just went along with his demands.  From time to time, she was forced to take a stand, like the time she kicked him.  Before you get all excited and set off to congratulate her for getting some gumption, it was strictly accidental.  She gets no points.  To set the stage, you need to know, Mother did all the milking.  According to Daddy, the Bible forbade men to milk a cow.  “Thou shalt not take what thee cannot give.”  He often invented Bible verses in time of great need, not bothering to quote chapter and verse. The Bible never was a big part of his day unless he needed to make a point anyway. 

As always, Mother put biscuits in the oven before she went out to milk the cow every morning before daylight.  One morning it was sleeting as she trudged toward the barn in Daddy’s boots and barn coat, making the job even worse than usual.  Just as she finished milking, the cow slapped her with its poop-encrusted tail, kicked over the milk bucket and stepped on her booted foot.  Mother hated that damned cow anyhow.  They’d traded insults through their whole association.  Furious at the hated cow and the loss of the much-needed milk, Mother worked her agonized foot way out of the boot still pinned under the cow’s hoof, kicked the cow as hard as she could, falling down in the filth in the process.  The cow showed little interest, just lifted her tail and splattered Mother with her most abundant resource. 

Mother hobbled to the house coated in manure.  She had to strip and clean up the best she could before starting breakfast.  Her two babies, one an infant and the other under two were just waking up demanding attention as she pulled the biscuits out of the oven.  Daddy yelled at her from the bedroom, “Come see about these squalling babies.  I don’t have but a few more minutes before I have to get up and go to work.”  Somehow, he lived, but they didn’t have more children! 

By ten o’clock every night, Mother was whipped.  Like all mothers, she was chronically sleep-deprived.  She always had a cup of coffee to relax her before she went to bed, but had a hard time staying awake long enough to finish it.  When Daddy got ready to go to bed, he got up, went to the bathroom, and hit the bed.  When Mother said she was going to bed, she hung a last load of laundry in front of the fireplace, hoping some of it would be dry by morning, put a load in to wash, made a last run through the kitchen, filled the tea kettle and put coffee in the pot so it wouldn’t take too long in the morning, made sure Daddy’s lunch stuff and clothes were ready for tomorrow, scouted out kids shoes, books, and coats, and a few other little things.  Finally, she’d check on the kids, and head to bed where Daddy was snoring away.

This particular night, she’d just gotten to sleep when Daddy rolled over on her long hair.  He slept like the dead.  She pushed and yelled, but couldn’t make him stir.  In desperation, she kicked him, forgetting she’d already hurt her foot that morning.  The pain was excruciating, but Daddy never woke.  She was finally able to hold get her feet in the flat of his back and shoved him off.  The next morning, he reported a restful night while she hobbled around on a bruised foot, the toe obviously battered.  Till today, she still has to buy shoes a full size larger since her great toe points to Heavenward.

 

Available on Amazon Kindle now. Soon to be available in paper back!

BUY the book: https://www.amazon.com/Everything-Smells-Just-Like-Salad-ebook/dp/B01IVUXROQ

How to connect with Linda

Blog: https://nutsrok.wordpress.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bethea_linda

Advertisement

Joke of the Day

A city boy decided to quit the rat race and bought himself a farm, which included a few sows. He wanted to breed the sows, but had no idea how to go about it. His neighbor volunteered his boars for the job, and told the city boy to bring them over in the pickup the next day. In the afternoon when he went to pick them up, the city boy asked how he would be able to tell if the sows were impregnated. He was told to look and see where they were early in the morning. If they were up on the hill, they were pregnant; if they were in the sty, it hadn’t worked. The next morning, he leapt from the bed and looked up the hill, but alas the pigs were down in the mud. Grumbling, he loaded them back into the pickup and headed for the neighbors. The following three mornings were just the same; he would leap from the bed, look up the hill, find the pigs down in the mud and have to return them to the neighbors to let the boars have another shot at them. On the fifth morning, he looked up the hill, and there were no pigs. He looked down in the sty; still no pigs. He called to his wife, “Where the hell are the pigs today?” Amid hysterical laughter, she managed to choke out, “They’re down in the truck, and the big one is honking the horn!”

This reporter gets this lead on this story about this really special pig. So he goes to interview the pig’s owner for the evening broadcast. He drives to the house, knocks on the door. The man opens the door and invites him inside. The reporter says, “I understand that you’ve got a very special pig here.” The man says, “Special? Hell son, let me tell you some stories about that pig.”
“About ten years ago, I found this pig by the roadside. He had dropped off of a pickup truck, and left for dead. So I went and picked him up and nursed him back to health. About two years later the whole family was asleep, and the house and barn caught on fire. The pig busted into the window, woke me up, and told me the house was on fire.  ” The reporter is stunned. “You mean to tell me that that pig can talk?” “Hell, yes, he can talk,” says the farmer. “This pig is helping to perfect the cold fusion process, and he’s on the lecture circuit, making $10,000 per speech.”
The reporter asks the farmer hastily, “Can we go see this miracle pig now???” The farmer replies, “Sure we can.” So they go out into the farmyard, and there, sitting on the fence smoking a cigarette is this pig missing one front leg and one hind leg. The pig says to the reporter, “Hello there. Beautiful weather, isn’t it? I haven’t seen weather this pretty since I was sailing the Barbados…” The reporter is too stunned to respond. He drags the farmer back into the house, and says, “Dammit, you’re right. The pig can talk!!!” The farmer says, “See, I told you.” Then the reporter says, “I’ve just got one question. What happened to his legs?”
The farmer says, “You see, son, a pig that smart, you just CAN’T eat him all at once.”