Like a Man

Honey, can you bring me my tweezers?  They are in the drawer next to the sink in my bathroom next to my manicure kit.”

“Okay.”  This sounds really pained.  He’d like to refuse but he’s headed back that way anyway.  I hear a cabinet door open.  “They’re not in here.”  I could hear in his voice I’d been wasting his time, anyway.  He knew they were’t there, but figured he had to say he’d looked since he’d be  wanting me to bring him something later.  “You must have not put them up last time you used ”them.”

”Oh yes I did.  I know they are there!”

”No, they’re not.  You just look where you were sitting when you used them last time  you probably just gave them a sling!  You know how you do!”  I head the cabinet door banging.

We’ve done this enough, I know he’s done.  I go get the from tweezers from the drawer next to the sink where they were lying next to my manicure kit.  He does act a bit puzzled when I come back with them.

”Where did you find them?”

”Right where I old you they were, in the drawers next to the sink.”

”They weren’t there when I looked.”

”Ah! The old sneaking tweezers trick!  You looked in the cabinet, not the drawer.  The cabinet door was still standing open.  You don’t half-listen.”

”Well, if you didn’t mumble, maybe people could hear you.  Bla, blah, blah.”

I finish my plucking and make a move to put them up.”

”Hey, can I use the tweezers and while you’re up……..?”

 

 

New World Every Day

Road trips are always a thrill, more so when I travel without my hubby.  Born with no sense of direction whatsoever, fortunately I have a great sense of adventure and discovery.  Navigation devices help a little, but one does have to plug in all the right addresses and poor typing skills and dyslexia can make that a challenge.  Now that I think on it, I should get a medal whenever I arrive.

This past week, we ventured far afield.  While we visited relatives in Kansas, I took an afternoon off to visit an acquaintance.  Bud didn’t really want me to go off alone, but what can happen in twenty-five miles in rural Kansas.  Just so he’d be shamed, I drove straight to my destination and sent him a smug text.  I had a lovely visit and sent him a text to let him know I’d be arriving back in forty minutes.  A quasar must have hit the GPS.  While the trip over had been mostly via interstate, only one wrong turn confused the GPS.  You’d think they’d have gotten the bugs out of those things by now.  After a few turns and considerable dirt-road sight-seeing, I decided to check my progress.  Thinking maybe the devices was defective, I decided to try to put the address in again, forgetting the house number.   That didn’t worry me too much.  Surely there couldn’t be too man Lone Star Roads.  I drove and drove.  Finally, Bud fired a text at me, wanting to know when I’d get back.  “It shouldn’t be too long.  I am on Lonestar Road and just saw a sign saying I am back in Linn County.”

He whacked out.  “You dingbat!  Linn County is forty miles from here.  You are an hour in the wrong direction.  Pull over at the next crossroads and call back and tell me where you are.  By the way, how much gas do you have?”

“Uh oh.  The orange light is on and it says I have a range of forty miles.  Why did you let the truck get so low?”

“You had a half-a-tank when you left!  Where the Hell have you been?”

“I told you I was on Lone Star Road for a long time!”  I didn’t mention all the other places.  I hate to worry him about stuff like that.  He gets excited.

“Pull over and park!  Pull over and park and call me back.  I’ll come find you!”

“Okay, but maybe you should bring some gas!”  Now I was worried.

A few country miles later, I parked in front of the Cadmus Grange Building.  They were having a meeting at six-thirty, so I might make some new friends if he didn’t get there in a couple of hours, but hoped I wouldn’t have to wait that long.  It’s amazing how cold fourteen degrees can be, even if it’s a sunny day.  I decided to take some pictures.  I am glad I did since I may never get lost again.

Bud conferred with his relatives and as fate would have it, one of them had to pass that way on the way to visit us at Aunt Beulah’s.  He was kind enough to bring a can of gas and guide me there.  True enough, I was forty miles from my goal.  Who would have thought Lone Star Road extended across two or three counties?

Hard Time Marrying Part 11

 

Fatigued almost beyond bearing, Anya’s head felt as though it would burst.  Her jaw ached and blood drained from her left ear.  Her stepmother, Bessie had deafened her right years ago, but now she’d developed a deafening roar in her left.  Barely conscious, she struggled to maintain her death grip on the cow’s halter and half-walked and was half-dragged the final half-mile to the barn. Though she couldn’t hear it, the farm dog barked at her staggering approach, but for some reason didn’t offer to bite as she struggled to the barnyard. Instinct alone guided her into the barn where she collapsed on the haystack.  Old Bossie followed her in and was grateful of the opportunity to get her feed early.  Hay drifted over Anya as she slept, keeping the secret of her presence, though in her decreasing consciousness, she had no concern for anything.  Unaware of anything except pain and fatigue, she slept late into the next day.

Anya’s mind was foggy when she awoke, only aware of pain, hunger and thirst.  The beating she’d taken left her deaf and confused. She did vaguely remember trying to fire the pistol, but nothing after that.  Her raging thirst drove her from the barn.  With the pain in her jaw, eating would not have been an option.  She made her way toward the cabin, seeking water.

Had anyone been there to see her, she’d have been a horrifying specter as she fell against the door.  Wakening to find Jack licking the blood from her ear, she managed to hang onto the wall and table till she got to the water bucket.  Slaking her thirst, she dropped painfully to the cabin floor, unaware she was in the world.

 

 

Hard Time Marrying Part 10

For the first time in weeks, Anya slept deeply under the willows without fear of her captor.  In the fickle manner of West Texas, as the temperate day drew to a close, a cold wind swept in clouds from the North. She roused shivering as the rain peppered her with sleet. Knowing she’d die if she just lay there, she managed to rake a bed of leaves and burrowed in, somehow surviving the bitter night.  At first light, she emerged, battered but choosing life.  The day warmed as though there had been no icy storm in the night.

Despite the beating she’d endured, she walked through the hours, often falling, then struggling back to her feet in search of help.  Eventually, she stumbled upon a milk cow grazing in the distance.  Laboriously, she made her way toward It, hoping it wouldn’t wander off.  She stroked the gentle beast, before dropping to her knees, grasping an udder, and squirting warm milk into her mouth.  Strengthened by the cow’s life-saving gift, she leaned against the kind beast, comforted by its warmth..  Anya kept pace with the cow, occasionally milking her or resting while the the beast grazed.Thankfully, the cow didn’t object to her company.

As the afternoon shadows lengthened, the cow seemed charged with purpose and picked up her pace.  Anya took hold of her rope halter to keep up.  As they climbed over a rise, a homestead came into view.  Anya released the cow and she picked up the pace, trotting with purpose as her bag with its engorged udders swung side to side.

Now, That’s Lost!

Joe Crater, our neighbor, took his dog, Ol’ Boots and walked into the woods behind his house one afternoon intending to hunt squirrels for a while.  The woods stretched for miles behind his house.  It was easy to get lost, even for a fellow who’d grown up there, like Joe.  He didn’t remember leaving his compass home till he reached for it a few minutes before just before dusk that cold, fall afternoon. Rattled, he walked the direction he thought was home as it started to drizzle.  He thought he recognized a landmark in the distance a time or two, only to be disappointed one he reached it.  Finally, as dark closed in, he realized he was just getting more and more lost.  He’d expected to be home long before night, so he had no flashlight.  He only had his gun, his dog, and the clothes he stood up in.  He decided he’d better make a fire while he could still see to gather wood.  He gathered a sizeable pile of deadwood and fallen brush, knowing he’d make it through the miserable night if he could just stay warm.  Fortunately, his Zippo lighter was handy.  It was a long, wet night.  As soon as he could see well enough to walk without stumbling, he walked till the woods thinned enough to see the lights of a farmhouse.  He was so turned around by now, he couldn’t begin the guess where he was, but had no qualms about walking up to a stranger’s house and knocking on the door, after the night he’d just endured.  The dog must have passed just as bad a night as Joe since he broke and ran when he saw the house.  That wasn’t like Ol’ Boots.
Exhausted and chilled to the bone, he knocked on the back door of the stranger’s house, hoping someone would give him a hot cup of coffee.  A woman in a housedress, flannel shirt, and frazzled hair opened the door.  She looked like she’d been “rode hard and put up wet.”
“Where in the world have you been all night?” she demanded.  “I been worried crazy!”
After the night he’d just passed, he was in no mood for jokes.  “Lady, don’t give me no trouble.  I been lost in the woods all night and my wife’s gone be worried to death.”
She looked at him like he’d lost his mind.  “Joe, it’s me, Louise.  Where in the world have you been?  I was just fixin’ to send for yore brothers to go lookin’ for you.”
He was so confused it took some convincing that he’d stumbled up on his own house.