Rootin' Tootin' Times At The Mansion

I hope I have not misled my readership. To hear me tell it, Hillmomba must be one big rootin', tootin' paradise, a land flowing with goat milk and free-range chicken eggs, where a Pony can be a Pony, living off the fat of the land.

That's not always true.

I know this comes as a shock to you, after years of sunny, upbeat stories letting you peep into my rainbow-and-unicorn, I'm-okay-you're-okay, everyone's-a-winner world. Clutch your pearls, people! Today, I dip into the seamier side of life with Farmer H.

For three days last week, The Pony and I enjoyed an idyllic respite from Farmer H and the #1 son. Farmer H was away on business at Lake of the Ozarks, and #1 was preoccupied with preparations for the Newmentia school carnival. We waved goodbye to Farmer H Tuesday morning. Figuratively, that is. Literally, we hollered, "We're leaving!" and dashed off to school while he was still abed. Our next two days stretched out ahead of us like a grade-school summer vacation, no end in sight. Like his father, #1 remained in the sack as we motored up the driveway. He would pointedly ignore me at school (except to scam $13 for his Chem II shirt), return to the Mansion at 9:30, shower, and do homework until bedtime. Barely fifteen words passed between us all week.

But then the master of the house returned. I had forgotten how unrestful the nights are in Hillmomba.  My rootin', tootin' husband has been lootin' me of a good night's sleep for so long that I have become complacent. Do you know how much rest you can get when there is not a person shoving his pillow up under the edge of yours, snaking his arm under it, dislodging your brain-packed cranium that is trying to renew itself with a scant five hours of elusive ZZZZs? Or that you can hear frogs peeping when the air is not ripped with the silent but deadly, unconscious, gaseous emissions of your bedmate?

Funny how I slept more soundly once he returned.