The Journey Of A Healthy T-Hoe Begins With A Single Tire Gauge

I declare. Farmer H is trying his darnedest to tick me off. He should really know better, what with me having a hair-trigger tick-off switch.

Last night, Farmer H drove T-Hoe to trivia. It was sponsored by The Pony's NHS club, so we paid to play. We won't go into how our little team of three-and-one-fourth was soundly trounced by the entire rest of the field, including The Pony's team of mere children. Let the record show that Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, Farmer H, Mrs. HM's sister-the-ex-mayor's wife, and the ex-mayor himself do not comprise a very good knowledge base for sports, Disney Movies, or 50 states questions. It did not help that the ex-mayor, a medium-wig with Ameren, was on call and had to leave the room eleventy-billion times to explain to crews how to get where they were needed to restore electricity to parts of a major metropolitan area. Sweet Gummi Mary! You'd think folks could sit in the dark and chill out while Mrs. Hillbilly Mom was playing trivia from 7:00 to 10:00.

Farmer H moved T-Hoe's driver's seat to within three millimeters of the steering wheel. He leaned to one side to emit gas from a Beef Burrito Supreme. He sneezed all over his hand and still took the wheel. On the way home, he started complaining that the side mirror was not aligned to his liking. Even though he had driven all the way to Newmentia with it like that.

"I don't know how you see a thing out of that mirror."

"Oh. I don't use it much. But I can see when the cars are too close behind me at the stoplight."

"It's useless." Said the man who was going forward all the way home, on a two-lane road. It's not like he needed to sweave through rush hour on I-270.

"Fix it how you want."

"I don't know how to do that!"

"Or don't."

"I don't know how you can drive with it like that."

"Well, I drive with a tire that loses a pound of air a day. And brakes that grind and grab when I stop."

"I don't feel anything with the brakes. I can't believe you don't hear that rumble in the bushings."

"I don't know what a bushing is. But I guess there might be a sound. I thought it had something to do with my brakes."

"HM, I can't get them fixed unless I take it to a dealer. That tire is just your sensors gone bad. You need new sensors."

"No Dad. That's the back tires with the bad sensors. The one that shows zero pounds of air, and shows the opposite tires in the readings. And besides, you pull that seat way up, so of course you're not going to see what Mom does out of the mirror."

"I don't know how it can just be the sensors if we put air in twice a week. You'd think that tire would blow up like a balloon and pop with all that air we've put in it since July."

"I don't know how you think I can fix it if you won't drive something else. And I'll need someone to take me and pick me up from the dealer. I can't sit around and wait."

"That's why I told you about it in July. 'I'm getting ready to go back to school,' I told you. 'And I need my car to run.' That's exactly when I told you. But you always had an excuse. I guess we'll keep putting air in it until Christmas break, and hope nothing goes wrong. I asked you to get me a stick gauge for the tires. The Pony can check the air, if you think it's the sensors. I asked for that over a month ago, when you got my headlights, and you said okay. But you never gave me a tire gauge."

"All you have to do is walk over to the BARn and get one off the workbench where all the car stuff is. There's a bunch of them."

REEEEEEEEE! That's the phonograph needle scratching Farmer H's eyes out. Let's get this straight. HE expects MRS. HILLBILLY MOM to WALK to the BARn, and putter around in various workshop areas until she finds a suitable tire gauge? When HE is over at the BARn at least five days a week?

PUHLEEEESE!

That man is cruisin' for a bruisin', achin' for a breakin', yearnin' for a burnin', yappin' for a slappin', clamorin' for a hammerin', stumpin' for a thumpin', and yippin' for a whippin'.