Things were looking up, though. I might make it by 12:30. And now I had a tasty 44 oz Diet Coke. I always take a sip so there's not so much in it to squeeze through that plastic X on the lid as I hit the bumpy gravel road. I don't get a straw there. Straws are awkward to carry. And they let liquid seep out of the seal-broken plastic X on the lid. I have straws at home. Besides, a driver can't sip a 44 oz beverage in the car. One hand can't pry that giant cup out of T-Hoe's holder. If it was hard plastic, maybe. But not a foam cup. It will crack.
Yes, things were looking up. All my errands were done. I had ideas for four blog posts to write, getting two of them ready to post automatically on Saturday so I didn't have to rush after
I had SiriusXM on Prime Country, listening to a Tanya Tucker interview about Christmas. Yes, I was in a soothed mood, everything going my way, just an hour behind what I'd planned. I crested the hill that leads down to EmBee, and
REEEEE!
No, there wasn't a man on a ladder blocking the entrance to my Hillmomba compound.
THERE WAS A HOUSE TRAILER BLOCKING THE ENTRANCE TO MY HILLMOMBA COMPOUND!
Great. I knew whose it was, too. Farmer H and I are letting HOS (his oldest son) put a trailer on our other ten acres. Up on the hill. Not beside the Mansion. The land we bought for the boys. It has a well and electric. All he needs is a septic tank. Farmer H said he will buy the electrical service entrance and do the wiring for them for their Christmas present. Which HOS said would be great. He has a good job now, and is trying to get ahead. It won't hurt us a bit to let him and his wife and son live there and save rent money.
Farmer H had told me the trailer was being delivered today. I did NOT expect to get trapped behind it. Had I known then what I knew later, I would have gone on up the blacktop county road and come in the other way, down past that acreage, and slipped onto the Mansion road before they knew I outsmarted them. As it was, I was trapped.
Once I could get off the blacktop onto the gravel, I pulled over behind a white truck. A guy got out and walked back. He was not with the other 4 white trucks. He's a resident of the compound. He said it took them a half hour to get turned onto the gravel. They almost took out a tree. They had to get out some kind of skids or ramps to straighten that behemoth. AND they told him they were going up the hill and down the road in front of the Mansion!
"No they're not! I know where they're going! It's to my other land! That road goes straight!"
"That's not what THEY think!"
"No way are they putting that trailer beside my house!"
We chatted a bit about the new neighbor of this trailer, the one who had threatened to shoot Farmer H and a county deputy. AND the crazy guy across the road from him. Uh huh. You're kind of on crazy overload when you're crazier than a guy threatening to shoot people. White Truck also complained about the people parking along the creek. HERE, HERE! He said he stops and asks them if they live there, and then points to the NO TRESPASSING signs in front of their vehicles. Right on!
The trailer train had gone out of sight, so White Truck got back in and went up the road. I followed. It didn't take us long to catch up. He jumped out again and ran up to one of their support OVERSIZE LOAD white trucks. He gestured and mouthed. Then he turned back to me.
"I straightened 'em out. They had no idea they were going that way. I can't believe they want to go over that little dip. I think the trailer will get hung up there. They should have come in from the other side."
"Farmer H said they came out and looked all around and decided this was the way to go. Maybe the actual guy who came out here isn't with them. Or maybe it's someone ELSE getting a trailer!"
"HOS?"
"Yeah. That would be my stepson. It's his alright."
After another 10 minutes, and another car coming up behind me, White Truck was able to squeeze through at his turnoff. I called Farmer H to see if we could still get around that way. It used to be a big loop. He said no, because the Nudists or the Italians got into it with another landowner and blocked the access to the road. Not that we're prejudiced or anything against Nudists or Italians. It's just that we don't all remember each others names.
This car behind me was the lady from the 4-wheeler that one day in shorts and boots, who was having trouble with her mail delivery. Now she had been Christmas shopping, and needed to get home to feed her animals, unload and hide the Christmas presents. eat lunch, and get back to school to pick up her kids. We sat there 30 minutes while those cluckfusters surveyed their options. Bootsy said she ought to just go sit in her car and eat her lunch. I could have, too, if I'd had a straw for my poor elixir which was losing its magic, carbonation disseminating by the minute.
Even when that trailer inched forward, we had the 4 support vehicles still blocking our turn off. They could have closed the gap! But no. They were like a Devil's Handmaiden refusing to move the conveyor forward. A big open space between their trucks and the back of that trailer. Finally, Bootsy, a forward type, went up and asked them if they could pull up JUST TEN FEET so we could get through. By now, there was a FedEx truck waiting behind US.
The cluckfusters complied, and we went dashing through the dust. I got home at 1:30. In the time I was away from home today, I could have driven to the point we're meeting The Pony on...er...TODAY! I wrote this Friday, but you'll read it Saturday. Maybe.
PICS OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!
I didn't think to take a picture before. This is right before I made my left turn. They are closing up that gap to give us access to our road. You can't see the magnitude of the doublewide, which is balanced across that concreted low-water dip.
I was never so relieved to get home. People who take blood pressure medicine do not take kindly to being kept waiting when they've been holding it until they get home to their own bathroom.
4 comments:
I was stuck on Lindbergh for an hour and a half on Friday night. Stuck, as in not moving an inch. Cars in the ditch, cars that couldn't make it up icy hills, and yet when we could finally move, my clown car sailed along like a champ.
I hope you had a fun, safe trip today.
You did make it home!! Did you make it to the bathroom on time?
Sioux,
Farmer H made it home from a major town south of you JUST IN THE NICK OF TIME! He went to turn onto a lettered highway that brings him in the back way to Hillmomba, and saw a truck slide off the road. His own truck went sideways back into the fast lane, rather than the left turn lane where he was waiting to cross oncoming traffic.
Right after that, things went south quick. Our highway was closed between my bank town and bill-paying town. Farmer H talked to a guy who said it took him 4 hours to get from Fenton to Hillmomba.
Congrats on your clown car performance! I might let you drive me to the writer's conference this summer!
fishducky,
I did make it home yesterday. Easier than I did tonight. That's a story for elsewhere.
As for the bathroom...let's just say it was down to the wire. A photo finish. And nobody wants that photo!
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