Oh, dear. Just when I try to be diplomatic and show Farmer H in a good light HA HA HA LIKE THAT IS EVER GOING TO HAPPEN! Whew! Excuse me, I'm feeling a bit light-headed after all that guffawing.
Monday, I took Farmer H to our new favorite casino for Father's Day. And by "I TOOK," I mean that he swove us there in A-Cad, spent his own money, and we each had $10 food credit for the buffet. C'mon. I bought him candy and cookies and losing scratchers. I'm not going all out. He still got more than I get from him on Mother's Day.
Anyhoo...we were without the company of my sister the ex-mayor's wife and her husband, since they were on a trip elsewhere. That meant we took a different route, two-lane curvy blacktop to the interstate, like when we got visit my best ol' ex-teaching buddy Mabel...rather than a meandering route through towns to pick up Sis and Ex-M.
Once we got to the highway, I pulled out a book to read. It's not like Farmer H is going to make conversation with me. He'd had 20 minutes on that blacktop road, and didn't take advantage of his captive audience.
So...I'm reading along, not really wanting to know what Farmer H is up to behind the wheel, but having an inkling every time I heard wake-up bumps, and my head swayed like that of a charmed cobra. But I can kind of tune things out when I'm reading. I'm an ex-teacher, by cracky! I can remain aware, but not let the outside world distract me.
CLUNK-THUMP!!!
What in the Not-Heaven???
I glanced up, to see, first of all, that we were in the fast lane, a semi truck beside us, another in front of that one, and a semi truck in front of us. We were running along at 77 mph in the alcove of an inverted, flipped-over 'L' of semi trucks. AND Farmer H had something in his right hand, and was sweaving with his left hand, onto the wake-up bumps near the guard cables meant to keep us out of the median.
SWEAVING!
Farmer H looked down and at the center of the windshield and pretty much everywhere but at the road in front of him, and the semi truck beside him.
"Do you have to do that now? This is not the time. Wait until you get off."
Let the record show that Farmer H had said we had 106 miles left on that tank of gas (it's 90 minutes to the casino), and that he was going to get off at a town right before casino town for gas. Let the record also show that in Farmer H's right hand was the Garmin, which had thrown itself off the windshield and onto A-Cad's center console, the suction cup having dried out in the heat and lost its suck.
"Why don't you just take it! And stop telling me what to do! It's not like you're going to put it back up. You won't even take it!"
"First of all, stop yelling at ME because your Garmin fell off. You don't need it to get there. It wasn't even on. Of course I'm not going to put it back up. I never use it. I've never used it. And I don't know how it works. AND you KNOW that you were fiddling with it to put it back!"
Farmer H thrust the Garmin at me. Held it way over my lap.
"I was not! I wanted you to take it!"
"What am I, a mind-reader? If you'd wanted me to take it, you would have held it over my lap like THAT, and not been sweaving from the side line to the side of that truck, looking up under the mirror. YOU WOULD HAVE HELD IT OVER HERE LIKE WHEN YOU GIVE ME YOUR CANDY WRAPPERS AND TOLL TICKETS! So don't go yelling at ME because your Garmin fell off!"
Seriously. If Farmer H had been able to TAKE IT OUT with his other hand removed from the steering wheel, while rolling down the interstate at 77 mph on cruise control, I swear he would have peed on my leg and told me it was raining.
Oh, yeah. I took the Garmin. And laid it on the console where it had originally fallen. It rode there just fine.
Gaaah! Farmer H is trying to give you a heart attack??
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of the time the 6 of us, hubby, me, four children aged 8 and under were in a tiny Leyland Mini going down the highway between Seymour and Melbourne in Victoria and coming up behind us were two semi trucks, the big road train type, having a race and they rumbled alongside us one on each side for almost a mile. Thank goodness my K wasn't a sweaver, just a lead foot, always wanting to get there fast so he can get home again in time for the footy match on TV. The kids thought it was fun, but I had the baby on my lap and hoped neither of those trucks would have to slam on the brakes for any reason.
You're meaning if HE took it out? If he TOOK it out? If he took IT out? If he took it OUT?
ReplyDeleteRiver,
ReplyDeleteI might have fainted. At the very least, I would have needed to look down at the baby, and pretend the trucks had moved on. Even when I drove on the highway, I'd back off the pace a bit to let those big trucks get ahead of me.
***
Sioux,
At least I wasn't eating pretzels that were making me THIRSTY!