The Make Your Own Samdamwich Eating Plan

There is something inherently wrong in a world where grown men drape themselves across sofas and demand their wimmenfolk make them up some sammiches. Hillmomba is such a world.

Forget all the diet drugs and exercise programs and eating plans. I can easily prescribe a weight loss program for men. I shall call it The Make Your Own Samdamwich Eating Plan. Because the men would simply waste away. An intervention would have to be called after the first couple of months.

You'd think it was rocket science. Brain surgery, even. The act of removing two slices of bread from a wrapper. Laying them on a paper plate out of the Fine China wooden paper plate holder on the counter. Opening Frig to remove a pack of Land O Frost smoked ham, a pack of sliced Pepper Jack cheese, an opened bag of shredded lettuce, and a squeeze bottle of spicy mustard. Such a complicated series of events. You know, what with remembering to breathe in, breathe out at the same time. Or maybe it's their big ol' bear paws that can't manipulate the handle of Frig's door, or the zip lock on the meat and cheese, the pop top on the mustard.

On second thought, I misspoke concerning the rocket science and brain surgery. Of course men are able to perform those intricate tasks. And without even reading a manual or asking directions.

Another Scorching Scorcher

Here I sit, cool as a cucumber in my re-electrified Mansion. Yesterday was a challenge when the power went out at 12:10. I sat around soaking up what was left of the cool until about 2:30. Then The Pony and I went off to town on a couple of errands. One of which was to pick up an early supper. Because there's nothing to do without electricity except eat.

Part of the excursion involved picking up pictures for the #1 son at The Devil's Playground. He was busy, of course, using up the remaining power on his laptop. I could not face a walk through that steaming not-heaven hole to the back of the store to the counter where the pictures could be obtained. So I sent my minion, The Pony, much to his chagrin. He is not a people person. But with proper instructions, which he repeats to himself under his breath, he can manage.

The joke was on me, because once I dropped The Pony off out front, I had to wait in the parking lot. Yes, it was only for five minutes. But the temperature was 112 degrees. I think it was due to the heat flowing from INSIDE The Devil's Playground out onto the parking lot. In any case, once we got rolling again, the temp dropped to a mere 109.

I don't want your pity. Farmer H does. He is at the Cardinals game tonight, running concessions as part of Newmentia's fundraiser for Project Graduation. I imagine it is much hotter at the stadium than it is at The Mansion this evening. I told him to drink plenty of water, and put ice on the back of his neck. At least other school personnel are there to accompany him to the ER if he succumbs to heat stroke.

I'm about ready to pack up and move to Death Valley, where it's cooler.

Fat American White People Problems

That dang #1 son persuaded me to pick up lunch for him when I went to town for my soda. Actually, I had to go mail some bills. Silly! Who would drive to town just for a soda?

#1 asked for a Thickburger of some sort from Hardee's. I only know it by its number. Kind of like #1. Since I was already there, I also ordered a Big Shef for myself. Retro, you know. Because Hardee's used to be Burger Chef. The very first fast-food joint we got in our town when I was a kid. I saw my stuff on the order-taking screen. But the price seemed cheap. I was hoping that little half-wit did not mess up the order. #1 would be cantankerous, especially after spending 8 days last week without fast food.

I waited 10 minutes, sweltering, in line. You don't think I run T-Hoe in line, do you? He's a guzzler. So I was relieved to finally reach the window. The bag seemed small. I looked inside. And my Big Shef was missing. At least I had the receipt. I had not paid for it. So I drove off. Without lunch. The prospect of hand-delivering food to #1, then slaving over a hot kitchen counter to make my own lunch was not appealing.

See what happened here? That careless teen fast-food worker at Hardee's forced me to have some gas station chicken! Which was not as good as some I've had in the past. That little pullet that gave her life for my chicken breast really needed a boob job. But at least I didn't have to cook for myself for lunch, and I got a 44 oz. Diet Coke in the same stop.

The #1 son made short work of his Thickburger. In his room. Because he couldn't tear himself away from his electronic gewgaws long enough to sit down in the kitchen. But he DID bring in his trash, and the rest of his soda from his combo. He's been off soda for a while, but every now and then succumbs to the call of a value meal. He said I could have what was left. Oh, yeah! A Diet Coke is a terrible thing to waste. So I flipped over the straw and sucked down a few power swallows. I turned my back momentarily to wipe the counter after getting my gas station chicken plated, and when I turned back to the cutting block, there was #1. WITH HIS LIPS ON THE FLIPPED-OVER STRAW, DRINKING MORE OF HIS FORMER DIET COKE!

The issue is not that I begrudge him a few more milliliters of his soda. It's that I had already flipped that straw over to avoid his germs, and now he was drinking out of the straw again, and, well...there was not another side to flip to! It wasn't quite as bad as Lucy van Pelt exclaiming at the Charlie Brown Christmas program rehearsal that her lips had been touched by dog lips. But it was close.

"I can't believe you're drinking out of that straw! I already flipped it and drank out of it!"

"Oh, well."

"You don't get it. I'm pretty sure you are the reason for the bubonic plague."

"Yeah, that's me. Typhoid #1."

I'm pretty sure none of this would matter if we lived in Laos, like I saw on a Travel Channel show this morning, The Road Less Traveled. Because there, women lived on one side of the village, and men on the other, and 15-year-old boys built themselves love shacks where they invited girls to spend the night, and chickens and ducks and dogs and pigs and water buffalo and cows roamed the village while waiting to be taken closer to civilization and sold. And I'm pretty sure not for pets. But the most shocking thing for the host, Tony Wheeler, was that the animals were running around all together! Which is what we call, in Hillmomba, a farm.

I have a feeling that nobody there would care very much about sharing a straw in a Diet Coke.

McCoys, We've Got A Problem

I'm not one for startin' feuds. Okay. We all know that I am. But those are personal feuds at work with folks who touch my stuff or even TAKE it and pretend it's their own swag. Normally, I leave the neighbors alone. I'M not the one who has been shot at twice in one week. However...a new feud is brewin' on the horizon.

This morning I woke to the sound of chicken panic and scuffling claws on the back porch. Not uncommon. The dogs have their food pans on the opposite wall of my bedroom. If they don't finish their meal, the chickens peck at the dry dog food. Sometimes, the dogs catch them in the act. And don't see eye-to-eye with the snacking chickens. I drifted off to sleep again. Summer vacation is THE BOMB!

The Pony woke me shortly after 7:00. "Get up. Grandma is going to be here." He's spending the night. So he wanted to get everything packed and ready so he could run out the door the minute he saw her in the driveway. She agreed to pick him up because it gave her somewhere to drive her truck, and keep its battery charged. Just on more service The Pony offers. I stayed in bed a few more minutes. I could hear that the Great Canine-Fowl Disagreement of '12 had moved to the front yard. Squawking and barking instead of the usual crowing competition of the six roosters.

When I opened the living room shades, I saw our three mutts sitting under my lilac bush, watching the neighbors' dog chase our entire chicken flock! It was a monumental task, but this dog is young and spry and strong. She darted willy-nilly, feathers flying, as smaller fowl factions broke away from the main group. Of course I yanked open the front door and screamed, "GET OUT OF HERE, DOG! GO HOME! GET OUT! LEAVE THOSE CHICKENS ALONE!"

Because a simple, "BAD DOG! GET!" would not have been as satisfying.

That dog looked at me, all smooth-muscled, short-black-furred, white-faced-and-underbellied, red-collared, and smirking...then trotted off across the road, past the blanketed horses, and home. Good thing. Because I re-entered the Mansion to search for a gun. Funny how I couldn't find one, what with Farmer H's well-stocked arsenal. I don't know where he keeps them. Don't wanna know. The only ones in plain sight are the three "bad guns" in the wooden gun case under the basement stairs. They're "bad" because they're cheap. Nothing to write home about. The decoys that Farmer H wants thieves to steal instead of searching out his metal gun cabinet and industrial safe with all the good stuff.

I had no intention of getting a real gun. It's not like I was after that crazy man who threatened to shoot Farmer H. No, I was looking for my childhood BB gun. The one that one of the four boys broke somewhere along my life, that Farmer H has put away for safekeeping until he gets it repaired. Yeah. Maybe that's why we don't have horses. He would always be closing the barn door after they left.

My mom interrupted my weapon search by driving her truck down the driveway to the menacing barks and spirited charge of our own fleabags. If only they had applied such ardor to the canine intruder, I would not need firearm protection.

After The Pony left, the #1 son rose and shone, informing me that the pellet pistol was in the living room closet, not the front door closet. I am not very practiced with it. Last I heard, Farmer H was shooting #1 with it, asking how much it hurt. I am going to have that implement of distraction ready Wednesday morning.

I don't want to kill that dog. Only hurt it enough to make it think twice about chasing our chickens. Farmer H suggested birdshot. I think pellets or BBs are good enough. Just to sting, not break the skin. You may think that's cruel, but I'm sure the chickens think it's cruel when dog teeth sink into their backs. That's nature for you. Two motivators. Hunger and pain. I doubt that McCoy Hound is hungry, because many a morning she beats the chickens to their Ol' Roy snack on the back porch. I don't begrudge her that trespass. I'm sure our own dogs eat other dogs' food on their morning rounds. And if they are observed chasing other people's fowl, lock and load. Hillmomba justice.

This is the first time I've caught the McCoy Hound chasing our chickens. I aim to make it the last.

More on the Hillbillies and McCoys Feud as it develops.

Every Mare's Crazy 'Bout A Sharp Dressed Horse

There is an ongoing situation in Hillmomba that has plagued me for the past month. A mystery. A horse of another color.

Shortly after school let out for the summer, I sat alone in my Mansion, both boys off at summer school, and observed an eerie sight out my front window. The movement caught my eye first. It was something across the road in my neighbor's field. Something ghostly. Ethereal. It flowed. Not knowing that area as a hotbed of the supernatural, I sat up. I put on my glasses. And saw this:

At the time, he was walking back and forth by the fence. He's placid here. Feeding from his giant round hay bale that looks like a supersized Frosted Mini Wheat after an overnight bout of snow flurries. But there's no snow now. It was 99 freakin' degrees yesterday. And temperatures this month have hovered in the upper eighties and low nineties. So why is Seabiscuit wearing a sheet? What's the dealio? His equine buddy is also gussied up, all turned out, rockin' the blanket look. I don't see it in the photo, but they've been wearing masks, too. Like, full-face masks. A closed-in halter or sorts.

Yeah. They're not thoroughbreds just off the track. Not keeping warm in the paddock lest they catch a chill. It's summertime in mid-Missouri! Are they trying to make weight for a wrestling match? No silver rubber suits in their sizes? Trimming down for some upcoming nuptials not their own? Costumed as jousting contestants in the Middle Ages? WHO puts their horses in blankets and leaves them like that for thirty days?

The only solution that comes to mind is that their suits are intended to aid them in repelling insects. Horseflies, maybe, so they don't have to stand head-to-tail and swat each other in the face all day. Or perhaps their fabric armor keeps mosquitoes off of their warm, blood-filled bodies and protects them from a horrible equine blood-borne disease.

I don't get it? Any clues?

It's Hot Enough For Me. Really.

We seem to be in the midst of the dog days of June. With the temperature forecast to hit 99 degrees today, I could not bear to make my weekly provision-gathering expedition to The Devil's Playground. I suspect it is hotter than a sauna in H-E-doublehockeysticks in there.

The Pony and Farmer H have sought respite in the belly of Poolio. The dogs are holed up in dusty depressions under the vehicles, panting like a woman who has just finished a marathon and is now in the throes of childbirth. I have gone underground, to the cool confines of my basement lair. The chickens seem not to feel the heat. They are scratching and pecking in the woods, and did not hesitate one iota to run out into the bright sun for a treat of stale bread around noon. The goats seem to thrive in these conditions. They have plenty of shade, even though they've eaten the limbs and leaves off all the trees to a height they could reach from their hind legs. They enjoyed a snack of Granny Smith apples. Of course, they enjoy just about anything they can chew, be it thorny rosebushes or car seat upholstery.

Farmer H may be delirious from the heat. He volunteered to BBQ our supper. Nothing a man likes better on a 99-degree day than to sit beside a metal grill full of glowing charcoal.

I have been waiting since mid-February for this heat wave to break.

The Sandman Works In Mysterious Ways

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is saving the world one dream at a time.

Last night, Morpheus bade me to save Lindsay Lohan. It was a dream job I couldn't refuse. Thank the Gummi Mary, Mrs. HM is Dr. Drew, Dr. Phil, and Dr. Bob Hartley all rolled into one. Which is handy for explaining her rotund appearance.

As luck would have it, I found my patient climbing into a hyperbaric sleep chamber on the parking lot of the old 7-Eleven. Just as that lid was closing, like a tanning bed, or an Alien movie cryopod, a handsome young dude appeared and palmed something off into LiLo's palm. I caught them in the act. Mrs. HM ain't no slouch in the celebrity-saving department. I commanded Handsome Dude to hit the road, and scolded LiLo. "Don't you know that people DIE from that?" She appeared to have regained her acting skills, because she nodded ashamedly, and clamped the lid of her chamber shut.

I flew off in the direction of my bank to do more important things in the dream world. When I returned three hours later, LiLo was just emerging from her pod like a butterfly from her chrysalis. She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. We ran around town for a whole day, BFFs, and then my dream job was over. "See?" I told her. "You've gone twenty-four hours without drugs, and you're fine. I know you can make it." LiLo, of course, agreed. Because Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is just that good.

To complete my mission, I took LiLo home. Not with me! Are you kidding? Even in a dream, I'm not that stupid! I took her to the Playboy Mansion. That's where she was living. Of course I had to go in and wake Hef, to let him know she was safely home. He was in his pajamas. Seriously. And in bed, even. Alone. He was quite glad that I had returned LiLo. He thanked me, and sent her off to her room.

I told The Pony about this bit of insanity. And I ended it with, "She'd better not turn up on the news dead today!"

Maybe tonight, I can save Amber Portwood, the Teen Mom who chose five years in the big house rather than another stint in rehab.