Try As I Might, I Could Not Stomach The Pony's Skin

We don't let anything go to waste around the Mansion. Paper towels used for drying after hand-washing can be used again later, after they dry. Okay. I'm the only one who does that. Farmer H and The Pony don't wash their hands in the kitchen sink. That I know of...

Uneaten food (HAR HAR HAR!), that rare commodity, is set aside for the dogs' treats. Plastic lids off assorted canisters such as potato sticks, or canned nut lids, are used as Hillbilly coasters (which are in turn, though not authorized by the management of this Mansion, used to collect clipped toenails).

So... it should come as no surprise that on Sunday evening, The Pony offered Mrs. HM his skin.

"I don't want it. I don't have any use for it. I'm going to have my bath. Do YOU want my skin?"

"Sure. Leave it in the kitchen. I'll take it down with my supper."

Well. My supper was quite filling. Crispy, beer-battered fish (the frozen kind, of course, I didn't build a boat from the oaks in the back yard, borrow Farmer H's trailer without authorization, launch myself into the river, reel in my catch, brew up some beer for battering, and fry them myself), and a baked potato. Once finished, I gazed sadly (longingly!) at The Pony's skin, right there at my left elbow, in front of New Delly in my now-lit basement lair. Looks like the dogs will feast on The Pony's skin.

I'm pretty sure the dogs will eat it. The Pony's skin is well-buttered. And look at all the meaty bits left clinging. This was a giant baker meant to go with the tiny scrap of Lowe's Parking Lot Filet Mignon that Farmer H bought a while back. Three of which are in the freezer. Yet he's been dragging his feet to grill them. So I figured we should at least use up the potatoes.

We hate to let anything go to waste around here.

If It's All The Same To You, I Actually Prefer To Shower Alone

No, I'm not heading toward a shower reveal to rival Psycho. No stabby music links for you. But you MAY feel my horror. 

I said HORROR. Not that w-h word that a fifth grade student misheard from my fifth-best old ex-teaching buddy, Jim, when he announced on the first day of school back in 1984 that if students didn't turn in their homework, he would be a holy horror. In fact, that young lass inquired at her very own dinner table that night, in her very own home, to her very own parents, one of whom was a school board member, "Can a man be a wh*re? Because my teacher said he would turn into one if we don't do our homework."

Not that I wouldn't let you feel my w-h word if I had one. Because if I did, he/she would be already paid for. So I suppose that would not be frowned on. Though I don't know if a w-h word is paid by the hour or by the feel. But in the interest of good faith, if I subjected you to feeling my w-h word, I would pay extra if need be.

Anyhoo... last Wednesday, I slid open the front shower door to turn on the water and let it heat up. It's a very '80s shower. One little step in, as long as a bathtub (though it's not a bathtub combo, since we have the big triangle tub), with double doors of that opaque glass, with gold metal trim. Yes. Very '80s, although built in 1997.

Anyhoo... I had disrobed, felt the spray to approve the temperature, and stepped my left foot in when I SAW IT! 

I WAS NOT ALONE IN THE SHOWER!

In the back corner, to my right, stood...

DUN DUN DUNNNNN! THE TOILET PLUNGER!

Oh, the HORROR! Nobody wants to shower with a toilet plunger! Am I right? We know where those things have been! And I do not associate such a place as somewhere I would immerse my unclothed body with the purpose of getting it CLEANER!

Dang that darn Farmer H!

I'd heard a noise overhead from my lair on Tuesday evening. A pounding. A rhythmic pummeling of something. In fact, I'd asked Farmer H, when I ascended to the main level for supper preparations, if something was wrong up there. I didn't want a mystery. My mind has a tendency toward outlandish scenarios. Like perhaps he was stomping a herd of rats that had fallen out of the ceiling. Not that such a thing has ever happened, of course. Just those two little field mice in the ceiling light/fan.

Farmer H had divulged that he indeed made that commotion while he was plunging the shower drain! Oh, dear. Is that a thing? I know that hair can clog up a shower drain. Even though we have a gold-colored disc thingy with holes in it that I assumed would stop too much hair. Sweet Gummi Mary! It's not like THE PONY showers in there!

Then the added horror of it hit me. How Farmer H uses the shower as his personal bidet, eschewing toilet paper. Eww! How wrong were those last three words used together?

Anyhoo... I backed out of the shower, slid the doors the other way, and lifted the toilet plunger out of the shower.

I prefer to shower alone. 

The Feast Of September 9th

I started up our gravel road on Wednesday, having just returned from town. I had my peepers peeled for Creachers, post office security breachers, and white-Dodge overnight squatters. The Pony had told me to text him when I got to Mailbox Row, so he could be waiting on the porch to help carry in groceries. You know what happens when Mrs. HM plans. The Universe drags out a Rubbermaid tote from under its bed, rips off the lid, and starts chucking monkey wrenches at the well-oiled gears of Mrs. HM's system.

A quick survey of my surroundings revealed no intruders. I was planning to pull off on the Creach, in the little alcove where some stolen mail had been flung about like extra-large confetti after opening. There I would send The Pony's text. But a red sedan was behind me, so I kept driving. No time to signal and pull over at the last minute.

That car turned off at the first gravel road on the left, so I  knew I could text while driving as soon as I ascended Farmer H and Buddy's Badly Blacktopped Hill. I glanced in T-Hoe's mirror, and saw 

A BROWN UPS TRUCK RIGHT ON MY BUMPER!

Where in the Not-Heaven had THAT vehicle come from? I was scarcely 100 feet from where the red sedan had turned. NOTHING was behind me. Nothing was coming down HOS Hill when I made my left turn for the BB Hill. It was as if that UPS TRUCK had appeared out of nowhere!

Huh. There'd be no texting The Pony now. Not with a vehicle so close behind me. I must admit, I was just a smidge TEED OFF! These UPS TRUCKs drive way too fast out here. Faster than the trash trucks! Don't underestimate Mrs. Hillbilly Mom! I had a scheme up my short cotton sleeve!

The weather had been very hot and dry for that past 3-4 days. The gravel road is at its peak summertime parchedness. Clouds of dust billow in an ever-expanding cloud at even 10 mph. I got T-Hoe to the top of the BB Hill, and goosed him up to 20 mph. 

It was GLORIOUS! The UPS TRUCK disappeared almost immediately. I'm sure it was still there, right on T-Hoe's bumper, but I could no longer see it. Just a mile-high dust tower that was spreading like gases from the bottom of a rocket upon launch.

Yes, I chortled with glee. UPS TRUCKs, you know, don't have a door. Nothing to keep out the heat, giant horseflies, fetid odors such as roadkill skunk, or... oh... I don't know... CLOUDS OF DUST!

I'm sure you've heard the expression: "Eat my dust!"

I fed that UPS TRUCK a feast the likes of which it will never taste again.

The Pony And Mrs. HM Speak The Same Language

The Committee to Enforce the Truth In Blogging Law has sent me an email demanding that I let the record show that I had a positive experience at Dairy Queen the day before the Dreamcatcher Nightmare.

Yes, on the day that The Pony took himself to Steak N Shake, and was not there to witness my good fortune, Dairy Queen bestowed upon me the BEST CHICKEN STRIPS OF ALL TIME!

Well, again with the TRUTH part... they were STILL chicken strips from Dairy Queen. So keep that in perspective. They have a lot of the crunchy coating, and not a lot of meat inside. But for DQ strips, they were great!

Sometimes I'll get a measly strip, and a big strip. Like a crab that has a tiny claw and a giant claw. This time, I had two chicken strips so large that they were hanging over the ends of the little cardboard serving box! Like the head and legs of that much-returned adoptable kid in the baby basket left on a succession of doorsteps in the movie Problem Child.

Yes, I had a bumper crop of chicken strips from DQ that day! Large, with meat inside the coating! One of the pieces was more than a strip. It had a rounded end that defied description. Unless you're a former valedictorian, as is your son.

When The Pony got home, I raved about my very special chicken strips.

"You should have seen them, Pony! They were HUGE! And one of them was shaped like a COMMA!"

Dreamcatcher Nightmare

Sweet Gummi Mary! I waited in line 12 minutes on Wednesday at Dairy Queen. I like to go there to pick up lunch, you know. Two chicken strips with honey mustard sauce, and three giant pretzel sticks with queso sauce, all for the low, low price of $4.33. It's a great complement to a 44 oz Diet Coke!

Anyhoo... Dairy Queen is usually very busy. Like 10 or 12 cars in line busy. But Wednesday, there was only ONE CAR AHEAD OF ME! Nobody was even waiting at the window. Just a single car, at the drive-thru ordering speaker. I nosed T-Hoe up to its bumper, and waited my turn. And WAITED!

Normally, the DQ people are speedy. I can judge my time in line by 2 minutes per car. Believe you me, I've had plenty of chances to count ahead and watch the clock. Sometimes they're even quicker, unless those carloads of Chicken Strip Basket people show up.

Anyhoo... it must have taken that car 5 minutes to order! I don't know if they were asking someone to read the full menu to them, or what. I wish I had taken a picture, but I kept thinking any minute they would pull forward. Once they did, I had my food ordered in 10 seconds. I'm a pro. And a regular.

So slow was the progress of this SINGLE CAR ahead of me that I had time to memorize the details in case they were actually committing a crime. It was a gray Buick LeSabre. Uh huh. A big cruiser. And OPC (Old People Car). Old ladies out on the town. The driver had glasses and frizzy red-tinted dyed hair. The passenger had gray hair in a perm favored by old ladies who go to the beauty shop once a week. (I hope she wore a mask!) The back seat passenger had straight, soft-looking strawberry blonde hair.

WAIT A MINUTE! That back seat passenger never moved! As I crept closer, I saw that it was not a back seat passenger at all, but a stuffed dog (hopefully not real!) curled up as if asleep, on the back dashboard of the gray Buick LeSabre!

What in the NOT-HEAVEN! Maybe I should wear my glasses while driving...

Anyhoo... I guess these ladies had asked for separate tickets. Because while paying, two sets of cash, and two sets of returned money and receipts exchanged hands, courtesy of the hands coming out the window of the LeSabre and the window of Dairy Queen.

The gray-permed passenger kept waving cheerily. I suppose she knew people working inside, though I hesitate to assume she was a regular. She would have known what she was getting, and been faster! It looked like they each got a shake. And then waited and waited some more. FINALLY, the DQ window hands held out two identical bags. They looked exactly like my soon-to-be handed chicken strip and pretzel bag!

One key detail I don't want to forget was the DREAMCATCHER hanging from the rearview mirror of the gray Buick LeSaber.

Jack Soup!

Remember when Jack ate a solar sidewalk light, a couple weeks ago, on my not-so-secret blog?

It appears that he has an enabler. The Pony made the discovery, and the enabler is Farmer H. The Pony parks at the end of the carport. Sweet Gummi Mary! You don't think Farmer H would actually make room for The Pony's Nissan Rogue UNDER the carport, do you? Not-Heaven, no! It's only big enough for SilverRedO, and the Gator, and room to get both of them in and out. You snooze, you lose around here! Go off to college for four years? Don't expect a parking space when you come home!

Anyhoo... The Pony was walking by the ugly, paint-starved, supposed-to-be-white picket fence, and passed the cauldron that Farmer H set there as part of his landscaping display. I think it's pretty near that ugly flat rock.

Anyhoo... The Pony looked in, and saw...

Something a-brewin' in Farmer H's cauldron! It wasn't eye of newt and toe of frog!

It was parts of TWO solar sidewalk lights! Farmer H said he caught Jack eating them, and took them away, and dropped them in "his pot" to keep from running over them with the lawnmower. You know, so he wouldn't break it, and have to run out in secret and buy a new lawnmower without telling me, and just have me find out when I saw him riding it a week later.

That's Farmer H's story. But somehow, I imagine him standing over it under a full moon...

Quibble, quibble, saliva dribble
Ate my lights, now no more kibble
Swim in fish pond, like a lake
Quit my lights, for pity's sake
Eye of newt and toe of frog
Can't you be a normal dog
Missing fork and wood-bee's sting
Won't you learn that I'M the king
For once, you mutt, stay out of trouble
Not-Heaven's broth, boil and bubble

I'm pretty sure Farmer H is up to no-good. I'm hoping he hasn't added Jack to his pretty-sure-trying-to-kill list.

The Pony Grooms Himself, And NOT With A Currycomb

Farmer H is morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably, not only merely, but really most sincerely... THE PONY'S SIRE.

Monday, I sat on the short couch, keeping The Pony company while he scratched a (losing) Crossword lottery ticket. The TV was on Man vs Food, and I was waiting to see who would win at the end. This time it was FOOD, with Man unable to consume a 5.5 pound taco.

Anyhoo... I glanced from the TV to see The Pony fiddling with something at his ear.

"WHAT are you doing?"

"Cleaning my ear."

"With WHAT?"

I couldn't tell, because I was looking at The Pony's profile, against the backdrop of the sunny front yard.

"This!"

The Pony held out a spirally length of white material. It made me think of an unraveled Q-Tip.

"What IS that?"

"The wrapper from my soda straw yesterday when you brought me lunch from Dairy Queen."

"Ooh! ICK! Stop that! I'm surprised you aren't flossing between your toes with it!"

"I can..."

The Pony made a move to do just that!

"NO! Stop it! I'm going to be sick! Make sure you throw that away, and don't leave it for ANOTHER day laying on that coffee table!"

"Here!"

The Pony folded it into a tiny ball, and made as if to throw it at me.

The Pony doesn't fall far from The Farmer...he of the clipped toenails left in the berry-scented candle on the mantel of the fake fireplace.