A Sight That Could Have Traumatized Helen Keller

Are you sitting down? Do you have the smelling salts nearby? The tale today is not for the faint of heart, nor those of weak constitution. A pregnant woman with a heart condition and severe agoraphobia exacerbated by acrophobia would fare better on a dangle-legged roller coaster than an unsuspecting reader clicking onto this post. You have been warned.

I don't know what time you'll be reading. But if you're wiping the lobster butter from your chin, or nom-nomming a bowl of Edy's Grand Slow-Churned Double Fudge Brownie, or sitting down to a Cronut you waited in line four hours for...push away from the table. In fact, a mini-fast is in order, until your gorge will no longer have the urge to rise.

The sight I saw one evening last week has quite possibly scared me out of a year's girth. Hard-telling WHAT future effect it may have on The Pony's tender psyche.

Let the record show that every evening, Farmer H comes home from work, passes through the kitchen of the Mansion, sometimes grunts a greeting/sometimes doesn't, and heads out the front door to feed his animals and tinker with one of his current projects. Not that there's anything wrong with that. He could be telling me he was going to his basement workshop, turn on the table saw, and walk up the street to a neighborhood bar for several hours. Not that he ever exhibited such behavior with his previous wife, of course...

Anyhoo...after a couple hours of doing dude stuff, Farmer H returns to the Mansion to slip into something more comfortable. That being his once-silky SpongeBob once-bright-blue boxers. He tromps down the stairs, through the basement, through the workshop, and out the back door to Poolio. There's no rhyme nor reason to his wardrobe. He has two pair of perfectly good swim trunks that fit him fine. He chooses not to use them unless he's going to a Holiday Inn Express. The Pony and I know his habits. He'll stay out there about an hour, then come inside, tromp back upstairs, and find his supper on the stove.

One evening last week, The Pony drove himself to town to have a sit-down supper at a local Chinese restaurant. Not the one I prefer with the delicious hot & sour soup, but the one next to the old Sonic, where a couple of former Newmentia cronies refuse to eat, having made a deal with a higher power one autumn evening that if they were allowed to live, they would never eat food from that establishment again. Which is how half the faculty ended up with Chinese takeout on parent conference night, and the other half with Mexican cuisine.

I was in no hurry to prepare supper for Farmer H. It wouldn't be eaten until after his workweek routine, so whether it was merely cold or later cold didn't matter much. Farmer H came in while I was cooking, donned his swimwear, and headed down the steps. When the future meal was underway, I went out on the porch to give Puppy Jack and Juno their supper. Farmer H was in Poolio, and hollered up to the porch how the water was perfect. So cool on that 97-degree day. The day he'd spent in the oil pit at work, where there is no air conditioning.

I had to watch my sweet, sweet Juno lest she growl at Jack and take over his food pan lovingly stand too close to Jack while he was eating. I talked to Farmer H over my shoulder. About how Jack really needed that swimming pool Farmer H had promised to make for him out of a cut-off blue plastic barrel. I turned to head back inside when Jack was done and rummaging his tiny nose around the not-eaten dry dogfood in Juno's pan.

Then it happened. I caught a glimpse of Farmer H bobbing around in Poolio. He eschews the normal blow-up see-though cheap rafts from The Dollar Store, and chooses to bend two pool noodles to sit on. The two hollow back ends curve up behind Farmer H's back, and he holds onto the two front ends like they're controls to that stand-up loader thingy that Sigourney Weaver drove on the loading dock in Aliens. Or, if you haven't seen that classic, like he's an elephant holding onto his own tusks.

It was then that I became aware that tusks were not the only thing Farmer H had in common with an elephant.

THE HORROR!

FARMER H APPEARED TO HAVE HIS OWN TRUNK!

Except that an elephant would have been embarrassed to have such a trunk, and would have perished, due to being unable to use that stunted appendage to grasp food, suck up water to squirt into its mouth for drinking, or spray its own back to cool off.

Farmer H had taken off his once-silky SpongeBob once-bright-blue boxers, and was bobbing around Poolio au naturel, sporting three noodles, only two of which had come from The Dollar Store.

I averted my gaze and castigated Farmer H for his uncouthiness.

"I can't believe you're swimming like that!"

"I take off my boxers so they don't get wet. Ain't nothin' wrong with that."

Let the record show that this IS the man who bundles up his work uniforms from the floor of the walk-in bathroom closet every Sunday evening, and walks them out to his car (parked under the carport, mind you, not inside the garage) while wearing only his tighty-whities. Let the record further show that the walk from house to car is in full view of the road. And that if a vehicle would happen to drive by, Farmer H would most likely wave to them.

The Pony arrived home shortly after I had returned to my dark basement lair. I had no intention of serving him up a scoop of my unwanted eye candy. Sometimes, one must suffer in silence to protect the innocent. Later, as The Pony reclined on the couch, and I reclined in my recliner, we heard a doggy commotion on the front porch. We heard Farmer H come out of the bedroom, and saw his ankles as he stumped across the living room to flip on the porch light and step outside.

"I hope he's wearing clothes."

"I KNOW! I saw him in the pool when I came back from supper!"

Poor Pony. He slapped the heel of his hand to his forehead, and began rocking gently to sooth himself. Much like he did a few minutes ago when I asked him what night it was that he went to town for Chinese last week. A date which he seems to have forgotten.

Unlike the unforgettable sight from the back porch, around the kitchen nook, where Farmer H floated in Poolio, sporting three noodles, only two of which came from The Dollar Store.