Farmer H Lets An Opportunity Pass Him By

Technically, Farmer H is the one who passed by the opportunity.

There it was, beside the creek on our gravel road. Waiting for Farmer H to come along. I guess Opportunity was too lazy to drag itself another 7/8 mile to the Mansion, to knock properly. Farmer H stopped for a photo. Which he sent me by email at 7:44 a.m. It's things like that which make me leave my cell phone on the kitchen counter to charge, out of earshot.

I saw it on my way to town at 10:00. I was shocked! Not that somebody threw out trash on our gravel road. But that Farmer H had left a cooler! Surely he would have picked it up to wash and resell. Don't cost nothin'! I, myself, had no desire to touch it or investigate. I feared that the trash bag spilling out might contain a body. Or body parts.

Later, I interrogated Farmer H on his decision to let a spilled cooler lie.

"I thought you might pick it up, to sell at your Storage Unit Store."

"Nah! The wheels was gone off of it!"

"Oh. I didn't know it was a fancy cooler with wheels."

"Besides, there was deer in it. A lot of meat, actually! All spilled out. Some of it not even wrapped."

"Maybe it fell off the back of a hunter's truck, and he didn't mean to dump it."

"Yeah, it fell off all right--after somebody kicked it out."

I suppose the silver lining in this scenario is that the stench might keep people from parking down there for a week or so. And I really, really hope that's DEER.