So Fitting, Karma Might Seek Work as a Tailor

I don't get out much. If not for the serious addiction to 44 oz. Diet Cokes, I might never leave the old homestead during summer vacation. I could happily putter around doing laundry, making sandwiches, cleaning, reading, writing, playing with the dogs, and sleeping. OK. Let's strike "happily" from that sentence. And we probably should leave out "doing laundry," "making sandwiches," and "cleaning" as well. But I could read, write, play, and sleep with no problems.

Hick says I'm an old fuddy duddy who doesn't want to do anything. This is one area where he's right. I have never been the life of the party. Well, there were a couple of years in college...but basically, I've always been a homebody. The quiet type. You won't catch me ballroom dancing, rappelling, skydiving, or seeking my fortune at flea markets and estate sales. I'm fine right here in my dark basement lair, living in my head.

This afternoon, The Pony and I took off for town to capture the readily available 44 oz. Diet Coke. They're as plentiful as bison on the Great Plains in the early 1800s. We make this excursion every day. Down the humpity bumpity gravel road, over lumps of exposed bedrock, into chasms constructed by rain run-off, across downed leaves and limbs left by squirrels and wind. I could start my own off-road-vehicle amusement park if not for the pressing time constraints of my proposed handbasket factory.

Yesterday, midway between the neighbors' old barn and the first overflowing creek obstacle, I heard a noise from T-Hoe's right flank. The Pony heard it, too. I thought that perhaps a branch had snapped against the side, or a big chunk of rock was flung up to thump the undercarriage. We continued. Today, at the exact same place, we heard the exact same noise. Not quite a snap. Not quite a thump. Something in between. And a few yards down the hill, we heard it again. In the same place on T-Hoe's body.

As we careened down and up through the messy, unpaved pig-trail that takes us to the blacktop county road, I started to worry that T-Hoe might grow lame. That perhaps he had a flat tire, or had broken some part of his suspension. It seemed like he was not proceeding as smoothly as normal. You know how it is. You drive the same car every day, and you can feel when something is different.

We stopped for the mail, but I did not command The Pony to walk around and check for damage. That's because I had to park that side in a foot-deep puddle the size of a master bedroom, because the county neglected to replace a culvert pipe when they destroyed our road putting in a new bridge a couple of years back. On to town we went. When returning to T-Hoe with my 44 oz. Diet Coke in hand, I spotted the problem. Or so I thought.

Hanging down from the undercarriage in the middle of the front passenger door was a wire. I'm not very mechanical, but I knew that wire did not belong. I looked closer. It was NOT something caught in the door that I had been dragging along, like a tie-string from a hoodie. It was dark gray, and kind of flat, and had some frayed, lighter-color brushy things, like copper wires, sticking out the end, just about an inch off the pavement. This was something I was definitely going to have to notify Hick about. T-Hoe's whole electrical system might short out. Or maybe I would electrocute us if I ran over the wrong thing.

I climbed in and told The Pony to go take a look. "There's a wire hanging down on the other side, up front under the door. That must be the noise we heard. We ripped something loose going down the hill." The Pony was none to happy to be commanded out of his limo-passenger seat behind me to inspect the vehicle. But he did. Because he's a good son. I put the window down on that side. "Do you see it?"

"Um. Yes. But it's not a wire." He leaned over. Disappeared from my view. I heard a "snap" and felt T-Hoe move slightly. The Pony brandished the culprit. "It's a stick."

Never mind. Nothing to see here. The universe agrees. Apparently, Val IS associated with a stick in the mud.