A Pound-Pound Joke

Pound, pound.
Who's there?
Hick.
Hick who?
HICK, WHO'S GOING TO GET HIS HOT DOG PRIVILEGES REVOKED IF HE DOESN'T STRAIGHTEN UP!

I'm pretty sure Hick is still trying to kill me. He's just going about it in a very subtle way. Bumbling about, like a lovable, lumbering bear, yet still just as deadly. Appearing to have unfortunate faux pas at the expense of Val's patience and good will minimal tolerance of his blood-pressure-raising antics.

Saturday morning, for instance. We all know that Val has no need to arise at the crack of before-noon. She has no pressing engagements. With a bedtime of 4:00 a.m., expecting a few hours of slumber before starting her day of doing nothing does not seem too much to ask. It's not like Hick needs a breakfast of country ham, redeye gravy, hash browns, a half-dozen eggs over easy, biscuits slathered with butter, and flapjacks with syrup. Nope. Hick knows how to find breakfast at Country Mart's deli, or a Casey's donut, before he starts selling his Storage Unit Store wares at 8:00.

I normally arise at 9:30. Hick sees this as a travesty. He stops at virtually nothing to wake me before my time. Unless, of course, I've asked him to make sure I'm up by 9:00 on Fridays, to get to the post office before the mail goes out. Then he might give me a wake-up call at 9:20 if he thinks of it.

Anyhoo... I was awake at 7:30 on Saturday morning, as Hick was getting ready, plopping on the edge of the bed and jouncing me clean off the mattress like I was a jolly good fellow in a blanket toss. That's the only place he can sit down to put on shoes and socks, you know. On the edge of the bed. All other seating areas in the house are off limits. Oh, and he can't do it with just the natural morning light seeping through the french doors on the east side of the bedroom. He has to leave the bathroom door open so the six big round lights over the sink can reflect off the carefully placed mirrored shelf on the south wall, and right into my eyeballs through the thin skin of my eyelids.

Anyhoo... I'm pretty sure I exchanged some unpleasantries with Hick as he was telling me about his plans for the day. I might have lost consciousness from my skyrocketing blood pressure, because the next thing I knew, I heard Hick flinging dry dog food into the metal pans on the back porch, as if with a jai alai scoop. I sighed contentedly, and snuggled into my pillow for two more hours of sleep.

RING RING "Call from Hick Thevictorian" RING--

I rolled out of bed and grabbed the land line before the answering machine picked up.

"Hello? Hello?"

Nothing but murmuring. Hick's voice. Chuckle. Murmuring. What in the NOT-HEAVEN? Was he butt-dialing me? That's impossible, because Hick carries his phone in a holster on his belt. Quick Draw Faux Pas. That's him.

I looked at the clock. It was 7:53 A.M.!

Lucky for Hick, he was not within earshot or quick-trial-and-error-learning-to-shoot-a-gun shot of Val and her displeasedness with him.

Later, Hick did not even have the good sense to claim ignorance, but instead stated that he had accidentally called me while talking to his buddy at the Storage Units, and said, "Oops! Now I'm going to be in trouble for calling her." Seriously. So he had known all along that he called me, but rather than saying into his phone, "Sorry, I didn't mean to do that," he just ignored my HELLOS and joked with his buddy.

But that's not all! After confessing to this while eating his supper in his La-Z-Boy, Hick got up to go to the auction, leaving me on the short couch without a remote, watching some show on PBS about patching a basement's field stone foundation in an 1860s house.

POUND POUND!

What in the NOT-HEAVEN! I hoisted myself up and hurried to the kitchen door, where I could see Hick creepily peeping through one of the three big window in the kitchen table alcove, his hands cupping his face, making sure I was rushing to his rescue. I unlocked the kitchen door.

"You're KILLING me!"

"Forgot my keys!"

Hick stumped past me to the bedroom, then came back chuckling.

"Huh. I'm killing myself! The keys were in my shirt pocket the whole time."

I'm pretty sure Hick is trying to kill ME. Not himself.