The Not-So-Great Dust Bowl of '19

Genius will be coming home for a few days over Christmas. Hick has said for months that we were going to re-do his room with a bigger bed so he'd be comfortable visiting. It's not like we force him to sleep in a blue plastic race-car bed, but something more adult would be nice. Hick didn't get around to it, though.

Good news is, Hick had three inflatable mattresses over in his storage unit stuff, in the Freight Container Garage. He aired one up, but it lost all its air overnight. When I left for town on Wednesday, he was wrestling another air mattress on top of A-Cad in the garage.

"We'll give this one a try, to see if it holds air."

When informed of the plan during a random phone call, Genius was not so sure he was on-board with the idea.

"I don't want to get bedbugs from a storage unit air mattress!"

"It's not an actual mattress! I don't think bedbugs can live for over two years in a storage unit without a source of blood to feast on. I'm sure Dad will clean it off before he brings it in the house."

Anyhoo...when I came home from town three hours later, I could see my garage door lifting as I came up the driveway. Huh. I guess Hick had been expecting me, though I hadn't called ahead. He's a real knee-saver when it comes to carrying in groceries. IF he's home.

That was curious. A vapor cloud was wafting out of the garage. My first thought was that Hick had started up A-Cad, and the exhaust was condensing in the 40-degree weather. Perhaps in another pretty-sure attempt to kill me, breathing in a garage full of car exhaust. Silly Hick! Didn't he know that opening the garage door put the kibosh on that tactic?

As I stopped on the edge of the carport, not wanting to pull T-Hoe into that swirling maelstrom, I saw the edge of a push broom. Hick was sweeping out the dirt that accumulates on the floor from rainy days when T-Hoe gets coated with mud from the mile-long drive up the gravel road.

Hick motioned me in. I did not move. No thank you. Why would I want to drive T-Hoe through dust he's already shed? Or breathe that stuff as it came in the vents? I waited. Hick swept more. The cloud was so thick, a cartoon Tasmanian Devil could have been spinning inside that dirt tornado.

Hick motioned to me again. The cloud seeped around the end of the garage, toward the fake fish pond. I drove inside. There stood Hick, leaning on his broom, near A-Cad's front bumper.

Oh. Did I mention that Hick was airing out that sleeping air mattress on A-Cad's roof? I'm pretty sure I did. I mentioned it again, right there, to Hick.

"I'll wipe it off. I'm just seeing if it holds air."

Let the record show that it did not. 24 hours later, it was flat as a pancake. Genius will need to find a new bed, and some (alleged) bedbugs will (possibly) need to find a new home.