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R. Linda:
In my daily day-to-day life, there is little excitement unless I be shouting not to be driven through the leaking tunnels of Boston, or am out and about with one wicked Weasil. So who would think it that I'd find meself in the middle of strange happenings. By strange happenings, I mean things that rarely happen. And usually never happens to anyone.
The day started out ordinary enough. I had taken the week off to do some chores around the old house, like rake leaves, and put down some grey sand that when it gets cold turns hard like cement. You see R. Linda, there is this old road in the back of my house that goes up into the woods. Back in the woods is nothing anymore, but once upon a time, there was a smaller abode where some hermit lived in the days of old. The years have caved in the old abode and it is now no more, but the dirt road still exists. Now next to the dirt road some ways up is me neighbour who has two Belgium draft horses. He dumps his manure on the edge of the roadway up past the old hermit digs.
Now that said, my wife has taken to walking our dog on the old road into the very deep, dark woods, where she feels safer than if she were walking down the road. There is no crime in our little village to speak of, but there are teenagers who speed down the twisty road and one recently hit a tree not far from our house. He wasn't hurt, but his car was a mess and the poor tree, well that was totalled. Therefore, me wife says the woods do her safer.
The old dirt road she and my dog wander down has got old ruts and such that make it a muddy mess. Since part of the road is on our property, we can do as we like (she found all this out you see). So she said to me to order some grey gravel which up here be grey sand, and would I be so good as to borrow the old geezer next door's tractor and smooth the road for her.
You know I did not want to, but I ordered the grey sand and asked my neighbour if I could borrow his tractor (which he had offered to me before), despite how I felt because I did not want to hear about the mud for the entire winter. I know the argument about mud freezing to hard ground, but that was lost on my wife.
So the sand arrived, I went and got the neighbour's tractor, and he told me to keep it and he'd come fetch it the next day. All day I toiled at making the roadway smooth and while I was working me fool head off, me wife was entertaining her pregnant friend from three long doors down. I came in about halfway through my work, to find the friend huffing and puffing and doing breathing exercises, and in so many words I understood she was having contractions. Well, begorrah me, I was not about to find meself being called in to deliver a baby. No, no. So I got out of there real fast and back on the tractor. I spread that sand from the back of me driveway all the way up to the manure dump I did, the nervous energy driving me.
By 4 I be finished. I come in to find the woman's husband on his way to pick her up and take her to hospital. I thought I'd dodged that bullet pretty well. My wife was all wound up after the couple left so I suggested I call Domino's for a pizza.
We have on file at Domino's, that when the delivery man comes up my driveway, he is to go to the garage entrance to deliver the pizza. For as long as we've lived here that's been the way of it. But not tonight.
Tonya wanted to watch THE POLAR EXPRESS, so I put it in the DVD player and went into the living room to listen for the pizza dude (the movie was very loud). I thought I saw the Domino's sign on top of the delivery vehicle so I went to the garage door, getting my money clip out. I walked out into the garage and there was no pizza delivery dude. I thought I had seen him, but well maybe he turned around and went back down the drive. So I walked meself down to the end of the drive and no, nothing in sight. Thinking I had lost my mind, I went back inside the house.
I wandered into the den where me wife was all settled watching the flick, when I heard knocking. Now my house has a garage door into the mud room, and there is a door on the shed side of the house, and the living room has another door, called the "coffin door" where in the olden days the coffin would be brought in that door and out that door. I have one more door in the front that no one ever uses, so with all those doors, I make everyone come to one door, which is the garage.
I went to every door but the one in the living room and I realised the knocking was coming from there. Now to get to that door from the outside, one has to go around the entire house and outbuildings and it is very dark back there. The door has never been used in the one year I have been there.
I saw a shape with a large white square and realised it was the pizza man. So I flicked on the light and sure enough. He tells me his vehicle is stuck. Stuck where I ask and he points towards the hillside up into the woods. I don't know what to say, I truly did not.
I was so gobsmacked I didn't take the pizza but followed him up into the woods a very long way, and there his car was stuck in the horse manure. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I took the pizza box from him, told him I'll get the tractor and I'll pull him out. So this I did, I left the pizza in the warmer on me car bonnet, got the chain that was wound around the back of the tractor and off I went in the big thing into the dark woods.
I managed to pull him out and he followed me down to the house. I put the tractor up, paid him, gave him the warmer back and was about to go inside when I saw him back up, back onto the old dirt road and this time head in the opposite direction toward the old dilapidated barn on the south corner of me property. I put the pizza down and went running after him to stop. The barn is an old brown colour from weathered age and you cannot see it in the dark. I was afraid he'd drive into it. I got him in time and directed him back to the driveway.
Now, R. Linda, you have seen me house, how hard is it to find the driveway I ask you? A few minutes later, I was about to head in with the now cold pizza when I saw headlamps coming up my drive. I thought the pizza dude was confused again and was back. It was my neighbour on the other side of me, Ms. Bethany Smythe who came to drop off some sewing things for Tonya. We stood there for a wee few minutes talking and as she was getting back in her car, she moaned, "Oh no."
The light inside her car revealed her back lab, pink tongue licking chops, looking for all the world very happy indeed.
"My mother baked that apple pie for me for Thanksgiving. Leroy ate my pie!"
Poor Bethany. So off she drove, and in I went with me ice cold pizza. I nearly slept through Thanksgiving afraid of what else could happen, but nothing did. It snowed 5 inches so we lit the fire, Tonya cooked and I ate. I still don't know why the pizza dude went up that road. Maybe I did too good a job laying that grey sand. In the dark, it looked kind of like asphalt. It is dark, nothing up there, no lights, but I guess I'll never know. He was too embarrassed to talk to me. I dread think if he hadn't got stuck in the manure where he'd be by now.
Gabe
Copyright © 2005 All rights reserved
R. Linda:
In my daily day-to-day life, there is little excitement unless I be shouting not to be driven through the leaking tunnels of Boston, or am out and about with one wicked Weasil. So who would think it that I'd find meself in the middle of strange happenings. By strange happenings, I mean things that rarely happen. And usually never happens to anyone.
The day started out ordinary enough. I had taken the week off to do some chores around the old house, like rake leaves, and put down some grey sand that when it gets cold turns hard like cement. You see R. Linda, there is this old road in the back of my house that goes up into the woods. Back in the woods is nothing anymore, but once upon a time, there was a smaller abode where some hermit lived in the days of old. The years have caved in the old abode and it is now no more, but the dirt road still exists. Now next to the dirt road some ways up is me neighbour who has two Belgium draft horses. He dumps his manure on the edge of the roadway up past the old hermit digs.
Now that said, my wife has taken to walking our dog on the old road into the very deep, dark woods, where she feels safer than if she were walking down the road. There is no crime in our little village to speak of, but there are teenagers who speed down the twisty road and one recently hit a tree not far from our house. He wasn't hurt, but his car was a mess and the poor tree, well that was totalled. Therefore, me wife says the woods do her safer.
The old dirt road she and my dog wander down has got old ruts and such that make it a muddy mess. Since part of the road is on our property, we can do as we like (she found all this out you see). So she said to me to order some grey gravel which up here be grey sand, and would I be so good as to borrow the old geezer next door's tractor and smooth the road for her.
You know I did not want to, but I ordered the grey sand and asked my neighbour if I could borrow his tractor (which he had offered to me before), despite how I felt because I did not want to hear about the mud for the entire winter. I know the argument about mud freezing to hard ground, but that was lost on my wife.
So the sand arrived, I went and got the neighbour's tractor, and he told me to keep it and he'd come fetch it the next day. All day I toiled at making the roadway smooth and while I was working me fool head off, me wife was entertaining her pregnant friend from three long doors down. I came in about halfway through my work, to find the friend huffing and puffing and doing breathing exercises, and in so many words I understood she was having contractions. Well, begorrah me, I was not about to find meself being called in to deliver a baby. No, no. So I got out of there real fast and back on the tractor. I spread that sand from the back of me driveway all the way up to the manure dump I did, the nervous energy driving me.
By 4 I be finished. I come in to find the woman's husband on his way to pick her up and take her to hospital. I thought I'd dodged that bullet pretty well. My wife was all wound up after the couple left so I suggested I call Domino's for a pizza.
We have on file at Domino's, that when the delivery man comes up my driveway, he is to go to the garage entrance to deliver the pizza. For as long as we've lived here that's been the way of it. But not tonight.
Tonya wanted to watch THE POLAR EXPRESS, so I put it in the DVD player and went into the living room to listen for the pizza dude (the movie was very loud). I thought I saw the Domino's sign on top of the delivery vehicle so I went to the garage door, getting my money clip out. I walked out into the garage and there was no pizza delivery dude. I thought I had seen him, but well maybe he turned around and went back down the drive. So I walked meself down to the end of the drive and no, nothing in sight. Thinking I had lost my mind, I went back inside the house.
I wandered into the den where me wife was all settled watching the flick, when I heard knocking. Now my house has a garage door into the mud room, and there is a door on the shed side of the house, and the living room has another door, called the "coffin door" where in the olden days the coffin would be brought in that door and out that door. I have one more door in the front that no one ever uses, so with all those doors, I make everyone come to one door, which is the garage.
I went to every door but the one in the living room and I realised the knocking was coming from there. Now to get to that door from the outside, one has to go around the entire house and outbuildings and it is very dark back there. The door has never been used in the one year I have been there.
I saw a shape with a large white square and realised it was the pizza man. So I flicked on the light and sure enough. He tells me his vehicle is stuck. Stuck where I ask and he points towards the hillside up into the woods. I don't know what to say, I truly did not.
I was so gobsmacked I didn't take the pizza but followed him up into the woods a very long way, and there his car was stuck in the horse manure. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I took the pizza box from him, told him I'll get the tractor and I'll pull him out. So this I did, I left the pizza in the warmer on me car bonnet, got the chain that was wound around the back of the tractor and off I went in the big thing into the dark woods.
I managed to pull him out and he followed me down to the house. I put the tractor up, paid him, gave him the warmer back and was about to go inside when I saw him back up, back onto the old dirt road and this time head in the opposite direction toward the old dilapidated barn on the south corner of me property. I put the pizza down and went running after him to stop. The barn is an old brown colour from weathered age and you cannot see it in the dark. I was afraid he'd drive into it. I got him in time and directed him back to the driveway.
Now, R. Linda, you have seen me house, how hard is it to find the driveway I ask you? A few minutes later, I was about to head in with the now cold pizza when I saw headlamps coming up my drive. I thought the pizza dude was confused again and was back. It was my neighbour on the other side of me, Ms. Bethany Smythe who came to drop off some sewing things for Tonya. We stood there for a wee few minutes talking and as she was getting back in her car, she moaned, "Oh no."
The light inside her car revealed her back lab, pink tongue licking chops, looking for all the world very happy indeed.
"My mother baked that apple pie for me for Thanksgiving. Leroy ate my pie!"
Poor Bethany. So off she drove, and in I went with me ice cold pizza. I nearly slept through Thanksgiving afraid of what else could happen, but nothing did. It snowed 5 inches so we lit the fire, Tonya cooked and I ate. I still don't know why the pizza dude went up that road. Maybe I did too good a job laying that grey sand. In the dark, it looked kind of like asphalt. It is dark, nothing up there, no lights, but I guess I'll never know. He was too embarrassed to talk to me. I dread think if he hadn't got stuck in the manure where he'd be by now.
Gabe
Copyright © 2005 All rights reserved
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