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R. Linda:
It seems living in a small rural town in New Hampshire would elicit nothing but peace and serenity. Not so, I can tell you almost firsthand. It all started with me neighbours. The house they live in is small, like me own, and with the washout of the road over a year ago, and what with sharing the main house's drive and mail delivery, the McGrath's (me neighbours) decided to look locally for a place more remote where there was no community drive, self-mail service, etc., just peace and privacy and no waving neighbours, no sorting through mail for what is yours and what is someone else's. I can understand that being a semi-professional hermit meself.
But unlike me, who does look forward to trudging through the woods to the main house, meeting up with me neighbours and getting not only me mail, but the local gossip to take back to the wife, Mr. McGrath would rather trudge out of to his own mailbox, drive up his own driveway and not be bothered with the small talk from neighbours.
So last week, the McGrath's found a home just over the hill from us on a cul-de-sac. It is back from the street, no neighbour's can be seen for the trees and it has it's own mailbox! Yes, it does. Delighted to find the house is in their price range, these poor beset upon people made an appointment with the local Realtor who just happens to live behind me and shares all the fine amenities of sharing the main house driveway and mail delivery. Now this neighbour you will remember me telling you is the infamous flasher, Lois. The very same one that likes to flash me as I mow up by our property boundaries and who goes au-natural on her own riding mower and has a few times waved at me in such a state, as I lay in me hammock, getting me so upset -- I go tipping over with me iced tea and all to the hard sod below. This she has done to me on more occasions than I care to count.
All right now, we have the players in this drama set up for you. Last Monday I had me day off, Tonya was at work and the Airport had gone off to play school and I had the day to do absolutely nothing. I be out in me hammock, sipping me iced tea, reading The New Yorker Magazine, when me peace is shattered by the sirens of police, fire and rescue vehicles somewhere nearby. This goes on for quite sometime and I begin wondering what on earth be going on and where. Until, I get a phone call from Lois the naked Realtor. She asks me to please go to her house and feed her cat and would I leave him inside as well? She tells me she is with the McGrath's on the hillside and that there has been an accident of sorts with chemicals and until they are decontaminated they cannot return to their homes. That is all she has time to tell me, she has to go.
I be woozy from the information or lack of. I looked at me phone and mumbled to meself, "What on earth?" Well, naturally me mobile phone isn't going to tell me what be going on, so I put me magazine and drink down, and take meself up to her house to find her cat, get it inside and feed it.
She told me the house was unlocked (we never lock doors here) and so it was. I got the cat food where she said it would be and a glass bowl. I stood by the open window chopping the food in the bowl and out of the woods running for FOOD, glorious FOOD is this 300 pound grey tiger cat. How it could run and support that overweight body is a mystery, but there it was. I opened wide the screen door and in it came face immediately in bowl, and out I went closing the door behind me. So that was done. I be halfway down the path when me old neighbour meets me and tells me there is a bit of excitement on the hill behind us.
He tells me he heard on his police scanner radio (yes, he be one of those) that the house for sale on Orchard Top has a bad acid spill. There are drums of the stuff in the garage and while the son of the house was moving the stuff he got an acid burn and the stuff vapourised into what looked like smoke, causing the neighbour on the other side to see this white cloud drifting over her way, to call 911. The police arrived he said, to one person injured and chemical vapour all over the place. Six people in the house he says, all have to be decontaminated in a white tent they are currently setting up on the front lawn.
Oh my, I think. Three of the six people I think I know. Anyway, the reason the old man was looking for yours truly was to tell me to stay inside and close me windows. Did I know if Lois and the McGrath's were home because we need to make sure they close theirs as well. I told him that all of them were probably at the chemical spill. He wasted no time getting up to the McGraths as I went back to Lois's and did the window and door bit. Then I rushed to me own home as he rushed to his and did the window and door thing. I rang up Tonya and told her what was going on and to ring me first because there was talk (according to me old neighbour) of evacuating the entire neighbourhood and it wasn't safe to come home with the little Airport.
Was not a moment I hadn't hung up the police were at me door telling me to get out of there, the wind was pushing the chemicals me way. I saved them the trouble of knocking on Lois and the McGrath's doors as I well knew where they were. I got in me car and drove off behind me old neighbours. I went to the local Dunkin' Donuts and sat there for an hour and half munching doughnuts and sipping coffee. I figured an hour and a half was long enough, so I drove back to me street, but it was blocked off.
The policewoman asked me who I was, and than told me it wasn't safe to come home. I asked her politely when it might be safe and she gave me a number to ring. I pulled me car back down the road and pulled over. I rang the number and got some kind of poison control person who told me to ring back at three. This all started around 9:30 a.m. I was forced to leave at 11:00 a.m. and now I was to cool me heels until 3:00 p.m. I went to the general store down the road and walked into hear an old lady with a walker regaling the people inside about the total destructive house fire up on Orchard Top. They were all in a tizzy over this misinformation. To make matters worse, she kept saying, "I know for certain."
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, everyone was getting panicky, so I regaled them with the truth. The woman with the walker was very put out at me for making a fool and liar out of her, but couldn't be helped. What it did for me was clear out the line for soft drinks and crisps, or as in one case, feet up on the pickle barrel taking a wee bit of a catnap.
I got meself a drink and went back and pulled me car in line back by me street, and cleaned out me glove box for want of something to do. Me wife rang me several times and finally I gave her the number because I be knackered of ringing the poison control office to get the now irritated with me person on the other end telling me to sit tight.
I pulled out finally and took a wee bit of a ride to a local bakery. Whatho! I get to the place and there be a car sticking through the middle where someone lost control and drove through the place. There were more fire, rescue and police! I be doomed methinks. I pull over, flash me press credentials and ask the local policeman what has happened? Can I still go inside? He tells me a teenager was trying to pass another car when a red pick up coming the other way forced him off the road and into the bakery. No one is hurt he tells me, but no, he doesn't think I can go inside because he is fairly certain there be no business being had.
I rode around for hours, and finally at 5:00 p.m. I ring up poison control who tell me I still cannot go home. However, me wife rings me fifteen minutes later telling me she is at our abode and where in God's little acre am I? Well, this be great news. I drive on back and there are hazmat vehicles and lots more fire engines from three other towns and I be wondering how Tonya and the Airport made it home. I pull up and the policewoman tells me I can go on in it is safe, and she waves me off like a pesky mosquito.
So later I find out that Lois and the McGrath's, the woman and son who own the house, and the neighbour who reported the fire in the first place, are all made to strip down in the front yard (in the tent) and then hosed down. They are given jump-suits and carted off to hospital to be examined. You do know how embarrassing that must have been? Disrobing in front of strangers while other strangers watched and then being hosed down on top of it all. I would think everyone would be sufficiently humiliated, everyone that is, but Lois, who be used to the au-natural state in front of everyone and anyone.
I don't have to tell you the McGarth's are no longer looking for a house. I haven't seen hide nor hair of them since. Lois is busy talking it up about her bizarre house showing and the chemicals have been cleared up from the house (seems the ex-husband was a machinist and stored cleaning chems in the garage), the lad is fine, minor burn, but hey the open house went on without anyone showing up (I wonder why), and the price has been reduced. Hum.
Oh and the police are still looking for the red pickup with the Massachusetts license plates that forced the carload of teenagers into the bakery. I don't know about that one, no witnesses, no sign of pick up. Hum again.
Gabe
Copyright © 2008 All rights reserved
R. Linda:
It seems living in a small rural town in New Hampshire would elicit nothing but peace and serenity. Not so, I can tell you almost firsthand. It all started with me neighbours. The house they live in is small, like me own, and with the washout of the road over a year ago, and what with sharing the main house's drive and mail delivery, the McGrath's (me neighbours) decided to look locally for a place more remote where there was no community drive, self-mail service, etc., just peace and privacy and no waving neighbours, no sorting through mail for what is yours and what is someone else's. I can understand that being a semi-professional hermit meself.
But unlike me, who does look forward to trudging through the woods to the main house, meeting up with me neighbours and getting not only me mail, but the local gossip to take back to the wife, Mr. McGrath would rather trudge out of to his own mailbox, drive up his own driveway and not be bothered with the small talk from neighbours.
So last week, the McGrath's found a home just over the hill from us on a cul-de-sac. It is back from the street, no neighbour's can be seen for the trees and it has it's own mailbox! Yes, it does. Delighted to find the house is in their price range, these poor beset upon people made an appointment with the local Realtor who just happens to live behind me and shares all the fine amenities of sharing the main house driveway and mail delivery. Now this neighbour you will remember me telling you is the infamous flasher, Lois. The very same one that likes to flash me as I mow up by our property boundaries and who goes au-natural on her own riding mower and has a few times waved at me in such a state, as I lay in me hammock, getting me so upset -- I go tipping over with me iced tea and all to the hard sod below. This she has done to me on more occasions than I care to count.
All right now, we have the players in this drama set up for you. Last Monday I had me day off, Tonya was at work and the Airport had gone off to play school and I had the day to do absolutely nothing. I be out in me hammock, sipping me iced tea, reading The New Yorker Magazine, when me peace is shattered by the sirens of police, fire and rescue vehicles somewhere nearby. This goes on for quite sometime and I begin wondering what on earth be going on and where. Until, I get a phone call from Lois the naked Realtor. She asks me to please go to her house and feed her cat and would I leave him inside as well? She tells me she is with the McGrath's on the hillside and that there has been an accident of sorts with chemicals and until they are decontaminated they cannot return to their homes. That is all she has time to tell me, she has to go.
I be woozy from the information or lack of. I looked at me phone and mumbled to meself, "What on earth?" Well, naturally me mobile phone isn't going to tell me what be going on, so I put me magazine and drink down, and take meself up to her house to find her cat, get it inside and feed it.
She told me the house was unlocked (we never lock doors here) and so it was. I got the cat food where she said it would be and a glass bowl. I stood by the open window chopping the food in the bowl and out of the woods running for FOOD, glorious FOOD is this 300 pound grey tiger cat. How it could run and support that overweight body is a mystery, but there it was. I opened wide the screen door and in it came face immediately in bowl, and out I went closing the door behind me. So that was done. I be halfway down the path when me old neighbour meets me and tells me there is a bit of excitement on the hill behind us.
He tells me he heard on his police scanner radio (yes, he be one of those) that the house for sale on Orchard Top has a bad acid spill. There are drums of the stuff in the garage and while the son of the house was moving the stuff he got an acid burn and the stuff vapourised into what looked like smoke, causing the neighbour on the other side to see this white cloud drifting over her way, to call 911. The police arrived he said, to one person injured and chemical vapour all over the place. Six people in the house he says, all have to be decontaminated in a white tent they are currently setting up on the front lawn.
Oh my, I think. Three of the six people I think I know. Anyway, the reason the old man was looking for yours truly was to tell me to stay inside and close me windows. Did I know if Lois and the McGrath's were home because we need to make sure they close theirs as well. I told him that all of them were probably at the chemical spill. He wasted no time getting up to the McGraths as I went back to Lois's and did the window and door bit. Then I rushed to me own home as he rushed to his and did the window and door thing. I rang up Tonya and told her what was going on and to ring me first because there was talk (according to me old neighbour) of evacuating the entire neighbourhood and it wasn't safe to come home with the little Airport.
Was not a moment I hadn't hung up the police were at me door telling me to get out of there, the wind was pushing the chemicals me way. I saved them the trouble of knocking on Lois and the McGrath's doors as I well knew where they were. I got in me car and drove off behind me old neighbours. I went to the local Dunkin' Donuts and sat there for an hour and half munching doughnuts and sipping coffee. I figured an hour and a half was long enough, so I drove back to me street, but it was blocked off.
The policewoman asked me who I was, and than told me it wasn't safe to come home. I asked her politely when it might be safe and she gave me a number to ring. I pulled me car back down the road and pulled over. I rang the number and got some kind of poison control person who told me to ring back at three. This all started around 9:30 a.m. I was forced to leave at 11:00 a.m. and now I was to cool me heels until 3:00 p.m. I went to the general store down the road and walked into hear an old lady with a walker regaling the people inside about the total destructive house fire up on Orchard Top. They were all in a tizzy over this misinformation. To make matters worse, she kept saying, "I know for certain."
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, everyone was getting panicky, so I regaled them with the truth. The woman with the walker was very put out at me for making a fool and liar out of her, but couldn't be helped. What it did for me was clear out the line for soft drinks and crisps, or as in one case, feet up on the pickle barrel taking a wee bit of a catnap.
I got meself a drink and went back and pulled me car in line back by me street, and cleaned out me glove box for want of something to do. Me wife rang me several times and finally I gave her the number because I be knackered of ringing the poison control office to get the now irritated with me person on the other end telling me to sit tight.
I pulled out finally and took a wee bit of a ride to a local bakery. Whatho! I get to the place and there be a car sticking through the middle where someone lost control and drove through the place. There were more fire, rescue and police! I be doomed methinks. I pull over, flash me press credentials and ask the local policeman what has happened? Can I still go inside? He tells me a teenager was trying to pass another car when a red pick up coming the other way forced him off the road and into the bakery. No one is hurt he tells me, but no, he doesn't think I can go inside because he is fairly certain there be no business being had.
I rode around for hours, and finally at 5:00 p.m. I ring up poison control who tell me I still cannot go home. However, me wife rings me fifteen minutes later telling me she is at our abode and where in God's little acre am I? Well, this be great news. I drive on back and there are hazmat vehicles and lots more fire engines from three other towns and I be wondering how Tonya and the Airport made it home. I pull up and the policewoman tells me I can go on in it is safe, and she waves me off like a pesky mosquito.
So later I find out that Lois and the McGrath's, the woman and son who own the house, and the neighbour who reported the fire in the first place, are all made to strip down in the front yard (in the tent) and then hosed down. They are given jump-suits and carted off to hospital to be examined. You do know how embarrassing that must have been? Disrobing in front of strangers while other strangers watched and then being hosed down on top of it all. I would think everyone would be sufficiently humiliated, everyone that is, but Lois, who be used to the au-natural state in front of everyone and anyone.
I don't have to tell you the McGarth's are no longer looking for a house. I haven't seen hide nor hair of them since. Lois is busy talking it up about her bizarre house showing and the chemicals have been cleared up from the house (seems the ex-husband was a machinist and stored cleaning chems in the garage), the lad is fine, minor burn, but hey the open house went on without anyone showing up (I wonder why), and the price has been reduced. Hum.
Oh and the police are still looking for the red pickup with the Massachusetts license plates that forced the carload of teenagers into the bakery. I don't know about that one, no witnesses, no sign of pick up. Hum again.
Gabe
Copyright © 2008 All rights reserved
