Boyfriend lives in a tiny, tiny town. Besides the fact that it has barely over 7,000 people, I know it is a tiny town because it doesn’t have a supermarket or a Wal-Mart. Really, I suppose it’s probably the lack of Wal-Mart that makes it’s tinyness to obvious. I have been cooped up in this tiny town for the duration of Spring break, enjoying the weather and generally being a lazy slob.
Darby ran out of dog food today. I don’t feed her what boyfriend feeds his dogs, mostly because Darby has teeth so darn tiny that those big ol hunks of kibble can break her little chompers. So it was off to Wal-Mart. This is a cause for celebration, as in “Hoo-ray! We’re going out of the house!”. SO Darby and I were off.
Everything in between leaving and coming back to the house isn’t important, so I’ll chop that bit off.
I pull up, drag out 4 bags of nonsense I’ve bought (including the precious dog food) reach in my pocket for the house key and …..hold on…. nope, not there. So I set down the bags (please note, the neighbors are watching me already) and look in my purse…. hold on, it must be in the side pocket, even though I know I had it in my pocket… hold on…. well, crap. Where the hell is the key? So I go back to the car and with my stupid tramp-stamp tattoo sticking out of my pants when I bend over I dig through the car that was just cleaned out and has nothing in it….hmm….maybe it’s under the floormats…
All right people, I’m starting to get a little flummoxed. I had to have the key for goodness sakes, it’s how I locked the door to begin with.
Repeat the search again in the same order 2 times more, with the neighbor continuing to observe my (lack of) progress. “Well,” I shout across the street “I appear to have lost my key.” He asks the most important questions “Are there any open windows? Did you check the side door?” Ah Ha! The side door is always unlocked! I walk over… and there is a lock on the fence, so I can’t check out the side door. I try (in vain) to see if one of my keys fits into the lock, even though I know it won’t work.
Walk back to the front “Locked?” he asks. Now his wife is out there, watching the show too. “I”m going to see if I can hop over on the other side” I say. I only say this because I know the 7-8 foot fence has at least a foot of tree detrius piled up against it on the other side and I can probably reach the top of the fence.
I walk over and sure enough, there is all this crap up againt the fence incluing, joy of joys, a railroad tie! I stand on the railroad tie, which brings me to eye level with the fence. Hmm….this sure looks easy in the movies I think to myself. First I try hopping to see if I can’t get my belly up to the top of the fence, but Oh, crap! If I hop too high I’m going to hit my head on the eaves, which seem thisclose every time I jump. Ok, lets try swinging a leg over. I’m limber, I’m flexible, I”m five feet tall and 30 pounds overweight……. I swing my leg and get it up on to the fence. Great, now what the heck am I supposed to do?
So the leg thing didn’t work. I need to be taller. Since growing 6 inches isn’t in the cards at the moment I needed something, like a step stool. I considered walking over and asking the neighbors, but really really didn’t want to, as I hadn’t been formally introduced to both of them yet.
I look around, boyfriend has logs stacked up in the other corner of the fence and a good foot thich chunk of tree behind me. I pick it up, Oh dang, I don’t pick it up, I drag it like the hunchback of Notre Dam over and drop it on top of the railroad tie. The log wedges in the corner of the house and the fence, looking reasonable secure. Now I am tall enough to look over and have boyfriends dogs yap and growl at me while I struggle to figure out how the heck I’m going to do this.
I jump up, watching out to make sure I’m not whacked in the head by the eaves, hook my stomach over the fence and bring my right leg over and on to the support beam on the other side. Now I shift my weight so that I am under the eaves, crouched over, all my weight on one foot as I bring the other foot over, wonder is a fence can hold 145 lbs of knitter and tell his dog to stop barking at me. Finally, I have both feet on the support beam while I seriously question the integrity of his fence and look down. I’m probably 5 feet off the ground and really, really don’t know how I’m going to get off the fence with all my teeth intact (it’s a fear of mine, knocking out my teeth, don’t know why). I take 1 foot off the support beam..and then the other, thinking I am sort of support myself and gently lower myself to the ground. I was wrong. The second both feet are off the beam its “whoosh” as a leg is dragged down the fance and “thump” as I land with both feet on the ground, body stretched beyond its reach and my hands are scraped as they are forced to let go of the fence. And just like that…I’m down, with Gizmo (the dog) jumping up and down and up and down and the other dog running in giant circles as fast as she can, out of the sheer excitement of watching me attempt to break every bone in my body by pretending I’m a 15 year old boy capable of hopping fences (like that was anything like a hop).
I trudge over to the back door, becasue I know the sliding glass door is locked, praying that the side door is unlocked, because I can’t climb out of the yard adn Darby is locked in the car. I open the door, success! I just hope the door to the house is open too..Success again! I walk out in to the front yard to let the neighbor know I haven’t died in an unfortunate fence-hopping accident, grab my stuff and Darby, and go inside to nurse my wounds. The results, 1 scraped palm, 1 scraped knee, and one embarassed girl for losing the key.
I put away some of the groceries, start washing darks (cause my jeans are a total mess) and finish putting away groceries. There, at the bottom of the bag with the apples is a key. A key that fits in the front door.
Ex hated faire and all things associated with it, including the performers, such as Moonie and Broon. E seemed to have a good time, laughed when appropriate, and didn’t bitch about everyone else in the theater (although I did…the giant head in front of my chair made it hard for little ol’ me to see…and how do you tell some faire-geek to chop his jew-fro?)
autumnblossomknits 