A Close Call

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is still planning to write y'all that poem. Really. If she survives long enough.

This morning I ventured out bright and early to pick up a package at the post office. I had the #2 son in tow, what with HH and the #1 being gone to a car show in the Pimpmobile, sometimes called the copper-colored 1980 Olds Toronado. But a trip to the post office is never as simple as it sounds for Mrs. Hillbilly Mom.

We first had to stop at Hardees for a large serving of grease for the boy. The only way I could get him up without whining was to promise him a sausage biscuit. He said, "I hope the hash rounds don't taste like they're cooked in old grease." Quite a grease connoisseur, My Little Pony.

Next, we stopped by Casey's for gas and PowerBall tickets. You woulda thought there was a sale on gas, as busy as that place was. Silly people. It was about 6 cents cheaper out by my mom's house, but then, I wasn't driving all the way there today. I parked and pumped and left the Pony in the car while I walked in to pay. The grouch behind the counter looked like she wanted to serial kill me and My Little Pony, too. I walked back past the first line of pumps. A small red SUV had whipped into the line right next to my pump. I was turning left to go around the back of it when the driver gassed it in reverse, cut the wheel to the left, and nearly crushed my toes with his right front tire. I was taken aback. Actually, I jumped back. He would have hit me. Especially if I was a faster walker, and was behind him when he did it. Or a slower jumper, and hadn't moved back two feet. He had neither looked left nor right nor said "BOO" to the ghost of Hillbilly Mom. His Jebediah-looking, Fred Ziffel-bearded passenger just looked at me like, "What ya gonna do?" and shook his head in apology. I'm callin' meth-heads on the both of 'em. Anyhoo, it would have been tragic for My Little Pony to see his mama run down by a truck like his dad did to his dog Cubby.

After my adrenaline shakes from my near-death experience leveled off, I turned the corner to the post office to see about 60 cars lining the streets. "Wow," I thought. "A lot of people got packages today." Then I saw a tent roof thingy set up in the little park across from the post office, and heard a band playing. Some kind of fall festival shindig, I suppose. Again, I left the Pony in the car. Shhh...that might just be against the law here in Missouri, but he IS 9 years old, and I lock him in, and I was only going to be gone for a minute. Or so I thought. I entered the post office, and remembered why I always send the #1 son in to get stuff. That place stinks. Like in REEKS of something very similar to dead mouse. You'd think they would notice that and do something about it. I had to wait a good long time breathing that mouciferous odor while a lady did what looked to be an entire week's worth of eBay shipping. I finally got my package, plus two more. I think the worker felt bad that I had to wait. That's what he said. And he threw in those two bonus packages. OK, they were really mine, all part of the same Amazon order, but I guess two came in this morning. And the worker didn't even card me. He always does when my mom tries to pick up my stuff for me. Asks her for a driver's license and all. She gets carded like that at The Devil's Playground pharmacy as well. And she doesn't even have a Fred Ziffel beard.

Speaking of The Devil's Playground...our trip there was fairly uneventful. As was the final stop at the Save-A-Lot. I didn't even buy any tainted ground beef. That's still in the freezer. I had to look up the refund address. I was going to have the #1 son throw it out to the dogs this morning. "That's THREE pounds of meat!" he said, as if he's the one who paid for it. Then I thought better of it, because maybe it would make the dogs sick as well, even though they are well-known carrion-eaters, which probably harbors E. coli as well, but I think I'll let HH toss it on his bonfire and be done with it. Of course, I will have to caution HH not to nibble at it. For some reason, the image of Homer Simpson lovingly cradling that sub sandwich after picking it out of the garbage can comes to mind.

Not only is my life a Seinfeld episode, it's also a Simpsons episode.