Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Dark and Stormy Night


It was a dark and stormy night. No really, it was. Small farm animals were blowing across the highway as I raced madly from the Village Square coffee bar to the Hip Old Folks Chillin' Out Home. I had a blueberry smoothie for Mom. It was melting more with each passing mile. As I came flying around a curve I saw the most unexpected sight. Well, besides flying farm animals, that is.

Tail lights. Miles and miles of taillights as far as the eye could see. I pulled out my night vision binoculars, climbed up on the roof of the truck, and peered into the distance. Alas. As best I could determine, a sheep had apparently been bouncing along on gusts of wind, when it collided with a buggy, knocking the horse right out of the harness and taking its place. It looked like the horse had done a reverse 1-1/2 somersault tuck and landed on the roof of a passing RV. I believe the RV driver then panicked, hit the brakes, and skidded sideways in the highway. This caused a chain reaction collision of six silver minivans neatly crunched together, DVD monitors still glowing blue with the same Sponge Bob video. At least that's what it looked like. But the sheep had calmly trotted off, buggy in tow.

Since this was obviously taking awhile to clean up, traffic was looking for alternative routes. Some took the country road left. Others took the country road right. Me, I followed the muddy sedan in front of me down the shoulder of the highway to the country road. Or so I thought. We turned into a muddy gravel lane, only to find it leading to the little harness shop next to the country road. Too late I realized my mistake. I stopped, tried to back out, and saw another two cars directly behind me, everybody following muddy sedan guy down the wrong lane. So like a game of Lemming Madness, we wound down the rutted lane, into the gravel parking lot, circled around and went back out. A quick right, and another quick right, and we finally found ourselves actually on the country road. Yeehaw!

Many scenic miles later, (except it was dark so I saw no scenery but fences, ditches and mailboxes,) I reclaimed the highway, and found my way to Hip Old Folks Chillin' Out Home. Melted remnants of smoothie in hand, I found my Mom, we shared the smoothie and a rich but lukewarm cup of coffee. She was so grateful she gave me a piece of chocolate.

As I exited the parking lot, I was pretty sure I saw, disappearing down the hill, a round wooly form leading a buggy with a snoring old man drooling in his beard. But I may have been wrong. It was, after all, dark and stormy.


This story contains 100% facts, 5% of which are all-natural, unprocessed facts. The other 95% of the facts contain up to 99% additives, preservatives, fillers, and falsehoods.

No sheep were harmed in the writing of this story. The horse's ego however, was severely bruised. Complete recovery is expected.

4 comments:

Mikki Black said...

And who can blame the poor horse? Those sheep can be so bull-headed!

Mimi Lenox said...

Good thing it was dark!

Farm-to-Table Feasts said...

Great story, falsehoods and all. That will teach you not to play 'follow the leader.'

Julie said...

Aren't you glad your imagination didn't leave when the gray hair came?

Oh...you do have SOME now don't you?