On Fire for You

“What’s this?” The Captain tossed his hat and coat by the door and picked up a folded pink paper from the table.

“It’s Valentine’s Day. Cupid left it for you.”

“What’s that smell?” He wrinkled his nose.

“Maybe Cupid was having a bad day.”

“It smells like gasoline.”

“Well if Cupid didn’t have to pump her own gas, it might smell like meatloaf.”

“We’re having meatloaf? Did you put the little heart made out of catsup on the top?”

“We don’t have any catsup. I was going to the store when I ran out of gas. At the gas station the note fell out of my pocket and blew under a pickup truck. When I bent down to get it back, I spilled gas on it.”

“I’m sorry you had a bad day. Why don’t we go out?”

“Because we’re having meatloaf. It’s your favorite.”

“But we don’t have any catsup. What did you put on top?”

“Strawberry jelly.”

“Oh.”

“That’s all we had that was red.”

“Maybe I should read the note.”

“Well, I was kind of annoyed by the time I finished it.”

“I see.” He tossed the note in a bowl on the table and touched it with the lighter we keep handy for starting the grill.

Hungry flames and the smell of burning gas flared and then receded.

He grinned. “Hottest love note I ever got. Let’s go eat.”

“Can we take your car?”

“Okay,” he put his arm around me and grinned as he guided me toward the door.

“But we’ll have to stop for gas.”

Pole Position

I understand that a Las Vegas strip club hauled around a load of strippers dancing on a pole in the back of a pick-up truck as an advertisement for their business. I’m from the Southern United States where the major crop is orange construction cones and the state speed limit is “SLOW--MEN WORKING.” It’s hard for me to imagine anything but an ice cream truck, the roto-rooter man, or a wheat farmer on a combine harvester making a profit at these speeds.

I don’t know exactly what these folks were advertising, but the only business with a pole around here is Charlie’s Barber Shop and mostly it’s the pole that goes round and round and not the employees, unless Shirlene is trying to even up Tiny Jones’s crew cut again. Carting around a bunch of girls in the back of truck is something we do for the Christmas parade and generally they keep their uniforms on and shake their pom poms.

Other than that usually it’s a hound dog or an Almost Labrador in the back of the truck and they’re mostly advertising that you’d be better off not trying to take anything from the truck. Some people think the deer rifle in the back window is the most dangerous automotive accessory, but I know a Chihuahua that will go Cujo on anybody that gets near enough to touch his stuffed lambie toy.

I’ve never been to Las Vegas and I don’t think I want to go. If there are as many one-armed bandits there as I’ve heard, they’re liable to get into it with all those pick-up girls and it would be impossible to have any luck at the slots. I'll stay down here and risk lambing time with Cujo.

Camping's Out

Several years ago, Bill and I agreed to take our two boys on a camping trip. The boys, who owned more electronic equipment by the age of two than I have in my entire life, felt that they had been rudely neglected and possibly abused because they had never been camping. They’ve never skinned a chicken either, but that’s beside the point.
“And don’t argue the whole way.”
Bill and I exchanged a knowing look. “Okay,” we agreed. The last time they caught us in a discussion of escalating proportions, they locked us in the bathroom together overnight.
Early one summer morning, we arose in peace and harmony, swallowed our body weight in coffee, threw ourselves into the car and drove in silence and numbed goodwill for several minutes.
“Hand me the map,” my husband said, extending one open hand while juggling his travel mug, aspirin bottle, and steering wheel in the other.
“Map?” I asked, eyeing him quizzically.
“You didn’t pack a map?”
“If I wanted to pack something I couldn’t read, I would have just brought along War and Peace in the original Russian.”
He looked at me as if I had just suggested lining the bed of his truck with dotted swiss, jammed his foot down on the brake, and squealed into a gas station.
“Never mind. I’ll be right back.”
“Mom, is this an argument?” A puffy face blinked sleepily at me over the back seat. His mouth was ringed with chocolate milk and PopTart crumbs, and his hair looked like a weeping willow in a windstorm.
“Of course not, sweetheart. Pop just needs a map to find difficult locations like Asia or our mailbox.”
The boys exchanged knowing looks. “It’s a fight.”
Coffee in hand and map accordianed across the dashboard, we resumed our trip. “How much farther?” he asked, guiding the car steadily around a mountain curve. Some people just can’t be taught. I consulted the map and lifted my gaze.
“According to this, about a quarter of an inch.”
“Never mind,” he answered steadily, his knuckles whitening on the steering wheel. “Where do we go at the junction?”
“The Shady Rest Hotel?”
Snarling, he lunged abruptly for the map, drowning any final shreds of civility in a flood of hot coffee.
“Don’t overreact,” I said soothingly, blotting up caffeine with the Northeast section of Macon County. “I was kidding.”
My husband regarded me with the same intense stare I’ve observed on the faces of cheetahs watching sickly gazelle stragglers on Wild Kingdom. If he had one, I would swear I could see his tail twitching.
“Look,” I purred, wringing out the map. This chocolate drip is the campground. That potato chip grease is where we are now. All we have to do is follow this dotted line across those squiggles and we’re there!”
I don’t understand how some people can live with themselves the way they speak to other people who are trying to help.
“How was I supposed to know those squiggles were the Blue Ridge Mountains?”
“As long as you have the entire map of the United States unfolded in the front seat, try reading the legend.”
“Okay, but you know I get sick if I read in the car.”
“One quick peek won’t hurt anything.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure.”
Later, when we finally found a service station with equipment to clean the upholstery, I heard the boys talking behind the gas pumps.
“Do you think we’ll get there alive?” one voice asked.
“I don’t know, but if we do, we’re gonna lock ‘em in the bath-house.”