Thanks for Pointing That Out

The last bit of moving into the knob and tube palace was finished the other day and as usual, it was much more complicated than it should have been and as usual, there's a story of woe and misfortune in it.

I had rented a small storage garage in town last summer when the house was being shown for sale and filled it with things that should not be shown for sale.

No, not that! I can toss those videos in a drawer!

I filled the storage garage with some large garden tools (a scythe for starters) and a lot of rough lumber I have been saving up for special projects, like building that parallel universe I keep dreaming of. The one where things like this happen to somebody else instead of me.

It took one large pickup truck load to empty the house and fill the garage. It was a twelve mile trip but I took it slow and over level ground and weighted all the lumber down with bags of mortar and cement. I mean, I'm going to have to anchor my new universe, aren't I?

No problem. Now all I had to do was empty the garage into the same borrowed pickup and take it less than two miles to the crumbling structure behind the palace I keep my car in.

Easy right? Wrong. I'm the bunny. Nothing is ever as it seems.

The same day I decided to finish the move was the day some excavation contractor decided to move a gas pipeline. Only he didn't bother to check with the pipeline as to its wanting to be moved. It didn't and basically reacted to the accidental encounter by rupturing. This of course called out the authorities including Hazmat who shut this corner of the state down, including the main road to the storage yard.

Fortunately, there is a back way. Unfortunately, it has a hill on it. Not a long hill, but a steep one. Very steep. I am convinced that the Air Force has potential pilots drive up this hill so that they can wash out those who faint during sudden ascents.

That steep.

Now a sensible bunny would have taken the time to seek out another route.

And that would describe me not at all.

So I load up the pick up. To the brim. Weigh the whole thing down with mortar and cement and put her in gear and get a going.

Up the side of Mount Crumpett. In the truck. Did I mention its a standard? Yep. Four on the floor.

There's a mild cramp in my leg, the left one servicing the clutch, at the base of the hill. It's what passes for rush hour around here and there are five cars ahead of me, pulling up to the crest of the hill and stopping to wait for a break in the traffic on the main road that the hill ends at. The routine is simple. Wait. Guy pulls into road. Cars all pull ahead one car length. Wait. Mild cramp is getting a bit worse and I should, if I were sensible, pull over and massage it out.

And that would describe me not at all.

Two cars pull out. Two car lengths advance. Release clutch, you are now on the steepest part of the hill, advance slowly, little bit of clutch, little bit of gas, little bit of clutch.

Lot of bit of leg cramp. Shark bite pain intense as a matter of fact. The leg starts to seize, the clutch is let loose and to compensate the primal brain orders the right leg to push on the gas so the truck doesn't stall.

It doesn't. The truck now has more brains than I do. It lurches ahead and promptly rids itself of all that extra weight its been carrying by dumping the entire load of lumber out the open gate onto the road. Thankfully, the top weighted concrete bags are giving the lumber enough momentum to go flying out the back completely and not hanging off the bed in any sloppy manner.

You got a complete picture now?

Truck gets pulled onto main road and parked in breakdown lane. Angry bunny starts to shuttle spilled load from road to side of road to clear road off before other drivers get into a finger exercise contest with angry bunny. Then load gets put onto truck for the last level ground journey to home.

Ok, it all got put right and I decided to make the best of it. I'd come clean with my friends and tell them about the stupid thing I did and we'd all have a good laugh about it which, during Friday's five mile run, we did.

We were coming to a pause at the main intersection in town. The one with the traffic light and the traffic and the stores and the sidewalks with all the people on them either coming out of or going into stores or standing at the street corner waiting for the light to change.

That busy corner. We only have one in town.

Jogging in place, a car pulls up and the window rolls down. Its our running coach. Man, what luck! He's sure to commend us on our dedication to fitness.

Right.

In what can only be described as the mother of all outside voices, he says to no one other than me:

"Hey, I saw you dump your load yesterday. Man you looked angry. Funny though."

Yeah. Funny though. Everybody on this block and a couple of others now seem to think so too.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Bunny on.