Nobody Likes a Liar
Thought up:  5.7.02 – 1:32pm
Written: 5.17.02 – 11:28pm
#11

Today highway 287 took me from Helena, Montana to Choteau, Montana in a little over 3½ hours.  This may not seem too strange if your residence is outside of Montana, or for that matter, if you don’t know your way around Montana.  For those in Montana that do know the roads, a trip from Helena to Choteau is less than a hundred miles.  That means at very most the trip should take a little over an hour and ½ if you’re going 60.  And it’s not a bad road, there was no construction, no deer hopping about, nothing out of the ordinary on the road except for 3 inches of slush and drifting snow.  Granted, it is Montana, and some may say that it happens, some might even say they expect it, but it’s still ludicrous in my opinion.

Anywho, I was cruising along the highway at a steady 55, because it was snowing and a little wet on the road, so I was cautious through the canyon, and came out at the halfway mark, Wolf Point, in a little under forty-five minutes.  At Wolf Point is the turn to head to Choteau, and where the snow and slush crept ever closer to my car.  Not 2 miles into the drive, the snow and slush were blanketing the road making it impossible to drive even 35, let alone the limit of 60.

Now, I know how to drive on snowy/icy/crappy Montana roads fairly well, I’ve lived in Montana for almost 20 years, and I’ve learned that one can easily slip off the road going faster than the road allows.  So there I was, motoring along at 30 mph, knowing how bad these roads were and this guy comes flying up from behind me going easily 40-50 and had Oregon plates, wouldn’t you know it.  I see him in my rear view start to “attempt” to slow down for me, but instead starts to skid and swerve, and almost hit me, but regain control of the vehicle before it rolled over into me.  This made me a little nervous so I slowed down to like 5 mph to let this jerk pass me, which he did gladly, and as I attempted to speed back up to my hyper-speed of 30 mph, my tires decided to hit a patch of slush and start hydroplaning.

This isn’t very much fun on the highway, I spun around in a circle and ended up in the other lane.  I quickly backed up, adrenaline pumping, and got back into my own lane, and continued on my merry way.  “Damn May winter weather in Montana,” I thought.  My thoughts continued, what would have happened if there was an 18-wheeler in the other lane, hurling toward me?  I would have taken quite a lickin’ I’d say from him, and he would have thought that it was because of my poor driving that ruined his semi, when in actuality, it was that damn foreigner from Oregon that made me slow down in the first place.

My contemplation continued a step further.  What if I were lying in the ditch with a steering wheel stuck in my chest, and the truck driver got knocked out as well, and we were the only ones for miles in either direction?  He’d probably be ok because those semi-trucks are pretty tough, but me, I’d be in some trouble.  I’d have to lie there until help arrived.  At the mercy of a steering wheel that wouldn’t let go its grasp of my ribcage.

What would flash through my mind I pondered.  Would I think of the times I’d spent in college in Walla Walla?  Would I think of my family and friends?  Or the white-sand beaches I touched in the South Pacific?  People say that so many things rush through your head in the time before death, but what would rush through MY head?  I mean AFTER the windshield…  I think that I would probably be thinking,

“Gee, I wish that stupid guy from Oregon would learn how to drive, and then I’d probably realize that there was a steering wheel in my chest, and I was wearing a windshield collar.  “Gee, I wish this steering wheel would get out of my guts.”

And then I’d struggle to get out of the car, but by the time I decided to struggle, I’d remember that I have to have my entire life flash in front of me if I’m going to “move on.”  So I’d sit and wonder what might have been with so many things, and what is going to be.  But by that time, somebody would hopefully have found me and gotten me out with the Jaws of Life, or a crowbar or something.

The next day in the paper it would have read, Dumb Helena man in gruesome car wreck because he’s a bad driver!  The subhead would read, Mock, ridicule, and tease him if you get a chance to!  He is a terrible man!  And I would have been the bad driving guy for the rest of eternity, the laughing stock of the country, and I’d have been labeled as the worst driver in America, unbeknownst to that Oregonian who probably wouldn’t even have know there was an accident behind him.

I’d probably tell people that there was this crazy man that passed me from Oregon, and they’d just look at me and nod their heads, and really think deep down that I’m just making it up to sound good, and make Oregonians seem evil.  But really, I guess there could be worse fates.  (See next chapter.)  So perhaps if I were in that situation, I think I’d just blame it on someone that everyone hates alike, and say,

Me: “Yea, it was terrible, I was drugged by terrorists in Wolf Point,” and the cops would say,

Cop: “Mister, Wolf Point?  Are you kidding us?  Nobody lives in Wolf Point except for cattle and some real nice folks; terrorists don’t even know where Wolf Point is.  We did a study on it last month.”  I’d have to think quickly and probably say something like,

Me:  “Who asked you cops anyway, you’re probably terrorists too, I have rights you know!”  And they’d say,
Cop:  ”Listen buddy, you’re the one telling us.  We didn’t ask you anything.”  I’d say,

Me:  “Oh, yea, you’ve got a good point, anyway then, back to my story, I mean truth…  …  so they stuck me back in my car, and my feet were tied with barbed-wire, and I was blinded, and there was a brick on the gas, and I had to steer with my teeth, and it was really hard to see when I was going 80 in the slush, I didn’t know what road to drive on of the three I saw from the drugs, and then I that semi-truck jumped out of nowhere!”

Cop:  “Man, that’s some real tough luck kid.  What about your hands son?  Where were they during all of this?”

Me:  “Um, they must have cut off my arms completely officer!  Yea, they did!  It was horrible!”

Cop:  “Son, your arms are right there, attached to your shoulders where they’ve always been.”

Me:  “Oh!  Praise God!  They’re back!  They must have fallen back on to my shoulder joints when I hit the semi!  My mistake sirs…”  “The nod” would surely follow.

I’d conclude to myself that at least this way they wouldn’t accuse me of being a liar that hates Oregonians, because some people might like Oregonians, and I’m fairly sure, most people don’t care for terrorists, but boy, I’ll tell you, nobody likes liars…

Tropical Heist
Thought up:  5.6.02 – 7:23pm
Written: 5.13.02 – 5:27pm
#10

A couple weeks ago my friend went to the Virgin Islands for his brother’s wedding.  He had a late night partying one evening, and, being the gentleman that he is, told a young lady that he’d walk her back to her hotel room.  He dropped her off at her room about 3 in the morning and proceeded to walk back to his place.  It was about that time, some  locals decided to do their “work.”  They jumped out and grabbed him with masks on and pointed guns at him and demanded his money.  He doesn’t carry his wallet around all the time, and this was one of those times, so he said he didn’t have it.  They searched him and agreed.

Then decided that they would all go to his hotel room and get what he had there…  Now, I don’t understand this part exactly, but apparently they all got up to his room.  He gave them the 100 dollars he had, and the 25 that his little brother had in his wallet.  The men concluded by telling my friend and his little bro that if they told anyone, they would be killed because the masked men “knew where they were staying.”

Although it is a sad and possibly traumatic story that took place in a beautiful place to a good man, it still makes a guy think…  Not that I don’t trust my friend; why would someone lie about something like this, but…  How did these men get up to his hotel room I wonder?  It’s not like three men can just walk into a hotel with masks on, and have guns to a guy, and just cruise through the lobby.  Unless you did it like they do in the movies where 3 scary locals are walking through a hotel which they obviously aren’t staying in with a white person, who is obviously a tourist, and walk up to his room unsuspected.  Perhaps they do this a lot, and know the receptionist at the counter…

Jimbo:  “Hello Betsy, nice to see you tonight!”
Betsy:  “Why hello Jimbo, I haven’t seen you in a while.  Work hasn’t been so good to you lately?”
Jimbo:  “No, since the recent downfall of the American economy, we’ve kinda been on tough times robbing tourists.”
Betsy:  “I can see that happening Jimbo.  Well have a good night, and hey, nice new mask!  It really accentuate your eyes.”

Not too likely, but I guess it’s as likely as 3 locals coming into a nice hotel with a gun to a white guy, going up to his room, coming back down with guns by their sides and calmly walking out the front door.
I just wish there were some way my friend could have thwarted these criminals that wouldn’t have put his life at risk.  I rolled a few ideas back and forth in my head for a while, and came up with this idea for him:   As soon as these guys jumped out and stuck guns on you, act REALLY drunk.  Stumbling around, and slobbering all over yourself pronouncing,

    “Oh, thank God you cops are here, I have NO idea where I’m at or how to get home!  Praise the Lord for you guys!”

And then fall on the ground, pretend to pass out, and, even if they frisked you, they wouldn’t get anything, because you have no money.  And even better, I’m certain that they wouldn’t kill you, because you wouldn’t have given them a reason to shoot you.  You’re just a drunkard that has lost your way.  But if they did get smart with you, and said,

 “Oh yea, we’re the cops son, just tell us your hotel and room number, and we’ll take you right there.”

Then maybe you’d be in trouble.  Are they really undercover cops on a sting operation or are they really dastardly robbing professionals?  I guess that’s a risk you’ll have to take if you’re going to play the slobbering-drunk-guy-act-when-getting-robbed-in-a-tropical-island-paradise-routine…

A Hotdog Stand in an Avalanche
Thought up:  5.3.02 – 1:40pm
Written: 5.12.02 – 5:20pm
#9

I’ve had a lot thinking time in my travels around the state of Montana this year, and I’ve come up with a few astute observations of the animalia in the Kingdom of Peculiarity.  I know exactly where to hunt, and, coincidentally, where the best food is for all the state’s animals.  15,000 miles worth of travel in 4 months around this area has confirmed my observational analysis that the best food is on the highway, or at least right near it.  As the highway is the most dangerous place to eat, only the most courageous deer will dine there.

A driver can easily examine this strange behavior of these “dare devils” by simply driving from Anywhere to Someplace in Montana.  Who are these “dare devils”, and why are they so “daring and devilish”?  It is fairly evident that animals, deer for example, grow from the ground at around 6:00 a.m., and wreak havoc on drivers for the better part of the next 20 hours.  Some animals even seem to sleep by the roadside, evidently to eat the grass first thing in the morning.

Granted, they sleep in strange positions, with their necks cranked all the way around, and legs broken, and bleeding profusely from all over.  And they attempt to disguise themselves, I think, by paying ravens and other scavengers to “pretend” to chomp away at them to distract would-be hunters.  If you ask me, they’re just asking for it sleeping there!  Any car could accidentally swerve and hit one of them!  Then who would pay those ravens for all their hard work?  The whole scam is a bit asinine if you ask me!  It must be like having a hotdog stand in an avalanche.  It’s not a great idea as far as safety, but, on the other hand, who doesn’t like a nice hotdog…

It seems that deer like to eat the grass by the roads most of all, they stick close by it at all times.  They wouldn’t want to actually go back in the woods where it’s peaceful and quiet and no 1-ton iron horses are hurling forward on spheres of rubber towards them.  That makes no sense to them I guess.  In order of brainlessness deer are only defeated by the brainless…  …deer.  Yes, they’ve taken up the top 2 places on my list because they seem to really enjoy living life’s adventures.

Perhaps the deer by the road are the real rebels of the deer community.  Maybe, just maybe, the deer that hang out there are like the “extreme sports deer” that live life on the edge, not knowing what the next day will bring.  They are looking death, or an 18-wheeler’s grill, in the face each day.  Or maybe deer are kind of like fish.  Fish work as splendid bait for catching other fish.  Perchance deer enjoy some nice cannibalism every once in a while, as a delicacy or something.   I can just imagine it…

Bartholomew the deer:  “Hey Hector, where should we dine this evening?”

Hector the deer:  “ Oh I know this great little spot down by the big black patch of asphalt in the forest with a dotted yellow line in the middle of it that has some really “exhausty” tasting grass with a lot of gravel mixed in with it.  It has a distinct taste of deer guts and blood.”

Bartholomew:  My, that sounds like a splendid little treat if I do say so myself!  Let’s get going!”

It’s really shocking to believe that these animals aren’t all extinct yet.  There must be about eleventy-billion of them killed each day.  Apparently they haven’t used the 100+ years of deer evolution, since the automobile was invented, to know that they shouldn’t eat near these areas.

But let’s not forget the always-brainy gophers that come in third on the list of brainlessness.  I use the term “always-brainy” because I don’t think gophers have a short-term memory.  They always seem to forget what they have just done and then their brain has to work once again to re-reason, hence, “always-brainy.”  These rascally rodents will bolt across the road not even knowing what’s on the other side for the most part.  I think that they believe once they get to the other side, there’ll be a 5-gallon drum of popcorn seeds waiting for them.  But once they get to that mystical “other side” they realize there isn’t anything over here.  But then, again believe that there must be a 5-gallon drum of popcorn seeds waiting for them on the other side of the road.  (Repeat these last 3 sentences as many times as necessary to realize what it is like to live as a gopher.)

Next on the list of brainiacs of the animal world are cats.  People may say that they are far smarter than dogs because dogs just jump around with their tongues hanging out and chase anything their masters throw, roll over for treats, and roll in their buddy’s turds, but you don’t see many dogs lying with their guts sun-tanning in the road.  Cats just don’t get it, and therefore, receive the #4 stupid rating.

Rounding out the top five on the list are skunks.  Who really knows what skunks eat.  I sure as hell don’t.  Possibly they just eat other skunks, because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a skunk eat anything.  And if they eat each other, that would explain their lovely scents.  Think about it - have you ever seen a skunk eat anything?  We usually just see them on TV spraying something with their smelly goodness.  Boy, maybe they just get a bad rap.  In my mind, I suppose I could picture a skunk gnawing on a dead deer, which would explain why they take the #5 spot, but I guess I can also see them eating grass, or a rock, or a hammer even.  Who knows!  Is there a skunkologist around that could help me out?

All of these animals are very high on the list of animals with no brains.  If animals are judged for smartness by their dead presence on Montana highways, then baboons, rhinos, and sharks are the winners.  I almost never see them on the roadside…

Frolicking 4 Leggers
Thought up:  5.4.02 – 8:41am
Written: 5.11.02 – 12:13am
#8

Animals sure do love to frolic.  It seems that every animal I’ve ever noticed likes to bound about without a care in the world.  I guess most of them don’t really have any cares in the world though.  Maybe they have to decide to eat this grass or that grass, and sleep on this patch of grass or that one, but that’s about it.  I’ve noticed, however, there are a few that obviously don’t enjoy frolicking around.

1.)    Cows.
2.)    Pigs.
3.)    Alligators.

Have you ever seen a cow frolic?  Even a little bit?  True, you’ve seen the calves romp around here and there - but full-grown cattle?  I think not.  Never has a pig jumped in the air for joy (except in Charlotte’s Web, but that doesn’t count).  And alligators, well, nobody has ever claimed an alligator to be a frolicker.  But alligators couldn’t frolic anyway, they have Tyrannosaurus Rex arms and legs, so they’re disabled animals (frolickly challeged is the politically correct term) I’d say.  So they don’t count.  But I got to thinking why cows and pigs don’t frolic, except when they are younger, and just for a short time.  Granted they do get bigger and fatter, but I’m sure there are plenty of fat people that still like to frolic.  If I were a larger man, I would frolic to the park, and other such places where frolickers are welcome.  But really now, let’s examine this.  Why don’t cows and pigs frolic?

Well, in all my research* on this I’ve come up with a few ideas that I’ve narrowed down.  Cows and pigs must both have their own language first of all.  And, as with any mammal, they have to grow up a little to understand this language.  Human babies can’t talk until like 1 or 2 years.  I imagine it is the same in the cow and pig world.  It’d only seem logical…  Anyway, when cows and pigs are born, they jump around here and there, and play with the other animal babies that are around the farm, and they have a good time.  But they can’t talk to each other, so they really don’t know what’s going on.

Until one day the calves learn their language, and the piglets theirs.  Before you know it, they’re too old for each other, and they just go about their lives, right?  I beg to differ!  I think that when cattle learn to talk to the other cattle, the older cows start saying to the younger ones, “Quit your damn frolicking!  That’s a way to an early death sonny!  No cattle farmer wants a skinny cow that frolics all over the place!  It’s a waste of his money to keep a skinny cow around, so he’s going to kill you if you keep that crap up!  Besides, we’re stuck inside this fence for the most part anyway*, and there is all of this delicious grass everywhere, why waste your time romping and bounding about?  We only have 2-4 years at best that we’re going to be on this farm before Farmer Joe hits us in the head with that damn sledgehammer.  (I don’t know if they call it a sledgehammer, the cattle term for it might be different like “Moo Mooooooo Moo” loosely translated as “Ouchy Head Smasher”.

Furthermore, I guess that none of these words are the ones that the cattle use either, so maybe using the word sledgehammer is ok, because I don’t speak cow, and I’m sure none of you do either…)  So we might as well make the best of it, and eat all his hay and grass and show him who’s the boss, by eating everything he gives us!”
By this time the baby calves realize, “Hey, those older cows must know something, and maybe they do have a point.  Maybe I should quit this frolicking.”
At about 5 or 6 months, you don’t see anymore frolicking, just getting fat, and playing right into Farmer Joe’s hand - that crafty Joe.  The pigs deal with the situation the same way, but I’m sure it’s in pig language, because who has ever heard of a pig speaking cow language?  That’s just preposterous…

* - research not really conducted, but one time I did see a cow.
*- See story Cattle Guard.

Reminiscing Scents
Thought up:  5.4.02 – 10:15am
Written: 5.10.02 – 3:15am
#7

When I was 17, I had my first girlfriend.  We spent most days together, just even sitting around and watching T.V. sometimes.  Not really having an idea of where we were going, or what we were going to do.  I met her in the summer of ’96 and I knew that she was going to leave in August because her mother was marrying a nice guy from Caldwell, Idaho.   The thing I remembered the most about her was the smell of her hair, I can’t describe it, but I would remember if I smelled it again.  Anyway, every time I’d pass someone that used that scent, I’d say, “Hey, I remember that smell.”

Well, when I graduated high school, I made a few visits to her house during the year because it wasn’t that far from Walla Walla, WA, to Caldwell, ID.  It was only 200 miles, and I had myself an ‘86 Dodge Aries.  It wasn’t a gem to look at, but it got me from point A to point B each time I asked it to.  It was reliable, until my sister drove it into a tree a few years later (totally beside the point, but I still think I got stuck when she got a new car out of it, and I was left with nothing).  But while it was in its prime, I made that trip a good handful of times.

About 15 miles out of Caldwell, Idaho, it really starts to smell like horse and cow feces.  I’d usually get there around 6 pm, right when it was starting to get ripe.  At first I didn’t mind it.  It would permeate around her house, and in her house, through the air conditioner and in the outhouse (ok, there was no outhouse, but I bet if she did have one it would smell).  I got used to it.

So every trip I’d know that I was close when I could smell that sweet aroma.  I got to thinking one day, I don’t really remember her for the shampoo.  I remember her for the smell of cow poop.  Maybe that poop was trying to tell me something – warning me of what was to come.  If only I’d have listened to that poop.  But I didn’t.  Maybe it’s that “love is blind”, but I think mostly I didn’t listen to it because hey, everyone knows that poop usually can’t talk…