Watching this lady make cream of broccoli soup with no liquids on the television, I was sitting in my doctor’s office waiting for my “routine follow up” visit. I’m not so sure about cream of broccoli soup without liquid either – it seemed she was smashing up a lot of stuff that created the liquid part. They have you corralled in the doctor’s office, so you have to watch what they have on the television.
There was no doubt that he was going to be impressed with my good report from the plumbing doctor, the disappearance of about 40 pounds, my new professorial beard and maybe even my snappy tweed jacket with genuine pennies for buttons that I purchased for a penny apiece. Actually, I didn’t purchase them, I simply picked the best ones out of my pocket and glued them on with a hot glue gun.
I’m proud of the tweed jacket, I have less than two dollars in it, buying it at the second hand store for a dollar and adding the penny buttons.
It looks kind of snappy.
Looking down at my left hand, you couldn’t help but notice the three equally spaced scratches or cuts on the top – my doctor was going to ask me about those for sure. I was contemplating on whether to tell him the truth about the cuts on my hand. They could easily have passed for scratches made by a bear’s or other critter’s paw, but they weren’t quite deep enough.
The truth was, it happened on Super Bowl Sunday. Folks get all hyped up, eat a lot, drink too much and enjoy the party more than the ballgame.
Yes, I got the injury on the day of the Super Bowl and yes, it was during “the game” – actually during my game – “my Super Bowl.” It was “just me against the squirrel.” I was in the attic, where I was studying how to cut a nice triangle in this roll of wire I had bought at the hardware store. This battle of Super Bowl importance against this pesky squirrel started earlier in the morning before church. The squirrel was taunting me by loudly gnawing and doing a little carpentry work. I’m not a carpenter, I’m just a mathematician, but he was up there breaking into triangular vent part in the gable of my roof.
I understood. It was cold. He wanted to get in. He probably knew I have a nice battery radio up there with a chair where a man can hide if he needs to hide. However, he was not, nor will he ever be invited to my attic oasis.
After church, I had gone to the neighborhood hardware store to seek some sort of solution. When I was studying some labels in the pesky varmint section of the store, two more fellows showed up with the same problem.
This one fellow wanted to come up with a solution, before “having to resort to euthanizing the squirrel.” It was at this point, I kind of loudly asked the fellow working on the next aisle, “Will this rat poison kill a squirrel?” I needed to be ready in the event my wire barricade didn’t keep him out.
I mumbled something about “resorting to euthanize” when I left the aisle and headed to the checkout with a roll of wire, some poison stuff and a great big rat trap that would take a few of your fingers off.
Good grief… this is America. And for right now, I can still do such things in preparing for the big game.
In cutting the triangle and rolling out the wire, I got these nice three perfectly spaced cuts on my hand.
On Super Bowl Sunday, I beat the squirrel. And if he makes it in – Lord, help him.
Back in the examination room, the nurse and I were discussing the effects of massive doses of caffeine on blood pressure. I had explained to her that earlier in the day, someone had talked me into trying this super-caffeinated coffee called “Deathwish” or something similar. She told me she preferred tea and I asked her if she liked Kool-Aid. She noted that, “That’s what they give you in jail.”
I didn’t ask her how she knew about Kool-Aid being on the menu at the jailhouse – it was none of my business. My blood pressure was perfect, my pulse was perfect.
The doctor came in, told me I was doing great, bragged on my loss of 40 pounds and wanted to know how I did it. I just told him, “I worked at it.” I didn’t tell him about finding the blue jeans I last wore at 15 years-old, and wearing them in my battle with the squirrel. That would have been bragging.
On the way out he asked about the scratches, I said I was rolling out some wire. He said, “That explains the equal distance between them.”
There wasn’t time for a story, I just thanked him and got out of there.
Somewhere though, I know there is a squirrel pitching a hissy fit in a post-game press conference trying to explain how I got the best of him.
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Cranks My Tractor
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I'm BN Heard and I like semicolons, dogs and my attic oasis.
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