Cathy in the Wright

What You Can Get Away With in the Country

Oh boy. I was in a fantastic mood just now. I was all set to rip off a great post, and I logged in to discover about 15 spam comments. I hate that. So now I'm feeling surly. I have to figure out how to ban the IP 209.208.9.254 because that's the joker who sent it all. I just dare this Internet remora to come out here and advertise directly to my face. My father-in-law would take care of him. Like he almost took care of the meter reader yesterday.

Background: My father-in-law loves birds; hates squirrels. When the latter scale his bird feeder, the FIL tries to discourage them by shooting them with his BB gun from the deck of his house. It's not unusual to find him out there in the mornings, still in his bathrobe, coffee cooling on the railing, and him trying his best to embed steel pellets into squirrel heinie.

Our meter reader, who is the most gentle-looking, benign character that ever carried a pen and clipboard...was out yesterday recording our vast consumption of electricity. With his little ear flaps buttoned up on the sides of his Elmer Fudd hunting cap and his large-framed glasses giving him an added touch of innocence, he walked carefully across my driveway (avoiding ants), took the numbers off my meter, and turned back towards the in-law's house to mark down their figures. Mr. MeterReader walks past the end of our garage, and he caught the attention of the FIL who is out on the deck pegging squirrels at 50 paces.

Does the FIL lower the gun to see who's walking across the lawn? No. He pivots to see who's coming, and he completely forgets his BB gun is still level until he sees Mr. MR doing the "Please Don't Shoot Me" tango in place.

The FIL finally realizes what's going on and, startled, explains, "Oh gee! Sorry about that; I'm just shooting at the squirrels."

Mr. MR, after coming close to needing defib paddles applied to his chest, then asks the FIL where the extra meter is...there are two listed for his address. FIL points him in the direction of the Tin Shed, which is across the dirt road from us, but Mr. MR thinks FIL is pointing to his garage and exclaims, "You mean that yellow building right there?!" Yellow building being reached by walking directly across FIL's line of fire. I thought we were going to have to pull the paddles out again.

FIL reassures Mr. MR that he is in no danger, and MR goes on his way. I can't help but wonder if he got home that evening and told his wife, "25 years of service, Doris. 25 years. I've fended off dogs, I've climbed through rose bushes, I've been doused by sprinklers...but today was the final straw. It's just not worth getting shot. I'm retiring tomorrow."

Well, I'd write more, but it's time to go pick up The Senator from pre-school. I'll post more later if Wright-Hennepin co-op doesn't come and yank their electric lines in response to my father-in-law threatening one of their agents.

Posted by Cathy at November 5, 2003 01:57 PM