“You know what I find odd about your species?”
“You find a lot of things odd about our species.”
“I mean really odd.”
I played along. I was taking C.W. for a ride in my new truck to let things
cool down a bit back home. Since we were in the country, he was in the shape of
a farmer, or rancher, or how he assumed one would appear: khaki shirt and
pants, and a “stockman’s hat” perched over a sunburnt face. He was
trying to develop a proper wave, since rural men each have a unique wave that identifies
them, even if their face isn’t clearly visible while driving. He had about
decided on the “two-finger flip," modified to make it slightly different from
that of a neighbor. Then he worked on a “turkey tail,” as he called it but
couldn’t decide whether to unfurl it as part of the wave or simply flash it
full blown.
Did I mention that he was getting on my nerves?
“So,” he said, flashing his “unfolding turkey-tail” wave at
a woman mowing her yard. She looked at him as though he might have been, well,
an alien or something. He turned back to me. “Want to know what I really find
odd?” He flashed a motorist who shot back a one-finger wave, and it was not a
friendly one. "Would you?"
“I think I’m fixing to,” I say in a mocking rural tone.
“You Americans have no sense of humor.”
“We what?”
“Not a smudging bit.”
“That’s a smidgen bit,” I said, “and most of us do.”
“Not around your house.”
“Are you referring to my wife?”
“I report. You decide,” he said, mocking a fake news channel
he turns on when my wife isn’t looking.
“You don’t think my wife has a sense of humor?”
“Reports are,” he said, “the last time she showed one was
the night she married you.
“You’re blaming her for the little dust-up this morning.”
“She certainly wasn’t exhibiting the quality of being filled with cheerfulness
or merriment.”
“She normally doesn’t exhibit much jollity when someone uses
her best and most expensive sewing scissors to cut tin cans for making their
artwork.”
“I was making a mobile, and I told her it would be
hilarious.”
“She didn’t think so.”
“It would have been. It was little figures of Mickey and
Minnie Mouse, Popeye and Olive, Charlie Brown and Lucy, and others. Their
little arms and legs would be coiled pieces of tin can and when the wind blew
them into one another the springs would pop free, and their limbs would wrap around
one another. It would look like they were …”
“I know what it would look like,” I said, stopping him. “And
she didn’t think it was funny.”
“Case closed … you have no sense of humor.”
“Americans have a great sense of humor,” I said. “I can
prove it to you.”
“How?” he said, flipping his fingers to a passing farmer who
returned the “modified salute” greeting.
“Ted Cruz.”
“The one John McCain called a ‘wacko bird?” he said, suppressing
a smile.
“Rand Paul.”
The smile broke through. “That toupee. The horror. The horror.”
“Michele Bachmann.”
He giggled. “Oh please, not Michele ‘Carbon dioxide is
harmless’ Bachmann.”
“Sheriff Joe Arpaio.”
He guffawed, “Prisoners in pink. You can stop now.”
“Sarah Palin.”
“Oh please,” he said. I looked over and saw tears forming.
 |
| If he had said, "Joel Osteen" I really would have had an accident. - C.W. |
He was convulsing. “Oh stop,” he said. “I can’t stand it
anymore.” Snot was coming from his nose.
“Donald Trump.”
“Oh stop. Stop,” he said. “You’ve got to stop.”
“I have more.”
“No,” he said. “I mean really stop. Stop the truck.”
I braked and pulled over. He shot from the truck toward a stand
of trees. I could see a dark stain forming in the seat of his farmer’s khakis.
He flashed the Turkey Tail at a passing pickup and
disappeared into the woods.
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