No beets, no daisies, no problem.

I am not one to exaggerate. Everybody that knows me knows two things for sure: Sher does not eat beets and she does not exaggerate. That’s why it’s important for me to tell you what my day was like without any exaggeration, added drama or literary embellishment whatsoever.

Here goes.

It was the single worst day of my entire long-legged life and that includes the time I shared an elevator with Kevin Costner…while I was wearing wrinkled sweatpants, holding a six pack of beer in one hand and a package of diapers in the other.

Because I am married and the law says I have to, I took my jacked-up-in the-back husband to the Big City early this morning so the only doctor in the state who hasn’t gotten a piece of our sweet Blue Cross action could buy himself that diamond encrusted toilet seat he’s had his eye on.

As Mr. Man cannot presently sit upright, I had a problem.

I drive a small car that does not accommodate lying down, even though sometimes I want nothing more than to lie down while I’m driving. I called my ex-wife-in-law and sent up the bat signal. She is not as thrifty as I am (read “poor”) and therefore has many lying down kinds of vehicles with leather and heated seats and miniature monkeys who massage your neck when you’re stuck in traffic. She brought me two vehicles from which to choose. I chose the one that I felt might cost me less years in debtor’s prison to repay should I dent it or injure one of those magic-fingered monkeys.

I fed Mr. Man a couple handfuls of the pills that make his nose itch and threw him, gently of course, in the luxurious back seat. I was pretty certain the combination of said narcotics and the soft lull of the large vehicle moving up the road would cause him to drift off to Loritab Land while I drove.

Um, no. He decided to go another way.

“My food is too hot!” he announced. I had made a drive thru run so he wouldn’t experience tummy upset when he took his steroids. “How am I supposed to eat hot food? OW! This hot food burned my tongue! OW! I can’t even eat this food because it’s so HOT! I’m just going to put this HOT FOOD on the floor board because it’s too HOT to eat! OW! ”

Remembering my lawfully wedded husband is unwell with wicked herniated disk pain, I sweetly told him that I didn’t care what he put in his mouth so long as he put something in there. I may have also threatened to pop his head off like a grape if he didn’t simmer down so I could focus on driving.

By the way, kids, here’s a little public service announcement from me to you. If you are accustomed to driving a tiny vehicle, you should never jump in a huge one and assume you can maneuver it without killing something. That goes against the natural vehicular progression. Darwin wrote all about it.

It goes: tiny vehicle, little vehicle, medium vehicle, ex-wife-in-law vehicle. Because I ignored that natural law, several people are living life right now completely oblivious as to how close they came to meeting Jesus today.

“What’s this new thing you’re doing lately?” Mr. Man was awake again and wanted me to know it. I figured he was referring to the slow moving and morbidly obese pedestrian I almost accidentally smashed and left for dead. “You know! That thing where you look at your watch all the time!” The Prosecutor in “To Kill a Mockingbird” was less ferocious.

What does a person say to that? How does one defend one’s self when charged with looking at a watch? I quickly went over my wedding vows in my head hoping to find a loop hole but as I think I promised to love him, honor him and never to bludgeon him, I took a deep breath and answered, “Because I’m a bad, bad person. I look at my watch all the time because I am evil.”

“Well at least that’s an answer.”

Take a moment to envy my wedded bliss.

After visiting with his doctor, I was hopeful that our return trip would be less confrontational. I was feeling a little more confident about my mad driving skills, it was time for more back medicine and I found a station that was rolling out lots of AC/DC. I was even sort of looking forward to the ride.

Until.

“Hey, what say we scoot on over to that little town where we had our beef processed and pick it up on our way home?”

That’s right. We are actually the kind of people who participate in cow murder-for-hire and then have it processed for our consumption. We are red meat eating freaks and I’m very ashamed, although not ashamed enough to quit.

What Mr. Man failed to explain to me in his druggie state of mind was that getting to the meat locker from where we were wasn’t so much a scoot as an over the road long haul.

I drove and I drove and I drove. Occasionally my beloved would help by rearing his head to comment on my horrid watch addiction or shout, “YOU’RE GONNA HIT THAT TOYOTA!” I kept my cool by playing the drums on the gear shift and by trying to figure out how many bags of lye I could afford if I sacrificed a little and bought a cheap shovel..

After what seemed like hours (because it was) we arrived in the town whose population sign proudly announced, “510”. There were lots of cows standing around waiting to be processed, a great many single wide mobile homes circa 1963 and an alarming number of signs that told me not to have an abortion. So many signs in fact, I assumed there must be a town tax that pays for nothing but anti-abortion sign manufacturing. I wondered what must be wrong in a town of 510 that so many of its number have to be reminded on a daily basis to stay pregnant.

“There it is!” my drugged up On Star announced. “It” was a building that I wouldn’t pee in, much less eat something that came out of it.

(I will though. Damn that melt in your mouth Angus. I’m hooked on the junk.)

In a matter of fact voice, Mr. Man directed me to back on up to the side door so we could load the beef. I quickly realized I was being asked to drive backwards in a giant, expensive vehicle into a very narrow space AND I was about to pick up 500 pounds of beef with a man who couldn’t put on his own shoes. I started to pretend I saw a closed sign on the torn screen door, when my sweetheart said the magic words that give me the power to do anything, no matter how absurd.

“You can’t do it. You want me to do it?”

I immediately whipped around, threw it in reverse, closed my eyes and made that ride my bitch. Oh, and I threw up a little in my mouth.

Straightaway Bubba the Butcher came wheeling out a cart with the remains of the animal I am convinced died peacefully in his sleep after a day of eating daisies and reading books to his grandkids. Butcher looked at Mr. Man, Mr. Man looked at me and I did what I always do when I need to convince a man it is his idea to do whatever thing it is I want him to do.

I kicked up the Southern accent a notch and smiled pretty. I also told the guy my husband had seriously injured his back and was unable to help load the truck. Which worked? You decide.

I’d love to wrap this up by telling you it all turned out splendidly, that Mr. Man and I enjoyed a lovely trip home together and everyone lived happily ever after. Except the beef, of course. But, as Friday is surgery day, I can’t tell any lies. That way if I die, I won’t have so many things to say I’m sorry for. To be safe, I’m also not going to eat any daisies or read books aloud to anyone small.

See you on the other side, guys. Of the surgery I mean. Not the John Edwards kind of other side.

How much do I love Blue October? It's not even normal... that's how much.


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