-| Grab The Donuts - We're Going on a Mission
|-
[a recap of a road trip]
Late one night, Tim called to inform me that I was going with him to his parent's house so he can put a trailer hitch on his truck to borrow his dad's boat for an upcoming fishing trip. "Am I?", I asked. "Yep. See you about five in the morning." he replied.
My Saturday ended up being much much longer than I originally anticipated. Got up before five. (What time did I finally turn the computer off, around two?) Anyway... My friend, Tim shows up -at about 5:10 - running late already which is pretty normal for him.
We go to Dunkin Donuts and get coffee. How in the hell he can drink a large coffee with four sugars and SEVEN creamers is beyond me. This he drinks with Donuts which are basically sugar, mixed together with lard, fried in lard and coated in more sugar. Of these he eats two glazed, two chocolate glazed, and something that was covered in white powdered sugar and had some jelly ooze in it. (myself, there are only 3 types of donuts I can even consider, with black coffee since the donuts themselves have sugar all over them anyway). So I got a large black coffee and (whoo-hoo) they had the chocolate donuts that are coated in peanuts-which are better than they sound by just telling you what they are.
(Why am I 'rambling on' so much? Lack of sleep maybe? I don't know. BUT anyway.....)
We take off down to his folks house, which is Mid-State. [I guess what would be a 4 and a half hour drive, that is more like 3 and a half hours when Tim drives].
Got to his parents house around 9:00 somewhere, where his mother was starting "supper" as she called it which "would be ready around 1 or 2, should you boys want to stay and eat" [Since you don't know his mother, this latter underlined part acting as a mandatory invitation]. (sigh). All I can think is, wow, I'll be going to work tonight on pretty much 2 and a half hours sleep, and not get home until 7 am, when I get to shower and go to church, and then my kid comes home at noon...."
We go through the typical and obligatory "you look greats" and "how is your family" dialogue.
Then, out to the yard to talk to the senior Wolfgang (hereinafter called WGS)- who of course is out in this 1 acre area of land he now considers his farm. (these people grow all of their own stuff, and have their own meat market in the yard even which I think is fairly cool). His parents have this bird [some kind of Amazon parrot who stays with WGS and either sits on him or runs along the ground with him. The chickens are afraid of him, (the parrot) and the other animals don't seem to mind his presence either.] I think I like this bird but he doesn't like me. Maybe its Satan himself :). anyway, this bird sees us coming and starts screaming "help, mama! help!" then retreats to where the chickens are and starts behaving like one.
We go through the typical greetings and We go through the typical and obligatory "you look greats and how is the family"
Then we finally go to work on hooking up the boat to Tim's truck. We are asked to stay and fish all after noon, and I start wishing I could get out of going to work tonight. Once I get past the culture shock of being in the country, having grown up in the middle of the city it is fun to be there.
We stay for "supper" where I ate WAY too much of a lot of really, really wonderful food- which they didn't even say Grace for but had no objections to my doing so. [This did not, of course surprise me, since I've been going to their house for the past ten years anyway but in a way I always seem to notice it with a kind of (???? puzzled awe?) I guess is the word I want]. There was: a HUGE roast, mashed potatoes, green beans, salad, bread (fresh of course) corn on the cob, and home made (with fresh peaches not canned) peach cobbler.
We sit and talk for a while [also a mandatory thing to do over coffee after his mom clears the table and won't let anyone help her do. [Kind of explains a lot about some of the things Tim does when it comes to helping do his part (of doing nothing) cleaning anything at all]
Then we go out and check all of the connections two to three times of the boat and make sure all of the lights are working properly. Then we leave. On the way back, Tim gets pulled over for going EIGHTY FIVE or something around that. Does he act cordial and cooperative? no. Do the cops in this state know us from Adam? No. So,. What could have been a ten minute here-is-your-ticket, thank-you-for-visiting-our-town-and we thank you for your support" Lasted about oh thirty to forty-five minutes. (sigh--Again). Cop boy even wanted MY Driver's License by the time Tim finished arguing with him.
I got home in time to shower and leave for work. (sigh, sigh - twice - again).
But, in retrospect, I had a lot of fun.
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26 Aug 2001- perotheus.com
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