Buttlessman, Insano & Wonderdog

Merlin, the keeper of the field and guardian of the screw gun, let out a holler that could suck his wagger clear up his tail pipe and outta his noise whole. Keeping with my routine, I bolted out the back door, flashlight in hand and scoured the south field for activity. A large shadow moved across the north window of my divine little shop that is now nestled in the corner of our clover field. I moved a little closer and held the light beam high as I peeked through the sun flowered wall of my garden. An eye glinted in the light as it turned to stare back at me. Merlin nosed my thigh and smiled up at me in his Do-I-get-a-Scooby-snack-now-? grin.

Two large ears twitched and swivelled, then the lanky intruder meandered out of sight. Deer are inquisitive creatures. They say curiosity killed the cat. It's killed more deer than anything else. A large doe was peeking in my store window and was non-plused by the dogs yellow-alert tirade. She was much more interested in checking out the shiny new obstruction in her path.

Either you need glasses or you need more lessons on what not to bark at. No cookie this time stink-butt. I'm goin' back in.

We've been working real hard around here lately. not that it isn't the norm. It's just different. You see, that little shop I mentioned previously, is now nearly complete on the outside. It's only missing the rails and the tin on the roof of the front porch....and a little barn wood front wall. The doors are now locked tight. There's nothing in there to steal yet, but I like exercising my right to lock out miscreants. Too bad I couldn't have done that day before yesterday. Actually, I could have, I just didn't. Thing is, it only had two walls, so the whole locking thing would've been a ludicrous futility. In fact, I teased John the day before when we went up to the house to eat.

John: Think anybody'll run off with the generator?
Me: Na, lock the doors.

I received the appropriate hesitation and then squint thing he does when he's contemplating my sanity. I rather enjoy pushing that button. Keeping the straight face as he sizes up the situation is the hard part.

John has been working very hard with a rag-tag team of volunteers to bring my store into existence. So being robbed is so unjust. He's worked so hard he's become concave where a butt should be. Gross visual huh? Well, it's true! It's a bird....it's a plane...no...it's Butt-less Man! Able to leap tall corn stalks in a single bound, able to bend corrugated steel siding with his bare hands...

Did I say robbed? ...yeah, we were robbed. Our sweaty little work force broke for lunch and high-tailed it to Sheldon to eat dinner. We were gone an hour. When we returned, no tools. They cleaned us out. All but the screw gun, and they had every intention of taking it. They had stretched out the extension cord and half untied the electricians knot before dropping it in the dust. Apparently they were interrupted in mid-thieving. Near as I could guess, the dog woke from his nap on the house porch in time to stop them from getting the last, oldest and most inexpensive tool.

Good dog.

9/2/2005 2:2 AM
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