Posted on July 19, 2008 - by Hubba

At the Docs, Part 2

One morning several days into my term of employment, I woke to find that it had rained in the night.

I was getting to the point where I hated to open my eyes.  Every time I opened my eyes, it was the start of twelve to fourteen hours of disasters.  By this time I had, in no particular order, tilled several of the good Doctor’s trees, emptied a grease gun onto my shirt, tore the tailgate off of his pickup, and of course, had the wheel fall off of the swather.

But it had rained enough that we couldn’t hay or till.  Maybe we would go to town for parts or something.  I was sure I would be an excellent passenger.

I went downstairs.  The Voice of God was singing Jim Reeves songs in the kitchen as he cooked breakfast.  “Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone, lets pretend that we’re together, all alone.”  He handed me my breakfast.  “I’ll tell the man to turn the jukebox way down low…”  It was an odd way to start the day, but the Voice of God had Gentleman Jim down to a T.

But he had to eat, so the singing stopped.  We ate in silence.  When we got done, he began humming the tune to “He’ll Have to Go.”  After he had cleared the dishes, he stopped humming.  “I think we’ll do a little riding this morning,” he said.  I started saying Hail Mary’s.

We went to the corral.  The Voice of God was still humming.

Dr. Kovarik is a mule enthusiast.  He had five or six mules and two horses.  He got two halters, caught a mule and a horse, climbed on the mule, and instructed me to open a gate. I opened the gate, and he rode the mule through, leading the horse.  “Don’t let the others through,” he said.

They understood what he said, damn their worthless hides.  And they lined up behind my horse, each one with his head over the next one’s rump, so they formed an equine snake.  I couldn’t shut the gate on anything.  The old mare, Dilly, was the caboose, and she sneared at me as she shouldered through the gate.  The good Doctor was impressed.

Good Morning, Matthew, and welcome to another day of uninterrupted failures.  Mary isn’t listening to your supplications.  God isn’t here either, just His Voice.

To be continued…