A Mullet & A Cow On The Lam

I went to visit my in-laws over the weekend. Captain Carl's parents are former real-life hippies who drop the f-bomb and pinch each other in the ass and tell great stories about when my Captain was a little boy. Plus they cook for me when I go see them, so they are pretty much the total package as far as in-laws go.

My mother-in-law (let's call her June...as in Cleaver) asked me to come because she thought I needed to get away from the renters for a weekend. So I happily drove 3 hours to their house on Saturday morning, all set to relax and do nothing and probably nap a lot.

Yeah, that didn't happen. June had a long list of shit she wanted to do while I was there.....she quickly rattled off everything she had planned for us the minute I walked in the door. Mani/pedi's after lunch, then shopping, then off to the Lions' club for hamburgers and then live bluegrass music. All I wanted to do was take a nap, but I figured I better not say so since I was at that very moment stuffing my face full of the lunch they had prepared for me. So I just nodded and chewed and every once in awhile would say "sounds good" through a mouth full of biscuits and ham.

Did I mention my in-laws live in the country? I grew up in the country. I graduated from high school with 32 classmates and I lived in town but only two blocks away from a corn field. But that was in Minnesota and now I'm in Texas. That might be good to keep in mind while reading this....it helps explain the whole Lions' club and bluegrass music thing.

Anyway, I finished my lunch and I left with June to get our mani/pedi's. We splurged and got 10 minute foot massages and I tried really hard to relax and shut my mind off. Turns out I suck at relaxing, because I kept sitting up and looking around and wondering how much longer I had left of my massage and why the hell is that fat girl over there wearing a tube top? And then I looked over at June and she's complete passed out. Everyone in the place was more relaxed than me. Even the little Asian guy rubbing June's feet looked more relaxed than me. So instead of feeling refreshed and pampered when we left, I felt annoyed with myself and anxious because I didn't want to smudge my manicure.

Then it was off to meet my father-in-law (we'll call him Ward) at the Lions' club for huge hamburgers and onion rings, which were being fried by an alarmingly large bald man wearing overalls. I'm pretty sure his name was Bubba. He kept taking off his cap and wiping his sweaty forehead with a rag he kept in his back pocket. How could a burger cooked under those conditions be anything less than extraordinary?

After we ate, we moved to the next room to listen to some bluegrass music being played be a married couple from Germany on banjos. I know...I was confused by this too. Apparently Germans really like Texas and cowboys and shit like that. And it was fun for the first 20 minutes....but the next 90 minutes were a little rough for me. We were sitting on metal folding chairs and let me tell you, waterboarding has nothing on those hard motherfuckers. They should have used those chairs at Guantanamo Bay...those sons of bitches would have cleared up a lot of shit in no time flat.

And the worst part about it was I only saw one mullet in the whole place. A building full of redneck baptists and only one mullet. That's like a crime against nature....or comedy. And the one person that did have a mullet was a woman. A woman wearing a t-shirt that said Johnny Cash and old school Reebok high tops that were unlaced. There were plenty of shockingly old people there....I'm talking walking-with-a-cane-wearing-two-hearing-aides-dragging-an-oxygen-bottle old. I can make fun of most everything, but I'm sorry I just can't make fun of old people. Unless they are mean and have no teeth, and I didn't see any of those. So all I had to keep my hilarious mind occupied was one lady with a mullet and a couple of banjo-playing Germans, and you can only tell yourself so many "your mom had a mullet" jokes before you get bored and start thinking about how numb your ass is from sitting in that damn chair.

Much to my ass's relief, we eventually left and I had almost fallen asleep on the ride home when something really exciting happened. There was a cow standing on the side of the road that had apparently escaped from his fenced pasture. Finally my weekend was fixin' to get interesting! So Ward picks up his cell and calls someone and I hear him say "Yes I'm calling to report a cow on the side of highway 6, just past farm road 3381. Yes, same cow as the one I reported last night and it's in the exact same spot."

The car is completely silent for a moment and then I'm all "Who the hell do you call to report a cow on the loose?" and Ward is all "911" and I'm all "Ha ha, no really who do you call?" and he's all "I'm serious, I called 911" and I'm all "What the hell is 911 going to do about a cow running away from home?" and he's all "That cow is a menace to drivers, he could walk into the road and someone could hit him and cows aren't like deer, they won't flip over the top of your car, they'll come right in your windshield" and that's when I realized I've been living in the city too long because this was no longer common sense to me.

So that was my Saturday....I bet that cow was totally pissed off that the same asshole called the cops on him twice in two days.