|
 We hadn’t seen our pal, Steve the cowboy, at the
philosophy counter at the Mule Barn truck stop for a while. After a
week’s absence, he showed back up for his daily ration of caffeine,
and it was obvious he’d lost some weight, if not attitude.
“Hospital again,” he said. We nodded. Steve has internal workings
situations from time to time. Usually, these happen during a cold
snap when the bunkhouse needs extra firewood. He swears this is just
a coincidence.
He appreciates doctors a lot, it turns out. Especially young, cute,
female-lady-type doctors. He has two of them that look after him. To
quote Steve: “Cuter’n a pocketful of baby mouses!”
But nurses? That’s another thing entirely.
“They run this nurse in on me,” he said, “to give me one of them
baths, you know?”
Doc grinned. “Cute, was she, Steve?”
“Cute? Doc, her face looked like it had worn out two bodies. She had
the exact aerodynamics of a milk carton, and the human kindness of a
meter maid. I didn’t stand a chance!”
“Food any better this year?” asked Herb.
We had heard all about 12,000 mile-an-hour toast last year and how
they had used it as heat shields on the space shuttle. [to top of second
column] |
“Boys, they don’t have food in
that hospital. They just want to tease you by telling you it’s
edible stuff. You just take our special Sunday dinner. They called
it ribeye steak.”
We waited while he sucked down another cup of coffee and asked
Loretta to bring him something that wasn’t good for his situation.
“Ribeye sounds good, Steve.”
“Ribeye? RIBEYE? Say listen, guys, I don’t know what gopher they cut
that off of, but it was sure as sin a long-distance gopher. That was
so small and tough … I’ll bet that steak had more miles on it than
my pickup.”
[Text from file received from
Slim Randles]
Brought to
you by Packing the Backyard Horse by Slim Randles. Available at
Amazon.com.
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