Chaos and Drama

My normal bedtime is 8 pm. My alarm for work goes off at 4 am, and I really have a problem functioning at my 10 hour shift if I get to bed any later than that. One nice thing about this shift is I have every Friday off!

I got to bed later than normal Wednesday night – about 9:20, but fell right to sleep. At 10:15 pm, Kali (my daughter) came home from her job, and though she was very quiet, the stupid weiner dog took up barking and woke us up. The little weenie takes her job as “Guard Dog” very seriously. (mumbling “stupid weenie”) So we were awake… well, at least, I was. Mike went right back to snoring. The crazy thing about that is that he was wearing his CPAP mask.

Also, as expected, the wind picked up last night, gusting to around 25 miles per hour. Normally, I hear only the shrubs brushing against the siding, providing me with a little “white noise”. The wind direction last night, however, came from a slightly different angle, causing the peak vent, which has apparently worked loose, to THUMP at irregular intervals throughout the night. And it kept me awake. I had gone outside several times to try to locate the thumping, and that is what I determined the source to be. The last time I looked at the clock, it was 11:47 pm.

At some point, I fell asleep…for a little while…

At 3:10 am, our doorbell rang. When we came out of the bedroom, complete with dogs barking, we could see the headlights of a vehicle and the outline of a sheriff’s deputy standing at the door. I kicked the dogs out of the way, and opened the door only enough to stick my head out, because, naturally, I was standing there in my T-shirt and underwear. (Heaven forbid I actually put sweats on or something)

The Sheriff said “You have horses” (I believe it was a statement rather than a question, because DUH, he parked right next to the arena holding two of the creatures…)

I said “Yes.”

He said, “I found two across the road.” (My first thought was ‘oh, maybe Jazzy and Kaci got out.’ But there hadn’t been any noise at the barn – cuz that is where Jazzy would have gone, with Kaci in tow, because Jazzy knows that is where the hay is kept and she’s part pig)

The Sheriff continued… “One is white.”

I said “I don’t have white horses.”

He said “Do you know of someone in the neighborhood who might?”

I said, “Does the horse have brown blotches on it? A paint horse?”

He said “Yes.”

I said “Is the other a bay? Brown with black mane and tail?”

He said “Yes”

I said “Sounds like the folks behind us. Their driveway is off the main road, second drive on the right.”

He said “Thank you for your help. Good night.”

He left and Mike and I sat out on the back porch for a few minutes. Mike sat and I had a cigarette, and we were back in bed at 3:20 am… listening to the thumping… again…

I got up a little late, rushed to get ready for work, main-lined my ultra-strong coffee, and was done in record time. I trudged to the barn – because that is what you do when you are freaking tired and only got a few hours sleep…

I fed the seven horses in the barn, double-checked because I wanted to make SURE I hadn’t forgotten anyone (and looking back, I am not so sure I DIDN’T forget one), and headed out the barn door to feed Jazzy and Kaci at the front of the property.

To my surprise, there were two paint mares in my neighbor’s pasture! Surely these were the two running loose (or walking loose, whatever the case might have been). And yes, one was a bay paint with black in her mane and tail, but not the solid bay horse I had pictured in my mind. (Apparently, Franklin County Deputies can’t read my mind at 3 am)

Then I had several thoughts at once:

Apparently, the folks behind us had helped the sheriff’s deputy. (Or maybe someone else that he had awakened)
Apparently, those folks decided that it would be “OK” to put them in my neighbor’s pasture (despite the fact that she wasn’t home. Luckily, neither were her own horses)
This irritated me, because the folks behind me have 5 acres, fenced and cross-fenced, and only two horses which were in the barn at night. Why not put them in their own pasture?
Apparently, no one had thought that it might be a good idea to provide the horses with water.

So I continued on my way and fed Jazzy and Kaci. Then I went to my neighbor’s and filled the water tub. I went home and got on the internet, posting a notice on a discussion board, and my Facebook page of the found mares before heading off to work.

At 8 am, I called my vet to see if the horses perhaps belonged to any of her clients. They did not. I called other vet clinics in the immediate area and left messages, in hopes that the horses’ owner was one of their clients.

At 8:30, I had to drive the company rig down to the shop to have the oil changed. (Because while I never drive the dang thing, I am the only with enough free time to run the rig to the shop…obviously. Whatever)

While I was sitting, waiting for the oil to be changed, my phone rings. It was a number that I didn’t recognize. WOOHOO – my posting worked! The owner of the horses was calling to claim his/her horses!! NOT!

Me: Hello

My neighbor (using her fiance’s phone?): Hi. Did you put those horses in my pasture?

Me: No. The Sheriff did.

Her: The Sheriff did? What sheriff?

Me: The one that rang my doorbell at three in the morning asking if I was missing some horses.

Her: Oh. I figured you did it since you posted about it.

Me: uh huh. (Just because I posted “Horses Found” doesn’t mean I have anything to do with them, other than trying to find their owner.)

Her: Well I know where those horse belong and I have their number and I called them and told them to come and get their F-ing horses out of my F-ing pasture.

Me: Nice. Where do they belong?

She told me, which is just around the corner, and I told her if the horses were still there when I got home that I would take them home. I also told her that I would empty the water tub.

The horses’ owner was found and according to Mike (who is still home on short-term disability recovering from knee replacement surgery) the horses were retrieved by their owner before noon.

So, since I am still waiting for the oil change to be complete (did you know that it takes AN HOUR to change the oil in a pick-up? Neither did I!!), I check my Facebook page. There was a post from my step-son in Alabama that said “If you don’t hear from me, I’m in a better place.” (WTF??!!)

Now – I have several schools of thought on this one. (background – his girlfriend just broke up with him, his mother is in Washington visiting family and she didn’t pay for him to come too so he had to stay in Alabama, he is sick with a virus, and he is a confirmed “quitter” – having proved to us that if you quit, you will never fail.)

1 – He is trying to get attention from his girlfriend, mistakenly thinking that juvenile stunts like that makes us girls give a damn

2 – If he is “suicidal”, any attempt would be a feeble attempt at best, because he has never followed through with anything in his entire 23 years

3 – He needs to grow a pair, suck it up, move on, and GROW UP!!

But still, I DO have a little heart, so I sent Mike a text, telling him what I’d read, and that he needs to call his son. Of course, there is no answer, so Mike calls his ex. She has been in touch with the boy, he is fine – though he is upset, is crying and carrying on, blah blah blah.

So what does she do??? She buys him a plane ticket to Washington, where he is going to stay with his sick and feeble grandmother! So he got his way! AGAIN!!!

I am sure he hung up the phone with a smile and muttered to himself “Stupid bitch”, because that is the kind of person he is.

Whatever happens on THAT side of the family doesn’t concern me – just as long as he doesn’t think, not EVER, not even for one night – that he will come to stay at MY house!

As for me, once this is posted, I am going to apply liberal amount of Jolly Ranchers (Watermelon Pucker and Sprite over ice), and collapse into bed in a drunken coma! (After the dogs and horses are fed, the water tub next door is emptied, Lucy has a dedicated water tub so I can monitor how much she is drinking (more on this in a later post), and I have dug for treasure on the Facebook game Treasure Isle.)