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Home Country – Second place to cactus hairs

Slim Randles
Slim Randles

Doc had just finished bringing us up to date on the world’s fight against the covid-19 virus when ol’ Windy Wilson raised his eyes.

“Now don’t ya find, Doc,” he said, “that the worse stuff in this old life is the junk ya can’t see?”

Doc looked puzzled, so Windy continued. “Aw, you know.  It’s them mitrascopic stuff that are really dangerous to us.”

Doc nodded.

“Now you jest take in there a braymer bull? He can stomp a guy inta furry, pink Jell-o. And then dance on them bullfighters whilst they’re a-tryin’ to git yer carcass outa the reenur.  But see this here now. That there bull is purty dang big. Big enough to ride, right? So that means he’s big enough so’s you kin get outa his way if he comes a-stompin.”

Windy, our favorite camp cook, cowboy, philosopher, and interpreter of the English language, sipped on his coffee and looked at us each in turn. “Now, can you see them coronary vibration bugs? No way! Too dang small. They’ll sneak up on a guy, get married and have pups and then kill ya deader’n a hammer!

“Thass why, at the conjugal finish a-my thinkin’, I’m puttin’ them bugs in secondary place on my list of all-time tiny mean stuff.”

“Only second place?” said Herb, “What’s worse’n dying, Windy?”

“Cactus hairs,” he said. “A-course. Ya know, them miterscopic stickers that you can’t see when your eyes is nekkid. But ya know they’s there, doncha? Oh yes, Aunt Sarah, I’ll say ya do!”

Windy nodded, agreeing with himself. No one else did, but that isn’t really necessary with Windy.

“Only way ya kin tell ya got ‘em is when ya brush up agin’ somethin’, like a shirt cuff or somethin’. Hurts like the Civilian War, it does, but ya can’t see it.”

He leaned forward and whispered. “It’s flambastically insidulouss!

“And you kin tell ‘em I said so.”

Brought to you by the folks who take the shiver out of ordering a quiver for you archers, Cedar Ridge Leather Works, in Nashville. Ask for art@archeryleather.com.