David Gregory
20416 St Hwy 59 South
Bowie, Texas 76230
HORSEFEATHERS © May 4, 2007
I'M GOING FAST
As Red Buttons, the old comedian, used to say, "Strange things are happening." This pretty well defines a couple of things that's happened to be in the past few days. I woke up some time after midnight on Wednesday morning and had trouble going back to sleep. About 4AM Mama ask me what was the matter. I told her that I was hungry for homemade biscuits and sausage gravy. She didn't volunteer to make my breakfast. I ask her how to make biscuits and she mumbled something , turned her back to me and went to sleep.
At 5AM I got up and went to the kitchen, found the Bis-Qick, and a couple of sausages patties. While I'm not good at reading instructions or road maps, I did read the receipt, sprinkled some flour on the cabinet top and mixed up a batch of dough. While doing this I was frying the sausages and breaking them into little pieces as they cooked.
Getting the biscuit dough to where I could roll it out with a rolling pin was more difficult that I had expected. I finally had five big "mother-in-law" biscuits on a baking sheet and in the oven. I thought the gravy was wonderful, the biscuit's were a little hard (think hockey pucks) but tasted really good. The smell of my cooking brought Mama in to eat breakfast with me.
The next morning early when I got back from the barn I discovered Mama was already up and dressed. I thought she was wanting me to make breakfast again but we decided to go to town to eat. At McDonalds I ordered a big breakfast. When I got my tray I discovered I only had a plastic spoon with which to eat my eggs, sausage, hash browns, biscuits and three pancakes.
When I went back to get my eating utensils the waitress told me that they were out of knives and forks. I made it through the meal feeling a little childish, especially since I had pancake syrup all the way to my elbows.
Getting up early had me on a roll. The next morning the house seemed cool as I dressed. I put on my cleanest dirty shirt because I was going to town to the barber shop for a haircut. When I got home I would take a shower, wash my head and put on a clean shirt. Hopefully I would avoid having the loose hair down my neck all day that my barber always brushes down my collar just as she finishes and says, "Next ."
I put on a light nylon windbreaker to go to the barn to feed. It was just about the same weight as the heavy, starched and ironed, western shirt I had just put on. Mama had already vetoed my spraying the shirt with "Fabreeze" and hanging it outside to where I could get a few more days wear out of the $2.50 charge for washing and ironing at the laundry.
I got to the barber shop fifteen minutes ahead of my appointment. When I opened the door and stuck my head in, Gail, the soft talking, sweet young lady that cuts my hair, invited me in. She was all alone. I walked to the hat rack and took off my hat and hung it on the hat rack. I backed up a step and started unbuttoning my jacket to hang it up also. I started at the top button and when I got to the bottom, my coat tail seemed to be tucked into my pants. I gave a yank and unbuttoned the last button and started pushing it off my shoulders.
The sweet young thing screamed at me, "Why are you taking your shirt off?" It was not until then did I realize that I didn't wear a jacket to town but was in the process of taking off my shirt . Can't remember if I've ever been so embarrassed before. A hansom young man who had entered the shop just after I did stood smiling. I bet him that if he had been taking his shirt off she wouldn't have yelled at him like she did me.
About this time I figured out why the waitress wouldn't give me a knife or fork. Mama has been putting the word out all over town that I'm daffy and not permitted to have any sharp instruments. I'M GOING FAST.