Fred B. Baker, II

LIFE IN RURAL PENNSYLVANIA

Folks,

With all the fine things going on, I thought I should relate some of the recent events, especially from the week. In the ying and yang of the world, I guess you could say it adds balance.

I can’t make excuses for idiocy which has been known to show up in my family. I recently wrecked my truck a ‘92 Chevy Silverado. I hit a deer broadside. I proceeded to hit a tree afterward because I didn’t take my foot off the break to steer away and instead slid into the tree head on. People who live here consider that a normal progression of events. No injuries except to the deer which, I am sure, felt no pain. Guess I was “being watched over.” That happened in late October.

This week was more eventful. While making cookies for the upcoming holidays, my wife and daughters, using every electrical appliance in the house, caused the main breaker to trip. I grabbed a nearby candle, went to the cellar, and tripped over what I call a wife trap (a huge pot filled with canning lids and rings). Why I had a candle instead of a flashlight is a little easy to explain – it was handy. You see, our cat was taken to the vet the day before to be fixed. One of the items in the instructions was to use shredded newspaper instead of kitty litter. My wife took my (non-absorbent) shredded copy paper for the litter box. When I got up the next day, I thought the cat had had an “accident” somewhere in the house. I won’t go into the details of the search I made of all the carpeting on my hands and knees looking for the wet spot. Suffice to say that by noon I figured out that the odor was coming from the litter box. It was placed outside and I lit candles everywhere to kill the remaining odor – hence, the reason for the candles burning in the first place.

The cat litter box I placed on the front porch was spilled by one of my grandsons and the mess got wet when the rain blew onto the porch. That grey clay proceeded to get tracked into the house and most especially on the hardwood floor in the dining room. Hence I have spent a couple of days in the dog house because it is VERY hard to scrub off of the floor, or so I have been told several times.

Later that evening, my wife was napping on the couch and I was napping in my chair when I awoke to a feeling of immense foreboding. One of the candles, in a three inch wide jar was furiously burning. The wax was on fire which I quickly extinguished. The wax was melted down a little more than an inch. Much longer and I fear the whole jar would have burst, creating an instantly large fire. Guess you could say the guy upstairs was watching again.

I do recognize that any common sense that I have was woefully absent on that particular week and I sincerely hope that I learned my lessons well enough not to repeat the same mistakes. Of course, finding new mistakes to make is always more fun.