Week 8 entry...
It's not often that 'cat puke' is the reason for a vehicle accident, but I'm here to tell you -- it can happen.
Every Christmas, my husband and I head home for the holidays. We load up our stuff (clothes, gifts, alcohol for when the six small children in attendance overload our senses), pack it into the car or truck, and head on out. Travel for us, though, also means rounding up the various supplies for our cat and dog as well, since we take them with us on such trips. So in go the food bags, the water dishes, the leashes and the treats and the doggie doo-doo pick-up bags.
We've been blessed with good 'traveling' pets, for the most part -- no one gets overly hyper, no one has to be tranquilized, no one spends the entire trip frothing at the mouth like my old family dog used to do. This trait of calmness is particularly unusual for cats; most cats get very nervous while traveling somewhere by car. Our old cat Gene (who sadly passed away this last winter), though, was thankfully an exception. He'd get in, find his specially-prepared fluffy spot in the back, and then pretty much lie down and sleep for the entire trip. Didn't matter whether it was two hours or twelve, he just hung out and snoozed.
His one car-related oddity, though, was that about a half hour into any trip, he would hurl most spectacularly all over wherever he was sitting -- his fluffy spot, duffel bags, your lap, etc. It didn't matter what precautions you took to prevent it, such as not feeding him since the night before or whatever. He'd dig deep and find something to yak up all over the place.
Thankfully, he also had an early warning system for puking. He'd make this very distinctive sort of growly, horky, yowling sound for about 10-12 seconds before actually starting the projectile vomiting. As we were always still on rural country highways at 30 minutes into any trip, we soon learned that if you heard him in time, you could sort of drill to a stop on the shoulder, yank him up to the front seat, crank open the door, and then throw him out into the ditch. He'd sit and puke for a bit, then start trying to eat the grass, at which point you'd put him back in the car and be on your way. (He never once tried to run off or got spooked by cars driving by or anything.)
So, back to last year, yes. We left the house, stopped to get our mail on the way out ("Yay! This package must be the holiday cookies from L. we've been expecting!"), and then we were on our way. About 20 minutes later, we're driving down a basic two-lane country highway. It had been snowing and icing on and off for a few days, so the roads were not particularly in great shape.
And right on cue, from the back of our Chevy Blazer, comes the horking sound we'd come to know and love. My husband starts reaching back to corral the cat while I hit the brakes and start edging to the side of the road. Most unfortunately for me, though, this was a road with deep ditches that had been filled in by drifting snow -- this means that it doesn't look like the road has deep ditches, it just looks like a relatively flat shoulder.
I pulled just a wee bit too far off the road, and the right side tires dip down into the ditch in that 'Uh-oh' moment where you know shit's going bad. No time to worry about it at the moment, though, as my husband is opening the door and tossing Gene out into the snow. (Hard-packed by the wind somewhat, so his little 13 pound self didn't sink in.) My husband gets out, though, and sinks in to nearly his waist.
Long story short, we got Gene back in the truck after he was done hurling up his crunchies from the night before, and my husband came around to take my place at the wheel. He's gotten himself out of more tight spots when it comes to potentially being stuck, so he was the best to attempt to get us out. And what was really annoying is that it didn't even look that bad yet -- we were juuuust slightly tipped a bit on the right side, etc.
But as soon as he tried to ease us forward, turning the wheels back towards the pavement, that was it -- the whole backend goes into the snow-packed ditch. With little to lose at this point, my husband guns it on the 1% hope that a miracle will happen, but no; the whole vehicle now gets sucked into the ditch. I could practically see the snow reaching up out of the ditch with long, curling fingers and hear the cry of "A-ha! Gotcha!" as it chortled with glee.
Man, I thought, is this going to be a bitch to dig out. Our pets were sitting in the vehicle, looking at us with that "What the hell, people?" look that only pets can achieve.
So there we are, the two of us standing back behind the truck on the shoulder, wondering how in the world we were even going to start getting ourselves out of this. Suddenly, from the other direction, a big F-350 truck comes into view over the hilltop, and starts slowing down as they approach us. They pull just past us, and we see they have a big four wheel drive tractor on the trailer they're pulling. Two big guys hop out, put their gloves on, and start unloading the tractor. "We'll get you out of there in just a jiff," one calls out. We can only stand and wave acknowledgement, completely dumbfounded by our good luck.
They soon have the tractor unloaded, and one gets it situated at the front of the truck while the other talks to my husband to just say "Hey, you're agreeing to this, not gonna sue us if your rusted out front axle happens to break or something, etc" -- he waves them off with the "No worries, we're good" wave. A minute later, the drag the truck out of the ditch with no problem at all, unhook from it, and are loaded back up and chained down within just a couple minutes.
I kid you not -- it couldn't have been five minutes from the time we realized we were stuck until we were free and clear again. It was incredible. My husband went over to offer them some cash, even though we knew they would refuse (you don't accept money for helping someone out like that around here), so I was wracking my brains for something, anything we could give them.
The cookies! I remembered. Yes! Who doesn't want cookies.
I zoomed into the front seat and dug out the box we'd gotten in the mail before we left. I tore it open to verify its contents, and nestled inside was a wonderful little tin of homemade goodies and cookies and sweets. I took it out of the box and ran across the road just as they were getting ready to leave.
"Here! Wait!" I called out. "Please, we just got these from a friend, and I'm not lying when I say she's a fabulous cook. Please, take them!"
Their eyes lit up like the proverbial Christmas itself, and they gladly accepted their holiday treats. Hands were shaken, caps were tipped, and off they went into the descending dusk. With big smiles on our faces, our faith in humanity restored, we crossed the highway and re-started our journal towards the holiday festivities.
Hopefully with less puke than when we started, I thought.
This is my entry for the eighth week of Season 8 of therealljidol. The prompt this week was 'a traveling travesty.' As always, thanks for reading.