I stopped at an interesting, colourful truck today to buy some french fries. No better use of a truck has ever been devised since its invention. These delicious fries are known community-wide to be the best anywhere and so I patiently waited in a long line, happily shivering in the cold, to acquire my fill.
And fill it turned out to be as I carted my overflowing cup of goodies back to my car. I asked the server for extra salt and told her that, as a committed health-food nut, I needed the extra salt. Also a health-food freak, I believe, she obliged.
Comfortably seated in my car, I started the engine and turned up the heat. I looked especially with great anticipation at two very large consumables that had been piled on top of my greasy, vinegar-laden feast. But as I watched in horror, these two beauties jumped from the cup and fell down under my car seat and onto the floor.
I won’t say that my car floor is not regularly cleaned, but I will confess that there are creatures living under the seat. I have grown accustomed to them and even named a few. By far, Hector is my favourite. But now I realized, favourite or not, that he was no doubt chomping away on my snack and had been since it dropped right in front of him.
I tried to retrieve my two prizes but my fingers are too fat (I blame the truck) to slide down between the seat and the middle console. So I gave up. But as I gobbled down all the rest of my delicious feast, the fate of my two woe-begone strays never left my worried mind.
Where there is will and two gorgeous french fries out of reach, there is a way. There just had to be a way.
My mother told each of her seven kids that we all had to eat a pound of dirt in our lives. I can now announce that I have made my quota. I am not sure of the quota status of my siblings, but I have this idea that I might have also just filled the dirt requirements of at least two of them. I will phone them tomorrow to impart the good news.
The floor fries were a little dusty, to be honest, and it was a struggle to pry one of them out of the hungry jaws of Hector, who put up a valiant fight, but I would like to pay homage to the Great Goddess of Potatoes by saying the effort was well worth the struggle.
As it always is when dealing with most of the important things in life.
©2023 Jim Hagarty
