Just this past week, my youngest daughter Alta had gone to Los Angeles to furnish her husbands studio apartment. He has recently been promoted and relocated so until they can find proper living quarters, he is batching.
On her return home (400 miles) she arrived in the Sacramento area during the rush hour. She had been told by many people that if you are confronted with this situation approaching the city from the south, to take Grantline road to Bradshaw and bypass the traffic to return home. What they neglected to tell her was, Bradshaw didn’t intersect Grantline. This takes a short detour and she missed her road. I know I am taking a long way around but you have to get the flavor of the circumstance to enjoy the end result of her little episode.
So she ends up out in the boondocks On Jackson highway in a huge traffic jam. The cause of the traffic blockage is a little dog in the road that was struck by an automobile. No one was stopping to help, so Alta stopped, put on her hazard lights and was trying to figure out how to help this dog. Coming from the opposite direction was a large truck, driven by an equally large man who stopped to help Alta with her patient. This mans name was John, and John was there to help. The two of them could have been described as Dumb and Dumber, standing in the roadway looking at this poor animal that had been struck by a vehicle and abandoned by the driver of the car. At this point, the only good they were doing was keeping other vehicles from running over Tipsy, that was the name on the dogs tag. So after surveying their surroundings, they located a cardboard box and decided to load Tipsy into this box for ease of handling. Now where do we take Tipsy?
After looking around, they spy an opening in the brushy area adjacent to their present location. They proceed through this opening and Alta said "Dad it was a lot like the movie Deliverance". There was all this furniture set up out in the open with carpet on the dirt fields. Kind of like you were in a house without walls or roof. After walking for a while they found a trailer house and located an old lady named Bridget. They asked Bridget if she was the owner of Tipsy?. She replied no but that she was just talking to Lottie on the telephone and she is Tipsy’s owner. Bridget threw on an old house dress, hobbled out of the trailer into an electric wheelchair that was on the carpet covering the dirt fields. She said, "I can’t walk", after just walking from the trailer to this wheelchair in front of them. With this statement she put this chair into high gear and said follow me. They went for quite a walk before coming to Lottie’s Trailer out in the boonies.
After knocking on the door several times, Lottie was not answering the door. Bridget said "I know she is in there cause I just talked to her on the phone". So Bridget stars screaming "Lottie, I know you are in there and you had better answer your door cause little Tipsy is hurt and needs help". After Lottie didn't answer the door, Bridget lets herself in and starts to call around trying to locate Lottie.
During all this confusion another little dog showed up on the scene, he was a little white mutt, an associate of Tipsy's and his name tag said Fatso. So Alta grabbed up Fatso to keep him from getting hit by a car. At this point John goes and retrieves Tipsy and brings her back to Lotties house and was about to set her down on a table until Alta states, "Don't do that, I think they eat on this table out here, I believe this is their kitchen."
As John and Alta waited to hear from Bridget they realized Tipsy had died. She kind of whimpered and dropped her head. What do you think I should do asked John the truck driver? Alta said I think you should give Tipsy mouth to mouth resuscitation. This giant of a man bent down on one knee looked at Tipsy and then back up at Alta with a pleading expression when she said, "I’m just kidding". John replied, "thank goodness". Alta laughed and said were you going to do that? Well yes replied John, I was raised to never question a pretty lady...Alta laughed and commented, that belief could get you into trouble, and John said, well yes as a matter of fact, it has. Alta then asked him, "What would you have done if you thought I was homely”? He replied " I would have told you to give the mouth to mouth".
Bridget then comes out of Lotties house and tells Alta that she wants to talk to her on the phone, so Alta goes inside and chats with the very nice, but very sad Lottie. After a brief chat, Lottie asks Alta to leave her name and number so that she can call her sometime and talk. Hmmm..Alta thinks that one over and declines, since she is in fear that she has ventured into a hillbilly commune and didn't want to take a chance on being brainwashed and enter into their community. Lottie asks that Alta leave Tipsy in the shade so she may bury her when she returns.
John at this point has to leave and asks Alta if she is coming with him, but Alta feels she should wait until Bridget gets off the phone and can take Fatso off her hands, since she fears Fatso too will run out in the road. So John bids Alta farewell and wishes her a better weekend then what had started so far. Bridget finally comes out of the house and takes Fatso out of Alta's arms and straps the mutt across her stomach, hops in her motorized chair and kicks it in high gear going out across the carpeted fields. Alta said the last she saw of Fatso was her ears flapping in the breeze.
Once Alta walked back to her truck she saw John the trucker was waiting for her, she said, "I thought you were leaving" and John replied, "well I was, then I thought I would feel real bad if I saw you on the news tonight, so I decided I would make sure you left this makeshift deliverance alive." This is a true story and Alta said the only thing missing was a little boy on a porch picking out the tune Dueling Banjo’s.
Ken.