I remember when I was six or seven
years old walking to the Beer Joint with my Grandpa. He was a tree
trunk of a man with wide shoulders, strong hands and white hair. It
started to rain and I was complaining about getting wet. He said
“Little Buddy” he always called me that, “Little buddy, you can
only get “so” wet”. That seemed to make sense at the time. I
love Grandpa. He taught me how to play baseball and hit a curve
ball. “It can only curve so much, you will hit it.” Later, with
my kids, I taught them, “If you swing at it, you may as well hit
it.” My shoes and socks were wet and I complained. Grandpa
laughed and took me in Gus’s to dry out. I hate wet socks even
today.
It has rained for the better part of
twenty days. Some are hard Florida rains and others are misty all
day spitting kinds of rain. I keep thinking about “you can only
get so wet”. Bullshit, I thought it could not get any wetter when
the pasture and the driveway were under water. Then the septic tank
stopped working because it got “wetter”. I did not think it
could get any wetter when the house swelled up with humidity and the
doors did not fitting correctly. Why did you not warn me about that
Grandpa? The air conditioner has frozen up from trying to remove all
the water from the air. That is pretty damn wet, is that wet enough
for ya? Grandpa, you were wrong about women also. You said that if
“you treat a woman properly, you will have a wondrously full life”.
“Caribou Crackers”! I gave that woman my time, bought her
everything she needed and a bunch of shit she wanted. She still took
all I had left and ran off and porked the Meth-head mail man claiming
he had a big penis. I cried until my underwear were soaked
through. That is quite a bit wetter than “so” and I hate wet
underwear almost as much as wet socks.
Now I am walking in a blistering rain
because I do not have a car. I did not think it could get any wetter
until I fell in a swollen drainage ditch. It was a puddle an hour ago
and now I am traveling at about sixty miles per hour heading for an
overpass which because of twenty three inches of rain is now going to
smack me in the forehead and kill me if I am lucky enough. Can I get
any wetter Grandpa, can I?
