from the archives.......I smell bacon?

On Tuesday I had to drive up to Des Moines to pick up some equipment for the Man. I was actually looking forward to another quick in and out road trip due to some over the top stressing I’ve been going thru as of late. It doesn’t take Dr. Phil to figure out I needed to take a time out. So I was digging the chance to get away even though it was only for a few hours.

My contact on the Iowa end had done his fair share to add to my stressage, I was supposed to drive up Thursday but he changed it to Wednesday. Then Wednesday changed to Tuesday. When he called me Monday afternoon to inform me that he wanted to change things again and needed me up in Iowa a day early, which made for the third fuckin change, I simply went, “can I put you on hold for a quick second?”

Then I started wanging my desk with the phone receiver like it owed me money. After beating my desk to a chipped up pulp I took him off of hold, “sure, not a problem, see you sometime before noon, bye bye now.”

So we left the office around eight in the morning and headed up to scenic Iowa. As we’re tooling up I-35 I’m driving and a coworker’s riding shotgun. And if anyone’s ever wondered where the term “riding shotgun” came from, it dates back to the ole West and the days of the stagecoach.

Back in the day because they were a juicy target for bandits and the occasional pissed off Indian and such, most stagecoach lines employed a guard. This cat usually rode up on top, right side of the driver and his job was to guard the company assets be they driver, stagecoach, passengers, or cargo, thus the term riding shotgun.

Anyway, we’re working our way north when we see this dead pig in the middle of the freeway. Then after about fifty miles or so we see another dead pig in the middle of the freeway. You know, you see the first pig and it’s like

“hmmm, lookie there, someone’s pig got thru the fence and got his ass killed trying to cross the road”.

But after the second pig it’s like “damn, there’s another fuckin dead pig in the middle of the road, the fuck?” We figured somewhere up ahead there was some trucker transporting a load of pigs who must’a developed a hole in the bed of his truck. And pigs being the curious sort found it and decided to make a dash for freedom.

“Ok guy’s here’s the fuckin plan. Johnson, you and the others go up front and start oinking like ass raped muthafuckers to cover our get-away. Murphy, you stand watch along with Fat Sal whilst me and Denver make a go for it. Once we’re gone wait a few than start getting everybody out.”

But of course pigs being who they are and possessing no sense of motion and speed and that kinds of shit have no idea that they’ll be dropping almost five feet to the pavement at over seventy miles an hour under the wheels of a huge stinkin truck. So as the lead pig hops thru the hole he takes one last look.

“Ok boys, here’s mud in your eye! Buen viaje muthafuckerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrssssssss!!!”

Then after a few minutes the second pig hops thru the hole.

“See yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”

Of course pigs squirting out of the bottom of a speeding semi and hitting the freeway and getting ran over at seventy miles an hour ain’t exactly a sure bet for longevity or even a pretty sight. But it sure was funny picturing the looks on the faces of the occupants of any cars behind the semi.

“Dammit honey, I tole you I don’t need to see the map. What the fuck, oh my god, are those pigs? Kids don’t look!!”

Almost as funny as watching my coworker who happened to be a chick choke up and turn beet red after reading a sign telling us we were coming up on a town called Cumming, Iowa. Then we saw the next sign that informed us there was a Kum & Go quick stop store in Cumming, Iowa. Damn, who knew?

"and the monkey flipped the switch"