Cowboy slapstick is alive and well
Cowgirl Sass & Savvy

Julie Carter

Always a helpful bunch, the friends of cowboys will go to great lengths to "be there for you," especially if it provides them entertainment in the process.

Dan the Team Roper's recent situation made public, the one where he was looking for a fuller-figured gal to keep him warm this winter at his drafty trailer house, spawned, at his expense, a landslide of "fun" in Comanche, Texas.

"Oh my Lord," he said, "The hunt just got started to find me a meaty woman. The search seems to involve many."

That very morning he walked into his job at the farm implement and feed store and found, taped to the coffee pot, one of those photos that circulated the Internet.

It involved a considerably oversized gal who was unable to locate her little Chihuahua dog, that could only be seen if you were standing behind her.

Dan played dumb and acted like he didn't "get it," knowing full well the boys had read the story that very morning.

As the farmers began arriving to drink coffee and harass Dan, they began helping out in a number of ways.

One even offered his "fat wife for the winter." Dan kindly declined.

An email from roping buddy Blonde Sally offered to guide Dan in "broadening his horizons" with this woman search.

She had set him up an appointment for a Brazilian bikini wax. Dan was not quite sure what all that involved, but he was absolutely certain he didn't want any part of it.

Prior to this day, it had been raining for weeks and feed sales had been bottoming out.

Folks, in their eternal rural optimism, knew they didn't need and weren't going to need feed because a growth of new grass was most certainly on the way.

However, before 9:30 that morning, 64 bags of feed had been sold as it gave folks a reason to be at the store.

Stories beget stories. And so, Dan began telling a few more.

He launched into the tale of his honeymoon with his first ex-wife.

He had taken her to a farm auction in the Panhandle so he could buy a grain drill.

He regaled the coffee pot bunch with details of the adventure.

He told them that his blue heeler dog had hidden under the toolbox in the bed of the pickup and ended up going with them on the honeymoon.

Then the pooch proceeded to bite some guy at the motel in Plainview.

To top off the eventful trip, Dan said he ran over a parked Volkswagon in the motel lot in Lubbock.

"It was a very long two days and a large combo supper at Whataburger did nothing to soothe the situation. But I did get the grain drill home safe," he said.

Dan recalled that he didn't even really know she was mad about it all until seven months later when she made him go to counseling with her.

There he found out she had wanted to go to Cancun.

"What? And miss all this fun?" he asked.

The marriage didn't last long after that.

This story came on the heels of another roper celebrating his 30-something wedding anniversary by buying his bride eight new Corriente roping steers.

"Well, I guess it is his anniversary, too," she chuckled.

In the meantime, Dan is extremely happy.

Some guy wandered into the store and asked for his recipe for Tater Tot Casserole.

The recent culinary notoriety has moved Dan to take his cooking quite seriously.

Two days ago, he upgraded his kitchenwares with a crock-pot. Proudly he announced that it even came with a lid.