Don’t
try this at home
by Julie Carter
If
you know a cowboy, you then know doing stupid things, dangerous stunts and
“hold my beer, watch this” events are the norm, not the exception. An informal
poll revealed a never-ending stream of stories ranging from “when I was a kid…”
to “last night my buddy and I …”
These
two cowboys live off the grid, caring for cattle on a remote ranch where world
news reaches them almost never and current events in this volatile world have
absolutely no effect on the day-to-day operations. It’s winter so in between
feeding cows and breaking ice on drinkers and ponds, these two make a little
extra jingle for their pockets by hunting varmints for their pelts.
It
had been a slow night and they were headed back to the house about midnight and
out in the middle of nowhere they saw a set of vehicle headlights they were sure
had no business being there. The rational was that there should be no other
hunters out there but they knew an occasional poacher could show up. There was
always a little fun in chasing them down.
The
pickup they were in had just had a “makeover” with a new flatbed on the back,
so wasn’t recognizable by anyone that ordinarily could have. They drove up on
the invader and realized it was the game warden, who promptly turned on his
“cop” lights indicating he wanted them to stop. He thought he’d caught some
poachers.
The
story goes, one cowboy was just plain ornery and the other one denied egging
him on, but the driver floored the fuel pedal and blew past the warden leaving
him in a cloud of diesel smoke. The warden had to turn his truck around before
he could pursue them and the chase was on. About a mile down the road the
cowboys pulled over and turned on their lights so their pursuer wouldn’t run
into them in the dark.
As
the warden pulled up, one of the cowboys jumped out and threw his hands behind
his head. He faced the flatbed, leaning over in the “I’m busted” position. As
he did, he began loudly singing, “Bad boys, bad boys what you gonna do when
they come for you.”
The
warden knew he’d been had. Recognizing his prey as the cowboys that lived
there, he gave them a cussword-filled greeting and suggested they needed to be
working days and sleeping nights instead of messing with the law in the dark
hours. His good sense of humor kept the boys from getting put in jail, or worse
yet, shot as fugitives. It never occurred to those cowboys how badly this could
have ended.
The cowboy electrician
The
young ranch couple got a new-to-them used clothes dryer. Turned out the plug on
the cord was not going to match the more modern receptacle in the wall. The
cowboy had visions of his beer money going out the window to buy a new cord for
the dryer.
Necessity
is the mother of invention or sometimes the incentive for bad ideas. So, with a
hacksaw and horseshoe rasp in hand he commenced to making that pesky L-shaped
prong into a straight one. It took a couple beers and some smoothing out with
the finish side of his rasp, but he proudly figured he’d one-upped the hardware
man.
“It
must not have been square when I plugged it in. Made a sound a lot like 7018
welding rod,” he said. A loud pop and the lights went out. He tuned on it a
little more with his rasp, got the breaker reset and plugged it in again. This
time it worked.
The electric stove in that same house had an oven that
didn’t work. The ranch owner kept promising to get it fixed, but it hadn’t
happened yet. Thanksgiving was looming and while drinking a little of the beer
he bought with the money he saved by fixing the dryer, he experienced a repeat
of beer-induced brilliance. Simultaneously his wife reminded him of the minor
setbacks with the dryer and suggested he leave it alone instead of tempting
fate and burning the house down.
Typical of the species, telling him he can’t was a “watch me Alice” moment. Sure enough, he made all the necessary wiring, plugged it in and killed all the lights yet again. Repeated tries saw some more light flashing but ultimately the oven was working somewhat. “Sure did cook those biscuits quick, but we did have biscuits,” he declared.
He even had some thoughts that he might have missed
his career calling and somewhere there was an opening for a cowboy electrician.
It was mentioned that “opening” might possibly be a grave.
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