Love, fighter, wild horse rider
by Julie Carter
Billy Paul believed himself to be and therefore claimed he
was a lover, fighter and a wild horse rider. Not an uncommon thought process
for cowboys in general. In real life, he was very much married and had a couple
tow-head kids that would run into his back pockets if he suddenly stopped in
his tracks.
There was the possibility that he might have accidentally
become involved in a bar fight a time or two in the distant past. Considerable
distant and with an embellished memory.
As far as riding the wild horses, his current job entailed
starting the colts born of very gentle mares on the See Nothing Ranch where he
was currently employed. “Wild” was a relative term as far as these horses went
and again, they came with an embellished description.
For the most part, Billy Paul stayed at the ranch. Only when
caught in his “unawares” was he enticed to travel with his wife to town. And at
that, it absolutely never involved Walmart. That just wasn’t tolerable for him.
Somehow, on this occasion, his bride had successfully pulled
a fast one on him. Before he realized it, he was walking along behind her into
a building that, to his notion, would work pretty good for an indoor roping
arena. Except of course it was filled with clothes, groceries and everything
else from power tools to tennis shoes.
The little woman had told him she needed to pick up just a
few things, so in resignation, he followed along. Not paying any serious attention,
he suddenly lost her to the endless aisles of shopping possibilities. He
wandered up and down each aisle until he encountered a sudden obstruction.
He found himself hemmed in behind a, as he described it, “corn-fed
lady in millennium yellow spandex pants.” Since there wasn’t any clearance on
either side of this glow-in-the-dark object in the aisle, he stood there with
many thoughts running through his cowboy brain.
The first of which was “How many folks had it taken to get
her into those britches?” Surely, it involved all four of her kids that were
milling around and her husband, and probably a neighbor or two had helped out
with the project.
Billy Paul needed rescuing in the worst way and his bride
was lost to him somewhere in the endless vista of dry goods. Finally escaping
when he and this yellow aberration reached the end of the aisle, he turned down
the next one, still on the lookout for his wife.
It was in this runway that he circled up on another wonder
of the world, also wearing yellow spandex. However, this time the model was
blonde, every bit of six-feet-tall and built like the proverbial well-shaped
brick outhouse.
Billy Paul, like any other lover, fighter and wild horse
rider, appreciated well-made clothes so he decided that since he was lost anyway,
he would just stand there and visually inspect this lovely and her fine yellow
garments. Predictably, this was close to the same time his bride located him.
In an instant, Billy Paul was catapulted into validating the
“fighter” part of his legend. Yellow never was a good color for him and this
time it guaranteed him a week of a cold shoulder and equally cold meals.
Billy Paul’s message to all: “Stay out of Walmart.”
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