texas greybeard
Active member
In the dark, I'm pulling grocery bags from the darkened back seat, standing in a pitch black driveway after 11 pm, when I feel that watermelon hop down out of the seat, and lodges between one of my legs and the running board of the truck. I try to reach down and grab him, but he scoots over out of my grasp, drops to the concrete, doesn't bust open, goes between my feet and lazily rolls over to the edge of the grass. I see it there, stopped where I use the edger where the grass meet the driveway. Okay, I set the bags down in the back seat, and walk over toward the melon and just as I get there, for whatever reason, starts rolling across the lawn faster than I can hobble. It's one of the things I can no longer do; reach down from straight upright and pick something off the ground.
This watermelon, in blackness, makes a perfect radial roll to it's left, avoiding the mailbox, and drops down onto the street. I'm still trying to catch it, worried about falling in the dark (cell phone is till in the truck) and I step down off the curb and catch a glimpse of it, accelerating down the street.. rolling bumpily along. I can't catch it, think "well, there's $6 gone) and return to my truck to carry the groceries into the house. We have 2 refrigerators, one in the kitchen and one in the garage. The one in the garage is for frozen foods and 'extra' stuff we won't need right away like my extra gallon of whole milk and un cut watermelons.
I get everything put away and think, "well, I guess I better go find the damn watermelon before some kid runs over it on their golf cart tomorrow morning and careens off into someone's parked car".
So, I get in my truck, and I drive, and drive, and I drive all the way past the next block past the bottom of the hill. It's nearly midnight, in a subdivision full of retired military, most with hi $$ video security cams everywhere and hidden arsenals inside their homes that would make some 3rd world tyrants envious. The melon...travels with a will of it's own.........a LOONG way. X marks the spot.
There's no vehicles parked on my side of the street that night and I can't find the dang runaway watermelon, so I make 2 blocks, come back and look again.
Finally at the VERY end of the hill, starting back up the next hill, I spy it. Hiding/wedged under ...something strange, sitting upright on 4 squatty legs.
Now, in my subdivision, the big truck with the Giant Claw comes around every Wednesday for our trash and every OTHER Wednesday it's bigger cousin comes by and picks up bulky stuff, like dog gnawed sofas, defunct refrigerators and kid peed mattresses, but everyone that has 'good stuff' to get rid of, puts it out to the curb early, usually on the weekend so if anyone wants it, it's fair game. I do not know what this thing is that has successfully trapped my runaway watermelon but I finally open the door to it and realize if only by the smell, that it's some kind of BBQ thingie. I can see grates and shelf looking stuff inside. Mental note..those grates are something I can use..
I don't want to mess with the smoker that time of night but I go to the truck, leave the door open, nervously pull the melon out from under thingie, deposit it the passenger side FRONT seat and head for home. It isn't cracked or broke open, and other than a few soft spots, feels no worse for the little trip it made at near light speed down Blue Bird trail..
I take it (melon) to the garage refrigerator, open the door and .........there sits another watermelon just like it. Wife had bought one earlier that day and forgot to tell me.
2 days later, after supper, I pull that melon from the fridge, cut into the rollabout little heathen, and it's soft & bad around on the outside but the heart is firm and still tastes good. I eat more than I usually would.
Next morning early, my stomach awakens me. I find I have a case of squirts not unlike a cow that's been on fresh spring grass and I know dang well it's from that watermelon. It's revenge was served cold...
The mysterious part.
I get up the next morning before church, right at daylight to be exact, push the button on the wall near the walk in door by the laundry room, the electrons, (unlike the ones above the back seat of my truck) start moving back and forth, to and fro and the electric motor raises the big garage door, and right there where I sat down in my lawn chair and had my very first cup of Folgers Black Silk/Texas Pecan blend coffee. Then I remember the watermelon, and think, "oh crap, I have to go get that smoker down at the bottom of the hill."
I throw the rest of my clothes on, take the truck down in a hurry.
The night before the smoker was standing upright on it's wheels right by the curb on the edge of the street. Not so now..
When I retrace my path from the night before, I find the smoker laid over on it's side and, up on the sidewalk.
I hurriedly drop my tailgate, load it noisily as something predictably rattles around behind the smoke darkened glass door and take it home. I know nothing about these things.
Unload it with the same noisy commotion as a few moments prior, roll it into the garage, open the glass door and find it empty, save one little square metal cover, that looks like a box but has the word "FRONT" pressed into one side. (Now, if you knew my history from 50 years ago, you would understand I'm still a little leery about any contraption that says "FRONT" on it because the last ones I saw would go Clack Clack Clack then BOOM! and spit out hundreds of little steel pellets and they weren't for BBQing) But this was just a little cover with that awful word on one side and a couple of vents on other sides.
That means only 1 thing. Someone, here in the subdivision, which isn't very big, stopped sometime between miidnight and just after dawn and robbed all the cooking grids and whatever else is supposed to sit down in the bottom of the thing. Flipped it over and was probably going to get the auger and motor but decided not to.
I'm stuck with it. Man card decorum dictates I can't take it back and can't roll it out to my own curb and let the previous owner see it sitting there when he comes driving up the street past my house . There is unwritten rules stating ya have to keep it at least one garbage cycle.
This watermelon, in blackness, makes a perfect radial roll to it's left, avoiding the mailbox, and drops down onto the street. I'm still trying to catch it, worried about falling in the dark (cell phone is till in the truck) and I step down off the curb and catch a glimpse of it, accelerating down the street.. rolling bumpily along. I can't catch it, think "well, there's $6 gone) and return to my truck to carry the groceries into the house. We have 2 refrigerators, one in the kitchen and one in the garage. The one in the garage is for frozen foods and 'extra' stuff we won't need right away like my extra gallon of whole milk and un cut watermelons.
I get everything put away and think, "well, I guess I better go find the damn watermelon before some kid runs over it on their golf cart tomorrow morning and careens off into someone's parked car".
So, I get in my truck, and I drive, and drive, and I drive all the way past the next block past the bottom of the hill. It's nearly midnight, in a subdivision full of retired military, most with hi $$ video security cams everywhere and hidden arsenals inside their homes that would make some 3rd world tyrants envious. The melon...travels with a will of it's own.........a LOONG way. X marks the spot.
There's no vehicles parked on my side of the street that night and I can't find the dang runaway watermelon, so I make 2 blocks, come back and look again.
Finally at the VERY end of the hill, starting back up the next hill, I spy it. Hiding/wedged under ...something strange, sitting upright on 4 squatty legs.
Now, in my subdivision, the big truck with the Giant Claw comes around every Wednesday for our trash and every OTHER Wednesday it's bigger cousin comes by and picks up bulky stuff, like dog gnawed sofas, defunct refrigerators and kid peed mattresses, but everyone that has 'good stuff' to get rid of, puts it out to the curb early, usually on the weekend so if anyone wants it, it's fair game. I do not know what this thing is that has successfully trapped my runaway watermelon but I finally open the door to it and realize if only by the smell, that it's some kind of BBQ thingie. I can see grates and shelf looking stuff inside. Mental note..those grates are something I can use..
I don't want to mess with the smoker that time of night but I go to the truck, leave the door open, nervously pull the melon out from under thingie, deposit it the passenger side FRONT seat and head for home. It isn't cracked or broke open, and other than a few soft spots, feels no worse for the little trip it made at near light speed down Blue Bird trail..
I take it (melon) to the garage refrigerator, open the door and .........there sits another watermelon just like it. Wife had bought one earlier that day and forgot to tell me.
2 days later, after supper, I pull that melon from the fridge, cut into the rollabout little heathen, and it's soft & bad around on the outside but the heart is firm and still tastes good. I eat more than I usually would.
Next morning early, my stomach awakens me. I find I have a case of squirts not unlike a cow that's been on fresh spring grass and I know dang well it's from that watermelon. It's revenge was served cold...
The mysterious part.
I get up the next morning before church, right at daylight to be exact, push the button on the wall near the walk in door by the laundry room, the electrons, (unlike the ones above the back seat of my truck) start moving back and forth, to and fro and the electric motor raises the big garage door, and right there where I sat down in my lawn chair and had my very first cup of Folgers Black Silk/Texas Pecan blend coffee. Then I remember the watermelon, and think, "oh crap, I have to go get that smoker down at the bottom of the hill."
I throw the rest of my clothes on, take the truck down in a hurry.
The night before the smoker was standing upright on it's wheels right by the curb on the edge of the street. Not so now..
When I retrace my path from the night before, I find the smoker laid over on it's side and, up on the sidewalk.
I hurriedly drop my tailgate, load it noisily as something predictably rattles around behind the smoke darkened glass door and take it home. I know nothing about these things.
Unload it with the same noisy commotion as a few moments prior, roll it into the garage, open the glass door and find it empty, save one little square metal cover, that looks like a box but has the word "FRONT" pressed into one side. (Now, if you knew my history from 50 years ago, you would understand I'm still a little leery about any contraption that says "FRONT" on it because the last ones I saw would go Clack Clack Clack then BOOM! and spit out hundreds of little steel pellets and they weren't for BBQing) But this was just a little cover with that awful word on one side and a couple of vents on other sides.
That means only 1 thing. Someone, here in the subdivision, which isn't very big, stopped sometime between miidnight and just after dawn and robbed all the cooking grids and whatever else is supposed to sit down in the bottom of the thing. Flipped it over and was probably going to get the auger and motor but decided not to.
I'm stuck with it. Man card decorum dictates I can't take it back and can't roll it out to my own curb and let the previous owner see it sitting there when he comes driving up the street past my house . There is unwritten rules stating ya have to keep it at least one garbage cycle.
