Moose in the Kitchen

My computer battery is fully charged. Which means I have approximately 20 minutes before the computer beeps forlornly and goes black. Not unlike an alcoholic spilling his sixth unmixed drink before falling face-first into cold mashed potatoes with a gin-soaked splat.

If you’re wondering about the gin reference, it’s my nod to Kerouac’s On the Road Again. Because I am. On the road again, that is. Not Jack Kerouac reincarnated for a few more bottles of gin. I’m not sure he even drank gin, but it seems fitting.

I’m cozily ensconced in a car full of steamy windows and dog hair, typing on my laptop as we drive home from Oregon. We’ve passed through the misty valleys and straight into fluttering snow. Which means my Jack Kerouac reference is already obsolete because this is far more Oregon Trail (’80s computer game with blinking green cursors) than beatnik ’60s novel (with tasty drugs).

Traversing a snowy mountain pass like the Siskiyou makes me feel hardy and pioneering…even though I’m fairly certain hardy pioneers did not travel treacherous cliffs in a Suzuki while listening to David Sedaris on an ipod. I would have made a dreadful pioneer. If I don’t take a warm shower every day with yummy-smelling shampoo THERE IS HELL TO PAY. Meeka would have made an even worse team of oxen. She’d pull the wagon approximately two-and-a-half feet, sit down on her furry haunches and look imploringly over her shoulder as if to say, “Am I done yet? Do I get to ride in the wagon now?” We would surely have been the party to take a wrong turn, get stuck in a frozen tundra and begin slyly assessing our travelling companions to ascertain whose thighs have the tenderest meat.

Just as I was getting ready to start testing the nearest set of thighs, we pulled up to Black Bear Diner for a mid-journey meal. Search though I did, cannibalism just didn’t seem to be on the menu. So I settled for a hamburger the size of small brontosaurus and a vanilla milkshake that accurately captures the essence of milkshakes, i.e. mostly dessert, with just enough milk to melt the ice cream in a satisfactory manner.

Blithely fluttering snow? The kind that’s hitting the windshield right this very moment? Seems to my hothouse pansy self to be the last word in blizzard conditions. Having crossed the pass, we’re now quickly losing altitude, but the snow is still coming down with blinding, life-threatening whiteness.

Fine, it’s not that bad, but what’s a blog post without a little “heroine battles for her life in a warm car while typing a blog post” drama?

We timed it just right, any later and the pass might have closed before we could get over it. And then I would have missed work tomorrow. On second thought, we seem to have timed this excursion poorly. It seems almost certain that I will be at work tomorrow. Though not necessarily on time, which is some comfort.

If this is more information than you needed to get through your day, I apologize. But the dog farted again. I think we need to feed her less gravy.

Snow is quickly turning to rain, which is probably less of a good thing than you would imagine. My car does not like rain. Just as I was about to launch into a diatribe about my car, which is little more than four seats smashed into a tin can on some wheels, and hydroplanes when faced with two-week old puddles, the driver waxes annoyed,

“No four-wheel drive station wagon has an excuse for going 50 miles an hour. Here I am, driving something that could best be described as ‘rattletrap’ [quick back-pedalling "I don't really believe your car is rattletrap," which no one, not even the dog, believes] but certainly not a sure-footed beast of burden like those station wagons.”

It’s true. If you read this post, it means we have survived the harrowing journey full of mildly over-used windshield wipers and vanilla milkshakes. Whether or not I resort to cannibalism remains to be seen, AS SOMEONE DOESN’T SEEM INCLINED TO SHARE HIS SNACKS.

Related posts:

1. The Hapless Wonder Triumphs!
2. Two Large Rumps, One Small Seat
3. Thirsty Work
4. I Like My Car Too, But Come On
5. No Birds Were Harmed in the Making of My Poem. Would That I Could Say the Same About Dinner.