I was leaning against a fence post and feeling lower than whale shit, when my neighbor pulled up in his old pickup.  He must've picked up on my mood right quick 'cause he walked toward me, saying, "You look like forty miles of torn up road.  Who died?"  Plem's a good man, and a good friend, but I didn't feel much like talking.  I was going through one of those recovery periods when you're trying to get over doing something really stupid - you know, those hangovers from an experience that makes you shudder and grit your teeth when you think about it.

"Well, nobody died, but my brain has done gone plumb to hell," I said.

"Join the club, pardner.  It happens to all of us old farts," he said. 

"Yeah, maybe so.  I reckon it don't matter much now.  It's water under the bridge."

"I don't know, Cletus.  I've often noticed that water under the bridge has lots of turds floating in it.  And turds do float, you know, and that means that they're likely to wash up on somebody's bank somewheres.  That's the way it goes with stupid shit - it's usually something somebody has to clean up, one way or another."

"Well, damn!  You sure know how to cheer a feller up," I said, then threw down my hammer in disgust.

"So what'd you do that's so bad?  In other words, what kind of turds have you been putting in the water?" he asked, then chuckled.

"Aw, hell, it's not just one thing.  It seems like everything I've done lately has been backasswards, wrong, or just downright stupid.  I just can't get my head out of my ass, it seems, and the river of crap I've been causing might take an small army to clean up.  For one thing, I went to town yesterday with about $800 in an envelope to put in the bank.  I stuck the envelope in a pocket somewhere, but when I got to the bank, it was nowhere to be found.  I damn near stripped down to my drawers in the bank, but I never did find the damn thing," I said.

"Yeah, that's pretty bad for sure, but it'll probably turn up.  If you're like me, you just thought you stuck it in a pocket.  What probably happened is that you laid it down somewheres in the house, and just forgot it."

"What's bad about it is that it wasn't my money.  I was depositing the money for Bubba to save him a trip to town, and now I've got to tell him that I went and lost eight hundred bucks.  And that's money I'll have to give him 'cause it's not his fault the money didn't make it to the bank."

"I'd still retrace my tracks, make sure I didn't put it somewhere else," Plem said, then headed back for his truck.

I watched him drive off, thinking to myself that I'd already done that.  I'd looked everywhere for the envelope.  And so, I decided to go on back to the house and tell Bubba that I'd lost his money, that I'd replace it the next time I went to town.  Back at the house, I found that Bubba wasn't there.  I looked outside and saw that his truck was gone.  So, I went to the refrigerator to get a drink of something cold . . . and I opened the door . . . and there in the fridge right beside the milk was an envelope.  I snatched it up and opened it, hoping to find the eight hundred bucks.  Instead, I found this note:

          I've heard of cold cash, but this is ridiculous.  So, what's my money doing in the ice box?  Anyway, I found it, went to town to deposit it.
                                                                                                                        Bubba

And so, I wrote a note under his and stuck it back in the fridge, which read:

          Thanks for fishing my turds out of the water. 

                                                  Cletus

I'm sure I'll have to explain that one later.  My moods better now 'cause I'm relieved he found the money . . . but I'm still feeling stupid.


Cletus, 4/3/08