Ed stopped in the house the other day and asked if I needed anything in town and if I wanted to ride in with him. As he started to list off the places he was going, I thought, Oh, yay, I can really do some serious shopping at the truck equipment supply store. The next stop he mentioned was Fleet Farm; I was changed and in the pickup before Ed had found his wallet.

Fleet Farm is my “Rodeo Drive,” sporting anything and everything a country gal could ever want or need. The last few years, when asked what was on my Christmas list, I just handed everyone a Fleet Farm catalog.

My mouth was watering as I thought of aisle one, where the greatest bags of old fashioned candy are found—something the new superstores don‘t carry. Aisles six and nineteen had better be free of shoppers as Emily was on her way!

Driving down the interstate, we passed a semi trailer with the latest, greatest John Deere combine header loaded on the back. Ed had to slow down, speed up, and then slow down again to view every inch of the “green” thing as I studied my watch, musing over the five minutes of prime-time shopping I was losing.

Getting closer to “Christmas in July,” we were stalled for a few minutes at an intersection as some goofball intending to take a turn decided at the last minute on “take-backs,” unloading his cargo of pallets right onto the center of the intersection. I eyed the bits of scrap wood, thinking a helping hand could carry a few boards into the back of our pickup; Ed pushed the automatic door lock button for my side of the cab as he stared straight ahead.

With only one traffic light stalling us before my elbow-pushing shopping

entrance, mentally I listed my first purchase as a watch without a

second hand.

There was only a one-in-a-million chance from here to the Badlands that we could be stopped beside another pickup the exact same make and model as ours. Ed and the other fellow stared at each other while comparing their scratches and dents. I felt a lot better after glancing over and seeing the other wife studying her watch with her “mean face” turned on. “Ed, the light’s green! ED!”

At the truck equipment supply store, I waited in the pickup and wrote down my soon-to-be shopping selections on the corner of a feed sack. After aisle one I would mosey down the right side of the store, then go back for a second cart and hit the left side. When Ed’s eyes were all agog at the full carts, I would remind him this was Fleet Farm and, of course, all the merchandise was farm-related. The items from aisles six and nineteen would be well hidden in the bottom of the carts.

Finally seeing the big orange and black sign ahead, my excitement drained as Ed slowed down by the Caterpillar machinery merchant. “Ed, ED, EDDDD, you’re driving on the wrong side of the road!” In the corner of the lot there was apparently some type of new farming apparatus that he had never seen before. As the pickup automatically turned into the driveway, I gauged the distance, pondering if I could walk to Fleet Farm from there. Just a little too far and too much traffic to brave, I figured, and cursed the machine named after a bug.

“This will only take a minute,” Ed said as he left me alone in the pickup to curse all things yellow.

Checking my watch again, I was horrified, realizing there would only be one hour of shopping bliss before Fleet Farm closed for the evening. Ed was analyzing every square inch of the Caterpillar thingamajig and looking at it more lovingly than he did his firstborn son. I think he actually had tears in his eyes! My shopping bliss came to a crashing end when the salesman walked out of the building… Looking around in the cab for something to throw at him before he could get to Ed, I tore off my watch and aimed for a between-the-eyes hit, but it was too late—they had made eye contact.

At that moment, I knew exactly how the “Castaway” fellow felt as his volleyball floated away in the ocean. “I’m sorry, Fleet Farm, I’m sorry!”…