Receiving a call from a fellow horse enthusiast, I was let in on a little secret: A national trainer was driving through our state with his load of champion horses and had broken down by a small town about a hundred miles away. I checked my lottery ticket first because this opportunity was surely a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see horses in person that at any other time I would drool over in a glossy magazine.
Checking the map for the fastest available cross-country trip according to how the crow would fly, I was off in no time at all with camera and autograph pen in hand.
A bit nervous wandering into new territory by myself, I was assured by the map that there were paved roads all the way to my destination. But in a heavily wooded area with winding roads, the nice highway turned into a very narrow, almost one-lane park path. Being a perpetual optimist, I was sure the little paved road would turn back into an adult highway in no time, so I continued on with my trip to see the world champs.
Where the Amtrak train came from and where it thought it was going were two dang good questions. Probably coming from Timbuktu and en route to a city called What-cha-ma-call-it. As I looked at my watch and was getting really impatient, the train slowed down and then came to a complete stop in the middle of nowhere, blocking my way. It really ticked me off as I imagined the truck and horse trailer full of fancy steeds slipping away.
Now, I was taught some dang good manners as a child, but the mother of the little boy making faces at me through the train window was just about to get my car rammed against her reclined seat. She lucked out as the train started chugging away.
Ducks are a beautiful type of fowl, and the babies are the cutest little fur balls ever created. But when a person is in a hurry, ducks should not be crossing one at a time over a wannabe highway. Mama Duck hissed and flapped her wings at me in very disgusting “stop” sign-language as one little duckling after another waddled across the road in front of my car tires. Just how many ducks could a wood duck pro- duce? As the seventeenth fuzzy-wuzzy chicklet crossed my path, Papa Duck brought up the rear with a quack and a wiggle of his tail, depositing an additional white stripe on the pavement.
OK, was I at the intersection of County Highway 80 or Number 3? Only the little rascal’s shotgun pellets knew for sure, as the road sign had more bullet holes through it than Grandma’s Dunkin’ Donuts. Taking a right would possibly put me twenty miles from my destination, and a left could land me seventy miles on the other side of nowhere.
Hungry, frustrated, and afraid the champion horses would soon be on their way to California, I opted to take a right turn and munch on the candy bars in my survival kit. Digging to the very bottom, tossing out the flashlight, blanket, and moon boots, I found no candy bars—just empty wrappers. I cussed out Ed; he had driven my car the week before and had eaten my survival kit! Driving at a steady, ticked-off pace, I saw the farmsteads and then the industrial buildings getting closer together, meaning I was either approaching the correct town or somewhere in Canada.
The sound of “ding, ding, dings” along with my dashboard lighting up like a Christmas tree put my temper right through the imaginary sunroof. Stopped at the side of the road, I just sat and stared at the little message: “Service Engine Soon.” Checking the gauges, I saw that the temperature wasn’t up to the red yet, so I had a decision to make: save my car and never see the world’s best horses in person or get out and hoof it. Hands down, off I drove with the little flashing light on my dash warning me I would soon be divorced.
The Jiffy Serve Station sign read “two miles ahead,” and right beside that was the correct name of the town where I was destined to see my beauties. Figuring I could take some pictures of the horses, along with getting some quality autograph time with the trainer while my car was being fixed, I was on cloud nine.
Then suddenly, there it was: a gigantic, aluminum semi-trailer loaded with national champion horses, right in front of my very own eyes. Getting emotional, I needed to use Jiffy Serve’s Jiffy John before gazing at the marvelous animals.
What happened next was beyond all devastation and fifty broken mirrors at the same time. As I came around the corner from freshening up, the horse trailer was pulling out of the driveway, never to be seen again. As I stood in total despair, the “toothless wonder”-mechanic was lucky he didn’t have any after he had the nerve to say, “You thould have theen thothe horthes; they were stho boothiful.”…