—Not gonna happen today, sadly. The little fellow, as it happens, is down in Texas to attend the funeral of a cousin, who rumor has it polished off eight bottles of Pink Grapefruit-flavored Mad Dog 20/20 before wandering out onto SH 114 outside Idalou (around Route 82) looking for a pickup truck to throw himself under.
And he found one, too—an old Ford Ranger crammed with beer-sodden Lubbock jocks on their way home from a field party who didn’t even bother to stop and call for help.
Not that the poor little bastard would have wanted any help, mind you: turns out he’d been surprised the week before in the restroom of the Olney Dairy Queen by an employee while he was buried hip deep inside an effete Black-tailed Jackrabbit (Lepus californicus)—and down in Texas, that kind of Brokeback Mountain thing is frowned upon, especially where there’s species mixing going on.
Ultimately, I guess he figured it was better to get drunk and throw himself under a pickup truck than, y’know…get snatched up by the local roughnecks and dragged behind one, chained to the bumper.
Poor little mixed up queer.
Frankly, I don’t think there is anyone, anywhere writing better prose today.
As a card-carrying native Texan, I should be so offended I drive to Denver and burn something down. However, every bit of that background just rang too true. But watch it, the eyes of Texas are watching you. You screw up and paint some picture of us that isn’t authentic, and your going down!
Jes’ sews ya’ll know not to bring that kinda stuff to Olney or we’ll git shed o ya’!!
And if ya do, drive slow. You drive too fasy and you can miss Olney!
As a native Calfornian, I too am outraged that the Lepus calfornicus is at the receiving end of that musty bathroom sex scene….I mean California is the leader in progressive thought isn’t it?
Now where is my PIE!!!!
What’s the difference between an armadillo funeral and any given highway?
I’ve got nothing.
Mommy, where do Jackalopes come from?
Right you are again, Jeff. Californicus in chains would be bound to wind up in a DNC commercial. I’m thinkin’ under the truck was the way to go.
Hugh Hewitt really won’t ‘get you’ now!
No way I can clean this up for the little girl. I’ll just have to tell her about the road trip to Texas and make up some reason he went there.
I once saw a dog humping a cat. I assumed it was simply cross species, but it could have been cross gender also.
What exactly does one drink at the funeral for a suicidal, homosexual aramdillo?
I’m perfectly willing to go with his personal preference for Maddog, but I’m more of a traditionalist and favor the grape flavor.
Texas funerals for a Dillo the rucked a fabbit?
Sure sure, after the hymn, everyone pisses on the grave and then gets drunk. Fights are optional but appreciated.
TW: You can have a “mean” drunk at a funeral even if the deceased was a twisted little shit.
Jackadillo
Ha! That same thought crossed my mind.
Shoulda been an F-150 though, bigger tires/bumpers to deal with ‘dillo shell…
Forgot to add, which means the little bastard will surely be back next Friday to gloat over having flipped the Ranger into a ditch.
I have no idea what any of this means.
<polishes halo bought from Dollar General>
Mark,
Jeff said an old pickup. If you go back far enough, “Ranger” was a trim package on what was then the F100. You know, chrome this&that and luxurious Naugahyde™ seats instead of the woven plastic stuff. Just the sort of thing a High Plains wheat farmer would’ve bought new and handed down to the grandson who went off to Tech. The only thing not clear is why the li’l fella went all the way from Olney to Idalou in his soddened condition. There are plenty of Rangers of all vintages, not to mention one-ton GMC and Dodge duallies with bull bumpers that can do in a cow with only a soft bump, right around Wichita Falls, Jacksboro, and Seymour, or even Archer City if he didn’t mind waiting a bit.
I’m on the road and will be for a week and a half, but when I get back I should send Jeff a picture of my truck, a 1974 F100 with 390 cubic inches of wonderful, trailer-pulling, global warming goodness under the hood, which requires a tire iron to open because the spring gave up the ghost years ago. If suicide by Ford is your intent, it should be among your first choices. It has, after all, happened before.
Regards,
Ric
So a post-post-modern deconstructionalist would see this as…what? A plea for the urgent ban of Ford pick-up trucks to prevent their use as proto-mamillian suicide enablers, or something?
And haven driven many a city-owned Ford pick-up, let me tell you that the choice of one to splatter a slow moving critter is excellent (I’ve seen so many abused Ford trucks come back up again that I’m certain they are a Rovian-created juggernaut of destruction)*. Canada Geese? You need something with more acceleration to nail one of those beggers.
*Give the keys of one to an 18 year old North American male or female and watch what they do it to it on the city’s dime. Makes you proud to be an American, I’ll tell you what.
Those were the days, my friend… I’ve always hated the smaller and liter measured engines.
Yes too, I do remember that Ranger option for the real trucks vaguely now that you’ve brought it up, I ended up with a new ‘75 Econoline 150 at the time (I think that was the first year they pushed the engine out front by a couple feet).
So this means the ‘dillo really is dead then?
Did the ‘dillo have the decency to give the rabbit a reach-around? Seem’s the least he could do. If he really cared, that is.
– McGehee, thats not a halo, its a minaiature hulla hoop, with the Dollar General price tag still on it.
– Jeff, you positive shell boy isn’t just using the “dead relative” excuse as a cover for a quick hot one with that sexy little tortoise number, Sherry, in Waco.
If that dry crustacean cared at all he’d be dancing right now!
You add some rain and a train and a cryin’ mama and you got yourself a country song here, Jeff.
If gaydillo had saved his change and bought a one-way bus ticket to San Francisco or even Austin his tragic fate might have been averted. Alas dillo’s lack coin pockets and look terrible with accessories.
Jonathan,
I greatly fear that a bus ticket to Austin would have only postponed the inevitable, if even that. Our departed friend would have had to walk up Congress Street to reach University… this is without considering the difficulties he would be likely to encounter at the rest stop in Waco, home of Baylor Bears and the Texas Ranger Museum.
But the more I think about it, the more I think there’s something Jeff’s not telling us. What in the green World and umpteen artificial satellites were Lubbock jocks doing careening about in an old Ranger pickup? What happened to the scholarship Vette? Is the driver from Windthorst? Is there a suspiciously shredded pile of fiberglass buried under a pile of what didn’t get converted to Grade A Homogenized on a side road off US281? How did the armadillo get to Idalou from Olney? There is mystery here…
Regards,
Ric
tw: story. Something in this story doesn’t quite add up.
Oddly enough, I grew up very near Olney and Windthorst. Both are a good 4 hours from Lubbock, so that must be some way-out field party.
Possum Kingdom Lake, to be exact…yes, it actually exists. And is named that. And if you listen to the Toadies, that is what the album/song title refers to.
TW: member. “…of a cou-u-untry clu-u-ub..” Heh heh. heh. I typed “member.”
mark  A ‘dillo with the moves can take down an H3…
Ah, but armadillo cousin had been caught in Olney a week ago—and had made his way toward Lubbock. He was actually hit in Idalou. Don’t know exactly where the party was, but the Lubbock kids weren’t too far from home…
Hmmmmmmmm……pickled armadillo, a la’ asphalt. Yum!
Ah, yes…Lubbock – where the trees grow sideways with the ever present prevailing winds.
Well Jeff, Hwy 114 is a straight shot to Lubbock (and one of the most boring drives outside of Oklahoma), and the main thoroughfare for the Tech kids to get to “college”.
What do I remember of Windthorst? The smell…a big dairy farm on the way between where I lived, and the closest town with a mall and a movie theater. The huge brown olfactory cloud of collected cattle dung slamming your nostrils so hard, I would wake up in the backseat, try not to puke, and hold my breath for nearly 3 minutes until we were past.
If the ‘dillo had been more respectful of the culture of south Texas, none of this would have happened.
That side bet in Idalou didn’t turn out so well. Shoulda got a fresh deck in New Deal.
Are you trying to tell me something, BBH?
– Yeh. In your case I wouldn’t bother investing in any harp lessons….. *snort*
Any of you guys still in Texas? (I grew up in Vernon). If so, have you seen any horny toads lately? Last time I was home didn’t see any and I fear extinction.
I guess semi-technically they are “horned toads”.
noah, there has been a similar and gradual disappearance of tarantulas in central Oklahoma.
last time I saw any tarantulas was when a whole army of them was crossing the road south of Lake Texoma (near one of the homes of Ross Perot)!
Google link says my beloved horny toads are more accurately termed “horned lizards”!
Noah  Horny toad/horned toad… depends on how hard it is to pry the little perv off your ankle…
haven’t seen any noah, but i’m in/near dallas, does that count?
Nuts. That’s $2.98 down the drain right there.
Well, if I’m going the other way, time to start learning the accordion.
I used to date a topless accordian player, you wanna talk about tough!
Noah. I caught a horny toad when I was helping a crew dig up a leaky oil pipeline down in McCamey last summer. But you’re right they’re scarce.
Incidentally Idalou’s quarterback won the shotput at the regional track meet with a throw of 54’9” last weekend. QB’s who are shotputters? That’s something you don’t see very often. More often than you see a armadillo fuckin’ a jackrabbit though.
When I was a little kid, riding the school bus, I saw a billy goat fucking a german shepherd once when we pulled up to a house to pick up the kids that lived there. That is an honest to God, no west Texas bullshit, true story.
TW: may
I don’t remember what fuckin’ month it was.