Today I have the extreme privilege of having my lovely friend Pamela Fagan Hutchins post as a guest on Just Jules. You might remember the name from a few months back when I reviewed her book "Hot Flashes and Half Ironmans". I simply love to read her writing and am honored to host this guest blog.
I actually met Pamela via her husband Eric, he is often the star of her stories and I usually end up laughing at his expense. One of my favorite stories is one she is sharing with you today. Without further ado, I will let Pamela do the talking.
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Nice Legs
My
super-athletic husband is a native of St. Croix. Yah, mon. When we moved to
Texas, he had to learn some Texas tricks, and this old dog didn’t want to. It
took a lot for him to find his inner Bubba-mon.
When
we had lived in Texas less than two years, Eric and I celebrated our
anniversary in Fredericksburg, a charming hamlet chock-a-full of German history
in the Hill Country of Texas. Like anyone would, we planned our entire getaway
around bicycling and running. However, given the fact that we’d just run the
Texas marathon days before, it was very moderate bicycling and running.
We
were in the heart of Texas deer hunting country, and it just happened that we
were smack in the middle of deer hunting season. As we drove into town, Eric
put on his thickest, most sarcastic drawl and estimated the IQ and body weight
of each thermal-camouflage-clad, beer-bellied hunter we passed. We pulled up to
a gas pump, surrounded by converted SUVs and ATVs tricked out with gun turrets
and swiveling Lazy Boys in their hacked-off back ends.
Eric
put the car in park. “You’re going to have to pump the gas.”
Not
to be a princess, but, “’Scuse me?” My husband never lets me lift a dainty
little finger if he can help it. He’d have to be vomiting up a lung to ask me
to pump gas.
He
gestured at his bare legs and running attire. “I can’t go out there like this.”
“Because it’s too cold?” I could understand
this, seeing as it was January and all. That’s why I had on full-length running
tights. Duh.
“No, because . . .” He jerked his head toward
the nearest hunter, garbed head-to-toe to withstand an arctic blast. “People
will stare at me.”
“Ahhhhhhh.”
Eric’s
shorts were truly short; you know, the kind that shows 99.9% of your thighs?
You see shorts like these on real runners in city parks. You do not see them in
Llano, Texas. In Llano, real men don’t wear sissy running shorts. Hell, real
men don’t run at all, in short shorts or anything else. Real men don’t need to
run, unless it’s to the Allsup’s for a six-pack of Lone Star beer. They get
their exercise the manly way: they hunt and field-dress deer after they poke
their dogies and till the back forty in their John Deeres. (My apologies to all
aforesaid real men, ‘cause I know there’s a difference between a farmer and a
cowboy, and never the twain shall meet.)
Well,
I may have giggled and made a comment or two at this point, I dunno, but I did
pump the gas. We passed more hunters on our way to a café where we planned to
meet my mother for breakfast, like anyone would on their anniversary trip.
Um,
yeah.
Anyway, Eric kept humming
some dueling banjos song and talking about people who marry their first
cousins. Then we pulled into the parking lot of the café.
Eric
put the car in park. He turned a stricken face to me.
“Lotta hunters in there,” I said before he had
a chance to speak, gesturing towards the tiny, crowded restaurant and then at
the giant vehicles around us. And I coughed to cover a chuckle.
“Har-de-har-har,” said Eric.
“I think you’re a little underdressed,” I said,
and this time I burst out laughing. Every person in the restaurant except my
mom, who by now was waving cheerily at us through the window, was wearing
thermal camo overalls.
We
hurried into the bacon-scented café, Eric tugging in vain at his shorts. They
were as long as they were going to get. All eyes followed us to the table,
where Mom kissed and hugged us with noisy gusto.
As
soon as we sat down, she asked Eric to run to her car and get something. Well,
a man doesn’t ever say no to his mother-in-law, does he? Eric took a deep
breath and re-trod his walk of shame to the parking lot, wishing, I’m sure, for
Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.
When
he was out of earshot, I leaned in and whispered, “Mom, Eric is mortified about
his running shorts.”
“Why?” she asked. “He looks fine.”
“Look around, Mom. Hunters. No short running
shorts.” I giggled. “He feels conspicuous.”
My
mother never wastes an opportunity, and the woman is quick. She turned to the
nearest hunter, a healthy fellow of 270 pounds or so, 8.6 pounds of it in
facial hair.
“Would you do me a favor?” she asked him.
Have
I mentioned that my mother is a great source of genetic material? She is
charming and pretty, and all men love her. This hunter was no exception.
“Why sure, ma’am, what can I do ya for?” he said,
and damn if his voice wasn’t a dead ringer for Eric’s imitation hunter-drawl
earlier.
“See that man in the running shorts out there
in the parking lot? That’s my son-in-law. He is a little embarrassed about
wearing shorts. I was wondering if you could let out a big wolf whistle when he
comes back in?”
He
turned to his cronies, who were hanging on every word of this interchange. He
brayed a laugh, and after a split second, so did his two friends. “I’d be
delighted to help ya out, ma’am.”
“Thank you sooooo much,” she said, and turned
back to her menu, a Mona Lisa smile on her face.
The
front door opened, sounding its bell. My clean-shaven husband with his mighty
fine exposed gams stepped in.
Without
hesitating as long as it would take to load his 30.06 deer rifle, the hunter
yelled out, “Hey boy, NICE LEGS!”
Eric
looked around slowly, hoping the hunter was talking to someone else. His face
lost all color. The restaurant grew so quiet you could almost hear the steam
hissing out of Eric’s ears. After a few beats, the café exploded in sound, as
the hunter and his buddies cackled and whooped with laughter. They pounded the
table, and one of them clapped our hunter on the back with a resounding thwump.
Eric
tilted his head just enough to be perceptible and made the four quick strides
from the door to our table, his naked legs eye-level as he pushed between two
tables on the way. The hunter reached out and clasped his meaty paw around
Eric’s arm.
He
hooked his thumb at my mother. “Yore mother-in-law put me up to it. I don’t
normally comment on another feller’s legs.”
“They are awful nice, though,” one of his
friends said, and they all set to hee-hawing again.
It
is possible that Eric now finds this story humorous. At the time, he may or may
not have planned the slow and painful death of his mother-in-law in the near
future, although you’d never have known it then. Let’s just say that when we
drew up our house plans for our someday house on our property in Nowheresville,
he didn’t include a mother-in-law suite.
But
he did let me buy him a pair of longer running shorts.
By Pamela Fagan Hutchins, who knows
better than to share stuff like this on the internet, but she just can’t help
herself.
