The Littlest Things Gang Aft Agley
Thank God for the dogs. If it wasn’t for wanting to boot them outside to do their thing when the rain slacked off a smidge, I’d have never seen the waves lapping at the base of the patio and the corner of the house. And all the front yards in the block reflecting the street lights and lightening strikes in the knee deep water that covered them. It had to be the drain.
So Major Dad put on his grubbies, Ebola slipped on a hand-me-down pair of fireman’s boots and they trudged off through the tempest.
It’s a bit of a trek, down the block and back up the other side, to where the drain’s supposed to be. One house over and right behind us. And in all those houses along that ditch, with the water already 3 plus feet high and undercutting their patios, all the lights were on and not one person was aware of the potential disaster. Not one curious nose at a window.
Then my guys got to the drain. Ebola was the light man, while Major Dad grabbed a rake from the closest patio and waded into the hip-deep run-off. He started dredging, felt something and snagged it. With a mighty tug the impediment came free, the drain belched a mighty spray as water started to fill the vacuum and a whirlpool formed to take it away. Whatever it was had completely covered the grates so not a drop could get through. The neighbor closest, a sweet clueless young thing, cracked open her patio door, peeking out to see what all the ruckus was about. “I had no idea it was so bad!” Major Dad dragged the offending object to her patio slab and Ebola spread it out, so they could figure out what it was.
“Oh”, she said. “That’s my grill cover.”
Fun | tree hugging sister | 
April 7, 2005 9:59 am
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“Clueless” sounds about right. Reminds of the clueless guy I saw once, up in Yellowstone National Park. I pulled over to enjoy the view of the Tetons, and saw a bunch of people pointing down, not up. I looked down as well.
This clueless idiot was less than 5 feet from a honkin’ HUGE bull moose. It wasn’t accidental; the moose was chowing down in a large meadow, for crying out loud! He was slowly approaching the moose quite deliberately. Why? I have no idea, as I turned around, got in my rig, left the scene, not wanting to choose between helping the moose or the idiot. I didn’t see any local headlines reading something like STUPID TOURIST TRAMPLED BY BAD TEMPERED 1500 POUND PLANT EATER WITH GOOD SURVIVAL INSTINCTS, so I suppose he wasn’t eligible for the Darwin Award. Unfortunately, I must add.
To make it worse, his mother (looked like she was 70 years old) was standing with the crowd, scared spitless. Did she have a heart attack after I left? Probably sooner than she should have.
Honest to God JeffS, that sounds like a Farside cartoon! (Large lady in pointy glasses,”Closer, Henry! He’s not in the frame yet! And stand up straight!“)
Ebola’d had to chase this grill cover once down already, in the winds the day after Ivan. (To prepare for said Cat 4 storm, she had wisely masking taped cardboard to her patio glass.) I had visions of her confusion when 20 neighbors came calling for the couple hundred thousand in damages caused by her marauding piece of vinyl.
No realli! She was Karving her initials øn the møøse with the sharpened end
of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge – her brother-in-law -an Oslo
dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: “The Høt Hands of an Oslo
Dentist”, “Fillings of Passion”, “The Huge Mølars of Horst Nordfink”…
My Montana cousin has a slew of idiot-tourit Yellowstone stories – my favorite was the folks who put honey on their kid’s face… so the bears would lick it for a photo.
Fortunately, a Park Ranger intervened.