Horace: Why so glum, hon?
Hortense: I’m worried about Buddy Bones. He’s been gone for months! He doesn’t know that the Williams got a new cat and forgot about the old one. If he only knew, maybe he would come home.
Horace: Don’t fret, my pet. I got a card from him with his footprint on it yesterday. I just forgot to tell you about it. Look, here it is. That’s Buddy Bones’ footprints for sure.
Now, where was I? Oh, yes, Rome Burning…
Meanwhile, on the planet HTRAE
BB: Man, it’s really hot in the northern hemisphere of this planet during December. I can’t wait until July, when it’s cold. That’s also the time of year when we celebrate all things good on this planet. Since we don’t celebrate birthdays, and there are no holidays (or weekend, either) on this planet, we celebrate everything on one day: the middle day of the year. On that day, we each take our prized possession and give it to the person we believe will most enjoy it. Hmm… it seems like I read something about that in a book on earth. Oh well, I must get ready to take an ice bath to cool off. I’ll take this manuscript I…came by honestly when I left earth to read while I cool off by the fan first.
CHAPTER SIX: DYNAMITE COMES IN SMALL PACKAGES
Another person wanting to cast her vote for the correct candidate parked her car hurriedly in front of the polling place. The courthouse in Richmond was the closest polling place to her house, and it was conveniently located on her way home. Nadine Vasquez-White had no qualms about voting early or by mail or email (as citizens were now permitted to do) but she just simply hadn’t had enough time to study the issues and the candidates before casting her vote. By the time she had made her decision, early voting was closed. So, Nadine waited until the day of the election to cast her vote. She wasn’t alone.
Since her shift ended at six o’clock, Nadine was in the last group of voters at the Ft. Bend County Courthouse. It was after eight p.m. when she was able to cast her vote and return to her vehicle due to the high volume of voters who had elected to wait until the last minute on the last day to cast their votes for their selected candidate.
It was to Nadine’s extreme chagrin that she discovered she had a flat tire when she returned to her small, electric-powered car. She knew that her husband Larry was working late. His sons had scheduled a new, experimental surgery. The only time they could get the operating room scheduled was after five p.m. It would be a three-hour surgery, and Larry wanted to watch the surgery to learn about the new technique.
Nadine didn’t see any reason to bother her husband or any of her three brothers. She also disdained calling the roadside service she and Larry paid their insurance company for service on such things. It was a simple flat tire. As a former Army Ranger, Nadine surmised that it wouldn’t be hard for a soldier to change a flat tire, even if she had little bulk to apply to the lug wrench.
Just as she was opening her trunk to remove the spare tire, jack and lug wrench, she heard an unfamiliar voice say, “Hey, little lady, do you need any help?” The large man estimated the woman’s weight to be less than one-hundred pounds. How could someone so small change a flat tire? That was his thinking. This angered the former special forces soldier more than she could have ever imagined. She didn’t like to be patronized, and someone assuming she was too weak to change a flat tire raised her ire. The large man also apparently believed he was dealing with someone incapable of defending herself. He grabbed her arms and tried to stuff Nadine into the trunk of her own car. That was his second mistake. His first was seriously underestimating his prey’s ability to defend herself. Nadine quickly turned the table on the six-foot, five-inch, two-hundred forty-five pound assailant and forcibly brought the cargo cover of her car down onto his head, knocking him out cold. As he was falling, she influenced his large body to fall into the trunk of her car with her tiny arms and body. She slammed the cargo cover shut and took the lug wrench, spare tire and jack to the disabled tire. With the speed of a mongoose, she loosened the lug nuts, using the deft swiftness of her hands and arms to create enough torque to loosen them. After she jacked the car up adequately, she put the spare tire in place and reversed the previous process to tighten the lug nuts. The whole process took her less than eight minutes, she noted proudly as she checked her watch. Her quick actions would have saved her from getting a ticket if she had had to change the flat tire on one of Houston’s many toll roads.
After throwing the flat tire and her equipment in the back seat, Nadine headed to her brother’s ranch. She stopped about one-halfway there and opened the trunk to let her assailant out of it. As he exited the trunk, she applied a deft, brutal blow to the back of his head witht he lug wriench, leaving him lying on the side of the road unconscious. “Don’t you know that dynamite comes in small packages, big guy?” She asked the motionless body.
She then sped away to the Logan ranch to have a late dinner with her oldest younger brother and her sister-in-law. It would be good to see J.R. and Lee Ann again, she thought. She hadn’t been able to speak to them much since J.R. began campaigning for his favorite candidate.*
*From the upcoming d.c. scot work: The Magruder Mysteries A Full Pardon; A Graying of the Law
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