The Adventures of a Ranch Watch Babe in The City (Part 1)

I use the term "City" lightly, mind you. Post is a town, but to me it is a city...any thing more populated with humans than wildlife and/or livestock automatically becomes a city in my book. Now...on to my adventures!!


There are many similarities between my mother and I, one of these things is our insane sense of smell. Most times, I consider this trait a curse, but two nights ago it was this ranch watch babe's saving Grace.

It was a late night in the Baker house. We tossed and turned like normal, visited about random uninteresting topics and of course harrassed each other mercilessly with tickling, wrestling and pinching (it's a nightly routine - leave us alone!) There was nothing strange about this night until we settled down to fall asleep and that's when it happened! My deranged sense of smell kicked in!

Time: Midnight-Thirty

"I smell something hot." I said calmly to my snoring husband.

"Just go back to sleep, it's probably outside," Kam uttered.

"Seriously, Kam. Something is burning. It smells electrical! Get up!" I yelled as I jumped out of bed and headed toward the light switch.

"You smell everything."
"It's probably nothing."
"Stop worrying."
"Turn the stupid light out!" were phrases I heard as I went in to the kitchen to check the oven.

I found nothing in the front of the house so I began sniffing the air. I reminded my self of a blood hound. I'd picked up my scent and noone would break me from my trail! As this vision of me on all fours, sniffing the air laughingly played through my mind, I heard the familiar tumbling of our old faithful dryer...

"THE DRYER!" I exclaimed as I made a run for the laundry room door.

By this time, Kam had dragged ass out of the bed and was half-heartedly helping me in my search for the mystery smoke smell. We opened the laundry room door and there it was! Smoke billowing out of our dryer. Our clothes were tossing in a pool of hot, smokey steam. Kam shut the breaker off and we began airing out the dryer. I'm telling you, the entire dryer was smoking, the wall was smoking...it was crazy!

As we tried to rescue our clothes, I was praying my only pair of decent jeans weren't ruined and thanking the good Lord above for protecting us from what could have been an absolute disaster while Kam began cussing the P.O.S. dryer to which I responded..."don't hurt it's feelings, it might explode!"

You know, when a dryer catches on fire there are several things that could cause it. Despite the huge burn marks on the wall behind the dryer, we ruled out our first suspect, the electrical outlet itself. We then moved to the lint trap, which I clean out religiously before EVERY load of laundry, so of course it was ruled out.

Then we decided to mosey outside and check out the vent. I was standing on the porch in my jammies and Kam was standing barefoot in the grass with a flashlight looking up the vent to see if it was clogged when we heard "BANG! BANG!"

Gunshots!

Now, where I come from, gun shots are a sign of the current hunting season - you hear a rifle, it's deer season - you hear a shotgun, it's dove/quail/turkey, etc. season. They are also heard when you're feeding cows and a poor misguided coyote comes in to your sites as you tire of waiting for your cattle and find more amusing things to do than check the horizon. Spot lighting for hogs and shooting rabbits are also reasons for gun shots. Other purposes include the priviledge of ending a rattlesnake's life, protecting the homeplace, trap/skeet shooting or just sheer boredom.

However, on this unfortunate evening...I am pretty sure NONE of the aforementioned purposes were part of the plan.

After the gunshots, which I'm sure ended in some form of death, mutilation or bodily injury for some thuggy dope headed Post Toasty, my lady-like self hollered "#$*^ this!" and shot back in the house. My dogs were barking, Kam was laughing at my cat-like reflexes....we locked the door, turned out the lights and went back to bed to battle the burned up dryer another day.

Now, two days later, we have a new dryer. But somewhere in the night an episode of First 48 occurred and noone saw it but Kam, Snowny, Penny & me...



Peace.