The Ballad Of Pepe Le Peu

Wasn’t it just Thursday? It honestly seems like it was 15 minutes ago. This week has flown by. You see we have been moving stuff from one storage locker to another. We are trying to consolidate and get all our stuff into one container so we can go get more stuff, but I digress. It’s Thursday which of course means it is time for Theme Thursday where once again the powers that be send out the word of which we should write. This week’s word is pet. I had a plethora of ideas and had all the intentions of sitting down and making up a really good story but I ran out of time to dream something up and decided that I would instead give you a Trooper Bob memory. Now my pets after you have read my musing rush right on over to the animal house of fun at Theme Thursday and read what each and every one of my fellow bloggaholics have written. Now I have to go and pet the puppy.

Was this night ever going to end, Trooper Bob wondered as he sat on Highway 20. He watched the trucks come and he watched them go. He didn’t mind working the interstate highways at least there was traffic on them. Sometimes he would get stuck out on a farm to market road and it might be hours before he would see a car if he did at all. He rummaged through his console looking for something to keep him occupied. It was summer and the window was rolled down bringing wisps of the freshly mown median.

The radio was quiet. It was just one of those nights he concluded. He started the engine and rolled out onto the blacktop. He cruised down the highway letting the wind and night air refresh him. He squirmed a little in his seat and wondered if he should have had that chili for dinner. His stomach rumbled and twisted. He drove on taking a Rolaids from his console and popping it in his mouth. He belched and immediately felt better. I’ll be fine he thought as he drove on through the night. Reaching down and taking a sip from the paper cup of dark black coffee he had second thoughts.

His intestines were now jumping and crawling inside his body like an alien creature. Trooper Bob broke into a cold sweat soaking his summer uniform. He closed the window and turned on the air conditioning full blast trying to regulate his temperature, which was going from the molten flames of hell to the icy brace of the Arctic in seconds. He knew this was it. He knew this was going to be his excitement for the evening.

He pushed harder on the accelerator. Now his speed was equal to his urgency. He flipped on the lights and wiped the sweat from his brow. He kept telling himself that the rest area was only another 15 miles up the road. He could make it.

He clinched his buttocks as tightly as he could still wiping sweat and now tears from his eyes. He glided into the rest area and right in front of the door marked MEN. He bailed from the vehicle knowing he had no time to spare. He ran still clinching as fast as he could into the stall. “OFFICER, officer!” he heard a cry. He couldn’t stop. Whatever heinous crime was being committed was just going to have to be committed or there would be something pretty heinous taking place in his drawers.

He barely made it to the stall in time. He heard a commotion through the open top of the brick out- house. It sounded like someone was trying to coax someone else to come with them. “Come on little boy…come on you know you want it…I have some candy for you…” He was stuck. He could not abandon his position but he could not let some molester take a little boy. He had all types of thoughts while expelling whatever evil had inhabited his bowels. What was a little boy doing at a rest stop in the middle of the night? Oh no, maybe he had been left by his parents thinking he was asleep in the back seat. He remembered the same thing had happened a couple of years earlier; it took them 3 hours to catch up with the parents. Maybe it was another child that had been living under a rock just like Gladys. He had to get out there to assist.

Finally he was able to rid himself of the alien life that had inhabited his guts and ran hitching belt and pants simultaneously. He ran out into the night to help the little boy who was probably frightened. Trooper Bob had experience with this, after all he had rescued Gladys from under the rock. He walked to the grassy area behind the little brick building and saw three large truckers all down on their knees. “What seems to be the problem here boys” Trooper Bob asked approaching cautiously.

A large man in khaki pants and white shirt with TEXACO embroidered over the pocket was the first to speak “Well theys a little dawg over there under that picnic table. We’ve tried jest bout everthang to get him to come to us, but he just cowers under that table and growls. Old Joe over there tried given him some of his left-over chicken fried steak but he just growled. The dawg, not Old Joe.”

Trooper Bob went and grabbed his big black flashlight and walked over to the picnic table. The beam of light illuminated a little poodle. The Texaco driver put down another piece of meat and started cooing “mere boy. Come on. You know you want it.” The little dog arched his back and barred his teeth, and then he sniffed and sunk further under the table.

The truckers were arguing. “He don’t like that meat. Heck knowing Joe that’s from last week’s dinner” one of them said. Another took a Stucky’s pecan roll from his pocket and sliced off a piece “maybe he’d eat this.”

Trooper Bob watched the pup for a minute or two and then he knelt down and kissed to the dog “come on, come here puppy.” The little dog cocked his head to the right, and then the left and listened as the trooper called to him. Then he inched low crawling out from under the picnic table and ran right into the troopers arms. “Well, I’ll be” was all Bob could get out as the little dog began licking his face and wagging his tail.

The truckers all turned to see the man with the badge and gun holding a little silver poodle. “Well, boss, looks like you got you a new pet” Old Joe exclaimed.

That is how our family ended up with Pepe Le Peu.