My Tribe Has Spoken...

...and eaten and drunk and gossiped and weathered family crises...and we did it all in 5 days!! I went to a friend's ranch in central Texas to meet up with my high school gal pals. We number 8. For the first 2 days, we solved all the problems that needed solving with lots of laughter and a few tears and then the last three days, we pretended that everything was hunky dory in each of our lives because the husbands and boyfriends showed up. They did the same thing, except they were solving problems like sports and which kind of vodka was better.

It's absolutely amazing why we don't all kill each other because you've never seen more control freaks in one ranch house in your life. At home, Sal has been trying to teach me to say 'please' when I ask for something. "Hand me that," I say...to which she responds, "...PLEASE." "Oh yeah, please...whatEVER, just give me the fucking thing!" So, I was in my element with those other broads who don't figure a please is necessary when asking someone to close the Goddamn screen door! When I pointed this out to my tribe, they laughed at Sally's silliness and told me to tell her to "get over it!"

All 14 of us piled into two pickups and drove to the highest point on the ranch one night to sit in lawn chairs in a pasture and drink as we marveled at what stars look like without the distraction of city lights. There were two cows who kept us company and talked back and forth to each other. I think I heard one of them say, "Have you EVER seen or heard a STUPIDER species in your entire life? Why are they watching the friggin sky? And, why are they making 'mooing' sounds at us? Are they idiots?!!"

A frog-strangling storm came up in the middle of one of our nights while I lay sleeping on a couch in the bunk house. There were no curtains in that living room so the lightening was strobe-like in its intensity and the thunder sounded like it was about to break all the windows. Because we had no TV so I could watch Doppler Radar to see if there was any purple in the shading of danger around the storm, I had my imagination to take me to scary places beyond my control. When I heard that train sound and thought the wind would blow the house away, I slipped down the hall to my friend, Mary Kay's room. She was in bed with a snoring husband and hadn't a clue what was going on.

Mary Kay was so kind when I asked if I could get in the kingsized bed with them because, "I don't want to die alone." The very minute I laid down, there arose an odor most foul, and I realized that her husband had just let a silent but deadly fart fly. I thought to my 'single' self, "Oh, that's right...I'd forgotten that they do that." I was there for a few minutes with my eyes wide open, gobsmacked that they didn't realize how serious the storm was and all of a sudden Mary Kay's husband reached across her body with his arm and found the side of my body! UP I jumped off the bed and with disgusted, "whatEVER," I left them to go back and die alone in the living room.

They would all be sorry the next morning when they had managed to survive but I and the living room had been blown into the next county. That was my plan anyway...for them to feel REALLY guilty for not listening to me, but when I looked out the window, there was nary a leaf ner blade of grass out of place. The only signs of rain were the flowers blooming in the dewy morning light. Consequently, NO one even believed my story about the storm of the previous evening. "Great," I thought, "Now they think I'm a complete pervert!

Everyone had quite the chuckle at my expense for the next few days, and I started laughing with them after my 4th Bloody Mary that morning. There were bigger fish to fry and I was still ALIVE.

Play with your friends. They've got your back (most of the time),

KK