Rustic Retreat
with Harry 'N' Charlie
"And just where does you think you is goin'?" Harry's wife Maybelline inquired of my bassin' buddy as he reached for his coat and headed out the front door.
"Me 'n' Charlie is goin' down to Zonker's Tavern to plan our strategy for the upcoming bass tournyment!" Harry replied. "What's it to ya?"
"Get back in here!" she demanded, wavin' a list of honey-do's in his face. "You promised me six months ago that you'd get all these chores done! Fix the drippin' faucet … stop the commode from runnin' … mow the lawn … haul all that junk in the basement to the dump … The list keeps gettin' longer, and you ain't even started on it!"
"Woman, I told ya my plan is to use my tournament winnings to hire a minion to do all that grunt work for me!" Harry explained.
But Maybelline wasn't buyin' that baloney. "Either you get them chores done by the weekend or I'm gettin' my skillet out!" she threatened. Harry gulped in fear. He understood the dire nature of her threat! After all, he was still seein' stars from the last time she'd popped him upside the head with that cast iron weapon of hers!
"What's eatin' you?" I wondered as Harry climbed into the Lunker Express.
"Things ain't exactly butterflies 'n' roses at home," he grumbled. "My ol' lady's got a list of chores for me to do as long as my leg! With us either goin' fishin' or talkin' about goin' fishin', when the heck does she expect me to get 'em all done?"
"You know I'd jump in and help ya, but I've got a bunch of chores that need doin' around my house, too," I sighed. "And to further compound the problem, neither of us knows which end of a hammer to hold!"
We was drownin' our sorrows at Zonker's when a stranger walked up. "Excuse me, is one of you gentleman Harry?"
"That's me," Harry replied.
"I called your house and your wife said I could find you here," he replied. "I'm Delbert Tortmonger, an attorney from Onion City. I'm the executor of your late uncle Finneas Fingerhut's will."
"Wow, that's a grim job!" Harry gasped in horror. "I thought executioners went outa style after the French Revolution! Good ol' Uncle Finneas … lived to 103, he did!"
"Sir, your uncle left you a 35-acre plot of land south of Onion City," the lawyer announced. "Here's the deed and directions to the property. Congratulations!"
"Whaddaya know!" Harry said excitedly. "I had no idea the old coot was a landowner! Thanks, mister!"
"That's awesome, Harry!" I said. "Let's go check it out!"
We sped down the Onion City Highway and followed the directions to a swampy thicket off a dirt road way out in the country. "I reckon this is it!" Harry said proudly. "My own little piece of heaven!"
"Be still, my heart!" Harry swooned. "It's my dream come true — my own private lake! We need to build us a cabin right here, Charlie! It'd be our rustic retreat, a getaway hideout from our ol' ladies!"
"Did you say build us a cabin?" I laughed. "Surely you jest!"
"Yeah, I guess you're right," Harry said glumly, confronting our total and complete lack of manual dexterity. Then he brightened. "Hey, I got an idea! I was over at Swill-Mart the other day and they had these cute li'l prefab log cabins on sale out by the garden department!"
"Them ain't log cabins — they're one-room storage sheds!" I explained. "You know, to stash lawn mowers 'n' stuff in. Just a slab floor, four walls 'n' a roof!"
"So what else does a couple of redneck bassers like us need?" Harry insisted. "Why, back in pioneer times, they'd cram 30 people into a space that big and still have room for their chickens 'n' goats! C'mon, let's go to Swill-Mart and check 'em out!"
Fast-forward 24 hours. "I had a heck of a time findin' this place!" complained the Swill-Mart deliveryman. "Now, where d'ya want this here shed put?" We pointed to a spot on the shore of the pond. He backed the truck up to the location, opened the tailgate and CRASH!!!! The log cabin rolled out and clattered to the ground. "Sign here," he grunted, then sped away in a cloud of dust.
"It don't look none the worse for wear to me," Harry allowed, examining the prefab structure after we pushed it upright. "I reckon them Plasti-Logs can take a purty good lick! So Charlie, whadda ya think of our rustic retreat now?"
"If it had a refrigerator, runnin' water, heat, air conditioning, bathroom, cable TV and about 1,400 more square feet, I'd say it was all right!" I replied. You see, my idea of "roughing it" was a Holiday Inn with no Home Box Office.
"That's the trouble with you, Charlie — you've grown too soft in your old age! A few days out here in the boondocks will toughen you up!"
Harry's plan was to spend the weekend at our rustic retreat — here, he figured, we could formulate our tournament game plan in peace and quiet, away from our pesterin' wives. We'd brung a cooler filled with sandwiches 'n' brewskis, a couple sleepin' bags, flashlights and such to tide us over.
"You don't reckon there's no gators in that pond, do ya?" I wondered worriedly over the croakin' of frogs.
"Naw, no gators." Harry said. "No basses neither, from what I can tell, but that'll change once we starts releasin' all the big 'uns we catch at the Bayou in there! Heh-heh, in a couple of years, we'll have the best dang trophy bass pond in the state, and we won't allow nobody but us to fish it!"
Night fell and we decided to turn in. I crawled into my sleepin' bag and yawned, "G'night, Harry." His only reply was his chain-saw snorin'.
I'd been sleepin' for a couple of hours when I was awakened by Harry's loud gigglin'. "Tee-hee-hee — quit tickin' my feet, Charlie!" he chortled uncontrollably.
"What are you talkin' about?" I grumbled.
"Hee-hee — I ain't kiddin', Charlie! Cut that out!"
"Harry!" I gasped. "L-l-look!"
Everywhere we looked was snakes! Not just a few snakes … hundreds of 'em! They was coiled all over the floor of the shed, climbin' through the window and front door, creepin' and crawlin' everywhere … including inside Harry's sleepin' bag!
"Yarghhhhhhh!" Harry screamed, shootin' out of his snooze sack like he was shot from a cannon!
"Yarghhhhhhh!" I echoed."Let's get outa here!" We both bolted out of the cabin so fast our feet never hit the ground! We roared out of Harry's rural retreat at 90 mph and never slowed down till we reached Swamp Gas Corners!
"So Harry, whadda ya plan to do with your rustic retreat?" I wondered as we pulled into my driveway.
"If them snakes likes it so much, let 'em have it!" he shivered. "I've decided to turn over a new leaf — I'm steerin' clear of the snake-infested boondocks and stayin' around the house gettin' all of Maybelline's honey-do's done! If I can figure out which end of the hammer to hold, that is …"
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