Return to top of this page.
Skeet! I liked these moments! I've had a go at driving a car myself, but I drove around an open field and I'm sure somebody played a trick on me, because the car had kangaroo petrol in it! Thanks again Skeet and a special hug to your guide dog Jonah!
Shut your eyes, get ready for the ride folks!
I think it was the time I got stopped by a cop while my cousin and I were at a family reunion in Yuma, Arizona. We had been driving along just for the heck of it and he asked me if I wanted to drive. "Sure. I'm game". He directed me in order to stay on the dirt road that ran along a canal. He stopped in mid sentence and said, "Oh no! There's a cop following us and he just turned his lights on!" I heard the short blast of the siren to signal that we pull over. I'm thinking "Oh, shit! What now! We're screwed!" I don't remember the exact conversation between myself and the cop, but here's basically how it went
"May I see your driver's license?"
"Uh! No, Oficer! I don't have one."
"Driving without a license and weaving all over the road, huh? I'll bet that if I drew a line in the dirt, you couldn't walk it, could you? You probably couldn't even see it, could you?"
"Well, no Sir. To tell you the truth, I can't see anything!"
"That's what I thought! Driving with your eyes closed, even. You're either down right crazy, blind, or both! Which is it?"
Before I could answer, my cousin pipes up and says, "All of the above, John! How about coming to the house for dinner?"
They both cracked up uncontrollably! The whole thing was a setup to nail me for all the orneriness I had been dishing out over the week long reunion.
Another embarrassment came one morning a couple of hours before I had to get up to go to work. It was one of those nights that I had gone to bed early, so I got up 2 hours before I needed to, wide awake. I felt like going for a walk. So I got dressed and left the apartment. Half a mile away was a very large canal. I decided to walk to it and back. It was a nice cool morning in Phoenix Arizona in early April. Probably about 70 degrees or maybe a little warmer with a light breeze. It felt nice, I was relaxed and in a good mood, so I started walking faster and faster with my cane. I left the sidewalk, but didn't worry about it. I occasionally checked to keep near it, so there was no problem.
Before I knew it, though, I was jogging, using a cane. I forgot to check for the sidewalk. All of a sudden, my cane hit empty space instead of dirt. No time to stop! KERSPLASH!! No, it wasn't the hot tub, room of our favorite chat program, it was a canal that I knew was pretty deep, cause I'm 6 feet tall, I went under water when I landed, and I did NOT touch bottom. "MOTHER 4 letter expletive!"
I am a very good swimmer. I swam back to the bank of the canal and clambered out. I did not lose my cane. But I was soaked to the gills, of course. That half mile back to the apartment was a really cold one, though. The wind turned my body into an evaporative cooler all the way home! I showered, dressed, and made it to work on time. When I arrived, 5 minutes late, my boss very loudly announced, "Hey, everyone! Guess who just came in! It's Skeet. He even brought his dipstick with him!" Everyone broke up laughing. I didn't catch the meaning, so he explained.
"I saw you plunge into the canal. That cane of yours is now officially the dip stick, as a cool dip into the canal. I could tell that you did not need any help getting out, and you went off toward your apartment so fast, I was heading the other way and couldn't make a u turn quick enough to come see if you wanted a ride. You were gone by the time I got back to where you had been." He had come to work and told everyone that I might be arriving late and told them what had happened.
Among some friends, I still won't live it down.