One morning last week, my wife nonchalantly asked if she could borrow my Jeep for the morning. Most men subscribe to the “what’s mine is yours” philosophy and would simply have said, “Sure, take the Jeep, ‘cause I’m using the truck all day to feed cattle.” Those men are not married to my wife and don’t know her track record with unfamiliar vehicles.
As I pondered the answer to her question, I remembered when she “borrowed” my Jeep last winter in order to get to work during one of our many ice storms. Before she left that morning, I reminded her that four-wheel drive does little good on ice. She nodded as she went on her way and I didn’t hear from her again until about an hour after she got off work, calling me on her cell phone from the middle of a neighbor’s cow pasture. She had slid off the road and through his new five-barbwire fence. Three weeks and $5,000 later, the Jeep looked as good as new.
I also recalled her last drive alone in my truck to check on a newborn calf that wasn’t doing so well. She drove off into a deep ditch and cracked the differential housing on the front end. That was only $500, so that was minor in comparison. Or the fact that every time Judy decides to mow the yard, I know I’ll have to sharpen the blades before I use it again because she has mowed down everything that got in her way – from steel T posts to discarded rolls of used wire. Yes, I pondered all these things before saying, “Sure, take the Jeep, ‘cause I’m using the truck all day to feed cattle.”
By 11:30, I had finished the first round of chores and decided to head to the local diner for lunch. As I backed out of the driveway, I spied Judy coming down the quarter-mile lane to our house. Something looked funny. As the Jeep got closer, I could see that it looked like one of those “low-rider” trucks that I see in town driven by young men with tattoos and piercings – at least in the rear. The front end looked jacked up enough to go coon hunting with the headlights. Driving slower than normal, she finally made it into the driveway. I pulled back in behind her.
When she got out of the vehicle, Judy commented, “There’s something wrong with your Jeep because it wobbles all over the road and it has absolutely no power.”
I walked up slowly to the rear of the SUV. I opened the rear door to see bags stacked all the way to the ceiling and all the way forward to the passenger’s seat. “Whatcha got here?” I asked.
“Oh, I just picked up some landscaping supplies. You know, it’s springtime and I’ve got to get things spruced up.”
Then I noticed that both rear tires were almost flat. “How many ‘supplies’ did you get?”
“Enough”
Folks, I proceeded to unload – and I am not making this up or exaggerating for effect – 40 bags of creek gravel (50 lbs. per bag), 20 bags of potting soil (25 lbs. per bag), six flats of pansies, eight potted shrubs, a huge fern along with a gigantic ceramic pot that weighed close to 100 lbs., several assorted smaller pots and containers, and, oh yes, a few groceries. I calculated close to 3,000 lbs. of cargo in my small, economy-sized, Jeep Liberty!
By the time I got the heavy stuff unloaded into the yard and the tires had regained some of their original shape, Judy came out to get the groceries. “Did you figure out what is wrong with the Jeep?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I answered, “the rear shocks are broken.”
“I wish you’d have told me that before I left,” she scolded.
It was tough, but I bit my lower lip and replied, “Yes, me too. Sorry.”
Jerry Crownover farms in Lawrence County. He is a former professor of Agriculture Education at Missouri State University, and is an author and professional speaker. To contact Jerry, go to www.ozarksfn.com and click on ‘Contact Us.’
