Mendin' Fence

Remember when Ronnie the Great was prez?  He used to spend a lot of time on his ranch in Southern California clearing brush and mendin' fence.  At the time I thought it was pretty cool that we had a real cowboy in the oval office and I even wore a cowboy hat so I could be just like him when I was boot scootin' at the local dancehall.  Turns out  it was all a sideshow and the guy sitting on the throne was just the first of a slew of corporate owned posers.  Still, I was impressed by the guy's image, and that image remains in my hard to reprogram mind.  That's why I wore my cowboy hat today.

Carolyn had an appointment this afternoon which meant our mutt, Muffy, would be minding the store on his own.  Well, the last time that situation arose we imprisoned him in the garage and came home to a greasy monster.  Long story, but after that incident we figured we give him a little more room this time.  We left the door open so he could seek shelter in the garage or fun-in-the-sun in the back yard.  Pretty nice of us, don't you think?  Ungracious beast that he is, Muffy was neither pleased nor impressed with our kindness.  In fact, he decided to run away from home in search of new masters who would take him with them even if they were going to a Black and White Ball.  Luckily one of our neighbors captured him by using a piece of bacon and then left a note on our door.  She saw us drive in and brought him home before we could hang our coats. 

I hate to be a bother to our neighbors so I left him in Carolyn's care and went in search of an electric fence.  We've dealt with this behavior in other dogs and know it can be cured in one day.  All that is required is  proper motivation, and a charged wire works very well.

We have a really neat store in this town, "Big R."  It's full of guy stuff, everything a King Ronnie wannabe could ever want.  I can find guns, jeans, saddles, feed, tractor parts, windmills, boots, hats, hardware and electric fences in that place along

with more useful stuff than I could ever want.  It took only ten or twelve minutes for me to arm myself with an energizer, wire and standoffs that would persuade Muffy to guard the house rather than realize his hobo dreams.

Seven minutes later I was in the back yard mending the fence.  I nailed the standoffs to the fence posts, ran the wire, mounted the energizer and plugged that baby in.  I couldn't resist the urge to touch the wire just to make sure it wouldn't injure Muffy, and it was set just right.  It delivered a tingle that was unpleasant but didn't knock me on my butt. 

Although I'm all grown up now I still think it's way cool to be able to answer, in my best  s l o w  cowboy immitation,  when asked what I did today, "Aw,   Ah spent the day mendin' fence."