Laugh Tracks in the Dust: Fly-Over Nation

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            My little observation last week about driverless farm, ranch, and commercial vehicles in the Fly-Over Nation struck a chord with some of my discerning readers. All that I heard from agreed with me — which is a bit unusual in its own right.

One reader, D.D., e-mailed me this: “Yeah, I hear you, Milo. Can you imagine being in one of those cars or trucks and not paying attention? How many times has your computer failed? Maybe not often, but it happens. Just like this morning at work when I went to punch in, this is the second week this has happened. Came up, Systems Failure. No thanks, I don’t want system failure at 70 mph anywhere. I’d rather do it myself. These things would have to be upgraded almost hourly. Think interstate highway repair. Come through one of those places where they have a flag-car taking you each direction. Or maybe a bridge that is unexpectedly closed. What a fiasco! Thanks for an interesting article. Gives you pause, doesn’t it?”

Another fine reader had these thoughts. “Recently I was trying to leave a big city downtown after attending an ag convention and the GPS on my pickup could NOT get me out of downtown and onto the freeway that I could see less than 100 yards away. The reason? Massive construction project underway had most of the on-off ramps out of commission. Finally had to leave the area going west so that I could find a way to go east. Not what you would want happening at high speed in a driverless vehicle. Who knows? I might still be stuck in that city in a driverless vehicle.”

While still a third wrote: “I don’t want my life in the hands of a car/truck driving computer program devised by any genuine computer nerd that I’ve ever met? ‘Nuf said!”

And a fourth wrote: “I can barely find and access the remote places I go in the Rockies in the summer on vacation. Can’t see a computer program handling those situations. I like leaving the driving to me, not Uber!”

***

Some scumbag stole our credit card numbers during our holiday shopping. When we got our credit card bill, ol’ Nevah noticed a charge for $160 for a motel bill somewhere in Texas. Since we haven’t been to Texas in more than a year, we knew we’d been scammed. Thankfully, Nevah has a better disposition to handle those kinds of situations than me, so she undertook the task of contacting our credit card provider, getting restitution for the motel bill, and getting new credit cards issues to us — which we got in the mail today.

I hope the dirtbag who used our credit card number to stay in that motel got Montezuma’s Revenge from the food, an STD and bed bugs from sleeping there, and got a speeding ticket when he/she/they left. Plus, I hope he/she/they eventually get caught and spend years in the jug.

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Now, to clean up the odds and ends that accumulated in 2016, but weren’t used: An letter signed only “David” arrived with this:

“Milo. After hearing about the ‘bathroom laws controversy,’ we at the Windyville Long Lane and Tilden Quail and Pheasant Hunt Club have found a perfect solution which should offend no one. We simply changed the signs on our bathrooms to read: “Pointers” and “Setters.”

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My friend Jay Esse from Lakewood, Colo., said our mutual friend, Tex Junkman, who seems to have a bad case of “horse handlingitis” had decided after his latest horse-related injury to his back that he’s gonna have his cowboy clothes custom made out of bubble wrap and start living in a padded room. Probably good thinking, Tex,

***

Jay also said that he carries his cell phone in his left shirt pocket right over his heart. He says that system worked well in his younger days, but now since he’s gotten a bit decrepit and puts the phone on vibrate only, every time he gets a phone call he thinks he’s having a heart attack.

***

Here’s a “Jay Funny:” A young, newlywed farm wife called her mother in tears and slobbers into the phone, “Mom. I just tried great-grandmother’s meatloaf recipe and it turned out terrible.”

“Now, dear,” Mom intoned. “Did you follow the recipe just the way grandmother wrote it down?”

“I did,” the daughter sobbed.

“Okay,” Mom says patiently. “Just calm down and read me the ingredients you used.”

“Well,” the newlywed sniffs, “It starts, ‘Take 50-cents worth of ground beef ….’”

***

Jay ends with these words of wisdom: “Everyone must have been safe drivers back in the 1960s because no one ever tried to text while driving.”

“No woman is every childless when she has a husband.”

“If at first you don’t succeed, try doing it the way your wife suggested.”

“If midnight snacks are a no-no, why is there a light in the fridge?”

“Have you ever seen someone on Facebook that you used to wanted to date in high school or college and thought, ‘Whew. I dodged a bullet on that one.’”

***

Have a good ‘un

 

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