The Way Back

A few nights ago, we had one of those moments. It was about six pm and we were done feeding, ready to make dinner and relax for the evening. We were having pork chops, and I went out to start the grill. When I came back in the kitchen, I told Vanessa I needed to send a short email about school while the grill warmed up. She said “okay” and went on about her business, like married people do.

She left the kitchen a couple minutes later, and I went into the office to use a computer with a real keyboard. I figured it would take about ten minutes to write the email, but as usual I was overly optimistic.

Twenty-five minutes later I went back to the kitchen, couldn’t find Vanessa, and thought Oh crap, I should have already started the pork chops. I figured she’d be mad that I was slowing down dinner. This is a pattern for us. She’s early, I’m late.

So I took the pork chops out to the back porch and that’s when I heard her yelling. Fortunately, I am deaf enough not to have made out the words, but I could tell from her tone that she wasn’t happy. So could the dogs. We all huddled in the back while she came down from the barn.

“Where have you been?” she asked.

“In the office?” I said, timidly because that seemed the safest. “I told you I was going to write an email?”

“I thought you were dead!”

Then I understood. Death is her go-to thought when she can’t find me.

“Sorry… I was in the office the whole time,” I said, then added. “The pork chops are on the grill.”

“I was afraid that Jose (the ram) had gored you.” Jose has no horns, but he does like to head-butt. About the worst he could do is knock my back out of joint. “I was afraid you were dead in the Way Back.”

The Way Back is the farthest, darkest part of our property. Werewolves live there. In Vanessa‘s mind I had been gored by a hornless ram and wondered into the dark Way Back to be eaten by werewolves.

And it turns out that when she was coming down from the barn she wasn’t yelling at me, but yelling for me.

I think I would would have preferred the quickness of a heart attack punctuated by a fall from the hayloft onto the concrete floor. But we don’t always get to choose our exit.

We sorted out my imagined demise, cooked our pork chops, filled our plates, and sat down to eat. That’s when I poured salad dressing all over my pork chop instead of the salad beside it.