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The Not So Perfect Spot

The Not So Perfect Spot

Last Thursday started off like any other day in my neck of the woods. Well, actually, in my case, it would be my neck of the swamplands. There I was, taking my usual mid morning stroll around to look for the perfect spot for some sun and snooze. I have been on this earth for thirty odd years, and it doesn’t matter how old I get, when I come across a prime spot, this giddiness washes over me as though I were a little critter catching its first prey. That particular Thursday morning I found just such a spot. Hundreds of yards away from any other gator, it was “Mine, all mine!” I exclaimed. Granted, I had to walk a little further than usual to find my spot, but it was well worth the mileage I had put on this old weathered body of mine.
As I slowly approached my perfect sunning spot, I was imagining just how good my rest was going to be, especially after all my hard work to find it. After finally getting there, I settled in and almost instantaneously fell into a slumber. “Ah, this is the life,” was one of my last thoughts as I fell off into a sweet, warm sleep.
Imagine my surprise, when no more than five minutes into my rest, I was so rudely awakened by the loudest, shrillest, most obnoxious scream ever to be heard by beast or man. I muttered in exasperation, “Can’t an old gator get any peace around here?”
Before long, there were more screams of various pitches chiming into the mix. Once I could manage to shake the sleep out of my eyes and find some focus, I found I was suddenly the central character in what seemed to be a live daylight horror show- at least according to the looks on the faces of all of those smooth-skinned bipeds.
As it turned out, once I got my overall bearings, I realized that prime spot I had found happened to be the backyard of the Harrelson family. Linda Harrelson had gone out to hang some sheets on her clothesline, and I guess she was somewhat surprised to see that I had chosen...