Holidaze

Just a note on the little worries for the future that burrow into the back of my head, anytime a holiday rolls around.

We, as a society, do not plan well for the future, even for things we see coming days, weeks, months and years ahead of time.  

And we tend toward the inflexible when those plans we do make, often looking to secure them at the last minute, fall flat.  At the very least, we are slow to move to a fallback (when we have one) should "Plan A" prove difficult.

(Tommy's dim view of the world, coming after a week of trouble sleeping, and after a day spent hauling watermelons and being yelled at because his store ran out of margarita salt).

Also, a brief note on hauling watermelons:

Growing conditions being what they are, especially in the last six weeks of the American Eastern South, we had a little trouble securing the seedless watermelons in time to begin the Memorial Day weekend ad.  Today, I had to wander south to a sister store, who had received a shipment today, to load up a couple of bins worth so we'd have more on hand to sell to those people who have to have watermelon to be happy and honor our military dead.

I took the ride from Ringgold, Georgia, back to Cleveland, Tennessee, slowly.  I did so to ensure both the quality of the watermelons, which would probably not hold up well to me treating the ride back like a practice lap at Indy, as well as ensure that my truck, with all its 235,000 miles on it, would continue to serve as my primary means of transportation.  My ride back was with little incident, save one gentleman in a Hyundai with Florida tags coming up on my vehicle's rear quickly enough that he had to bow up the car a bit when he applied his brakes.  He did this despite there being THREE empty lanes to our left he could have used to pass.  

As he did finally pass me, he matched speeds with me, and made a movement to catch my eye.  Momentarily, I thought maybe there was something wrong with my truck, or my load of watermelons.  I admit my error in this regard.  I was being given the bird.

Hindsight being what it is, I realize now that a couple of watermelons should have been given the shotgun seat up in the cab.  I'm not saying I could hit a moving target, even one as large as a Hyundai, with a 12 pound watermelon while I, too, am traveling 55 miles an hour.  I'm saying I'd give it my best effort.