The Prairie Spy

Alan “Lindy” Linda

I’ve reached an age of balance. Not “balance” as in I do or don’t tip over, but “balance” in that conditions and situations in my life suddenly seem to have balance between them.

Example: I’m retired, so there is more time to do stuff.

Example: Therefore, I have more opportunity to use various tools, AKA “stuff,”  with which to do stuff with. Stuff to do stuff. See? Already, a hint of balance.

This “stuff” unfortunately resides all over the farmyard. (The other day, someone remarked as to how I have all the doors on all those sheds numbered.) Perhaps the fact that the numbers go all the way to 15 will tell you why they need numbers. There is stuff behind all those doors. 15 doors. 15 stuffs.

To do stuff, one needs stuff, you see. More time to do stuff equates to needing more stuff with which to do stuff. More tools. More screws. More hinges. Drills. Welders. Cutters. On and on. More everything.

“Balance.” We were talking about balance. What it means is that as I do more stuff and need more stuff with which to do stuff, I lose more stuff. The “lose more” is the part that’s sucky.

Luckily I have balance, you see. More stuff lost. More stuff looked for. This is really, I see now, a mathematical dilemma: More stuff needed  + More stuff looked for = More stuff lost + More time involved.

Door number 15 is a large sliding pole barn door, behind which lurks the 50-hp farm tractor, which, the last time I went to start it, wouldn’t. A simple problem, it turns out, because the switch–a specialty thing last made in the 20th century and therefore of course not available–can be replaced with a more common switch. I’ll use stuff I have. Somehow.

So I loaded up the necessary tools and drill and bits and wire and switch and terminals and so on and so forth, from door number 2 and 3 and 6, 6 being  another shed. Of stuff.

I start on the tractor problem. At the point where I had to drill the new hole for the new switch, there was no drill.

It’s 100 feet from door 15 to door 6 (the drill). I must have forgotten the drill, but after walking over, no, it’s not there. Ah hah! I absent-mindedly laid it down somewhere. (This “absentmindedness” is the missing variable in the above equation. Sigh.)

I continued to walk around, checking for where I laid that drill. Door number 2. Nope. Door number 5. Nope. 6. Nope. 8. Nope. And back and forth. Lunch. Nap. then 2, 5, 6, 8. And some more: 11, 12, 14…..supper. I gave up. 

This morning I asked Lieutenant S., who is the designated pilot of this crazy multi-doored vessel, to help.

We checked 2, and 3 and 4 and 5, and 6–(doing it by the numbers, very scientifically, you see.)

And we’re looking looking looking. Nope. We’re in the yard, standing almost exactly in the walking path from 6 (the drill)  to 15 (the tractor). I’m bemoaning this fate that has befallen me. (The one where the arithmetic won’t work out.)

She points down at the grass less than a foot from my feet. “What’s that?” asked Lt. S.

I look down. And there! Where I could have tripped over it on one of my many voyages from 15 to everywhere!  My bright yellow drill- which some how got dropped.

Right where I walked back and forth past it at least 6 times. Or 7. 

How am I enjoying retirement?

Well.