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| June/July
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Winners,
Finalists & Honorable Mentions from the August/ September 2005
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"Wonders in the Wilderness"
By Vicky
DeCoster, Papillion NE
Honorable Mention
After several summers of vacationing in northern Minnesota, I now know the real reason why the pioneer women died so young … they all had to share a one-room cabin with their families and pretend like they enjoyed living that way.
The very thought of it gives me a clogged artery, an irregular heartbeat, and a terminal diagnosis.
I really do love my family. But five days in a 12x12-foot room furnished with one couch, two beds, four people, and a shower so small that I accidentally shut off the water with my derrière every time I bend over to shave my legs is a bit too much togetherness for me.
The pioneer ladies would call me a wilderness wienie. And I’d retort with, “Have you ever slept in the same room with a husband who snores like a buzz saw, a son who yells out in his sleep, “KERPLUNK!”, and a daughter (a.k.a. Ratchet Jaws) who grinds her teeth so hard that it sounds like she’s chewing on gravel?”
After two nights trying to sleep with Ratchet Jaws and Buzz Saw Boy, I began to wonder why anyone ever sold a pioneer a gun. Weren’t they afraid of friendly fire?
I shudder to think of what might have occurred had a pioneer wife gotten a little cranky during the long winter she was stuck in that cabin with five other people with nothing else to wear but a dirty dress and a bonnet that unfortunately shaped her hair like a football helmet.
The sounds of “CRUNCH, CRUNCH … KERPLUNK … AND ZZZZZZZZZZ!” suddenly transported me back to reality and the land of sleep deprivation. I sighed, pulled my sleeping bag outside to the cabin deck and lay there, ready to enjoy peace and quiet. Moments later, I heard “HOOO, HOOO! RIBBET, RIBBET! SCRATCH, SCRATCH!” I knew what the HOOO, HOOO and the RIBBET, RIBBET was, but what was the SCRATCH, SCRATCH? I carefully lifted my sleeping bag and the face of a ground squirrel looked back at me. “AAAAAHHHHH!” I screamed as I ran back into the cabin, slamming the deck door behind me
-- leaving the ground squirrel to chew up my sleeping bag, make a nest, and deliver 300 baby ground squirrels by sunrise.
Ratchet Jaws and Buzz Saw Boy immediately woke up. As Ratchet Jaws spit out two teeth in her hand, she asked, “What’s wrong?” “Can’t you sleep?” asked Buzz Saw Boy. Young Yeller yawned and said, “What are you doing up?”
“BECAUSE I CAN’T SLEEP WITH ANY OF YOU PEOPLE ANYMORE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE!” I yelled like a lunatic about to run into the woods naked, never to be seen again.
“Gee, someone is a little crabby!” Buzz Saw Boy commented to Ratchet Jaws and Young Yeller. Oh, I could give them crabby, but since we were on vacation, I decided to go easy on them. I searched my suitcase until I found the bandanas I had planned on using for a makeshift rope to lower myself from the deck to the ground in case I needed to make a hasty retreat from all that togetherness. Instead, I tied one on top of the other on my head, cinching them all beneath my chin. It wasn’t a bonnet, but it would have to do.
I stretched out in the bed next to Buzz Saw Boy and waited for everyone to go back to sleep. I still heard the “CRUNCH, CRUNCH … KERPLUNK … AND ZZZZZZZZZZ!” sounds, but at 350 decibels lower than I had earlier. As I drifted off to sleep, I realized that those pioneer women weren’t wearing bonnets to keep their ears warm or because bonnets were the latest fashion rage
-– they were wearing them to muffle the snores, the yells, and the teeth grinding from their beloved family members.
I wish I could end this story with a happy ending for the pioneer women. Unfortunately, just when they thought they had everything under control by wearing the bonnets, their husbands invited their aging mother-in-laws to live with them in that tiny one-room cabin. The pioneer women sighed and said, “I know I can deal with this.” But wouldn’t you know it? The mother-in-law sleepwalked … and she liked to sleep naked to boot. There’s just only so much shock a pioneer woman can take in the middle of the night.
And that my friends is the real reason why the pioneer women died so young.
http://www.wackywomanhood.com
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