Lizard Tales

by Ron Shirley

  After backing up, I jumped out and ran to the back of the rollback, grabbed the cable with the J-hook, and ran toward the Miata. About this time I heard Brooks yelling that someone was coming outside, so I knew I’d better get those hooks on. I yelled back to Brooks, “Keep him busy till I get hooked up!” After that, it’s all hat and no cattle, ’cause there’s nothing the debtor can do.

  I slid up under that Miata and started hooking up when I saw a set of feet running backward behind me. It was Brooks, and he was yelling, “Stay away from me, mister! Don’t swing that at me!”

  There I was, under the car, possibly the worst position I could be in, and this guy had some sort of weapon—a bat or ax or shovel. I had no idea what it was, but before I had time to make a move I could see both his legs standing over me. So there I was, from the waist up under his car and him standing over me like a fat man at an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast. I started yelling, “Brooks! Move this guy!”

  But Brooks was about as useful as buttons on a dishrag. He just said, “Ronnie, I can’t touch him.”

  “Brooks, you’d rather wear pork-chop panties and run through a lion’s den than let this man stand here and whoop me.”

  Brooks didn’t say another word. I could see his feet on the asphalt, but nothing was coming out of his mouth. Now, friendship can sometimes be kind of like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you get that warm fuzzy feeling. Right about now, however, I was questioning the limits of our bond.

  I gritted my teeth and slid out from under the car figuring if the debtor had something in his hand, I could take out one of his knees and buy myself a few seconds. Well, when I slid out between his legs, I was face-to-face with what Brooks was so scared of. Only, it wasn’t a stick, it was a snake—a one-eyed trouser snake! And that purple-headed creature looked like it was about to bite.

  Now, don’t get me wrong: The guy wasn’t naked. He had some tighty whities on that had holes in them, and in his run to the car, his blue-veined doughnut holder had slithered out. So there I was, pinned to the ground, facing an irate man and his pet anaconda. I looked over at Brooks and saw that the reason he couldn’t speak was because he was laughing so hard.

  There are some days that I’m about as sharp as a cue ball, but it didn’t take much sense to know that I was in a worse spot than a one-armed camel jockey with crabs. I said, “Mister, I’m telling you now: you would rather pole-vault over a barbed-wire fence with a rubber stick than to get any closer to me. If you’ll step away and let me up, we can talk this out.”

  After a few seconds, he finally agreed to move over and let me up. The he flipped that monster up and put it back in its cave. I said, “Sir, I’m already hooked to your car, and after the mental anguish I just went through, I ain’t letting it go.”

  Brooks was still laughing like a hyena at a pot-smoking convention while I was letting the guy get his stuff out of the Miata. I finished loading up the car, we climbed back in the rollback, and I was hotter than two rabbits banging in a gunnysack. Brooks had finally gotten back to the point where he could talk, so I lit into him: “Bo, you were supposed to delay the guy and block him from getting near me so I could hook up and get out. What happened?”

  “Ronnie, wasn’t nothin’ I could do! He came out swingin’ like a blind man at a prize fight, and I was havin’ no part of that.”

  “Brooks, don’t ever let that happen again. You’ve got to keep people off me. I’m telling you now: I’d rather French kiss a rattlesnake than to be put back in that position.”

  Brooks looked over at me and, with all seriousness, said, “Buddy, you just almost got your wish back there.”

  We didn’t speak to each other the rest of the night.

  [Dumber]

  1. He suffers from halitosis of the intellect.

  2. He’s a few fries short of a Happy Meal.

  3. He’s a few clowns short of a circus.

  4. His parents pissed in a pot and raised a blooming idiot.

  5. You’re like a genius … only different.

  6. He’d have to study just to be a half-wit.

  7. His front-porch light is burnt out.

  8. If brains were dynamite, he couldn’t blow his nose.

  9. If brains were cotton, he couldn’t Kotex a flea.

  10. If brains were leather, he couldn’t saddle a June bug.

  11. That boy’s dumber than a bucket of coal.

  12. That boy’s plum weak north of his ears.

  13. That boy’s so dumb, he could throw himself at the ground and miss.

  14. That boy’s so dumb, he couldn’t cut a gopher from a wet hole.

  15. That boy’s so dumb, he couldn’t pound sand down a rat hole.

  16. Right there is a successful experiment in artificial stupidity.

  17. There’s proof that evolution can go in reverse.

  18. The wheel’s turnin’ but the hamster’s dead.

  19. He never had both oars in the water.

  20. She’s so dumb, she thinks Grape-Nuts is a venereal disease.

  21. She’s so dumb, she thinks Peter Pan is a hospital utensil.

  22. She’s so dumb, she saw a truck full of Cheerios and thought they were doughnut seeds.

  23. Her mind’s like a steel trap: rusty and illegal in thirty-seven states.

  24. His intellect is rivaled only by garden tools.

  25. If she were any dumber, you’d have to water her.

  26. If you put her brain in a matchbox, it would be like putting a BB in a boxcar.

  27. The lights are on, but there ain’t no tenants.

  28. He got lost in thought … which must’ve been unfamiliar territory.

  29. There was no chlorine in his gene pool.

  30. She’s as dumb as mud on a wood fence.

  31. He’s ’bout as sharp as a bowling ball.

  32. She’s as bright as a box of dirt.

  33. He’s as sharp as a bag full of wet mice.

  34. She’s as dumb as a cat trying to look pretty at a dog show.

  35. If he’d been any dumber, you’d have to tie a flag around his neck to keep the pigeons off.

  36. He couldn’t engineer his way out of a paper bag with a box cutter.

  20

  There’s Two Theories About Arguing with a Woman … And Neither One of Them Works

  When Amy and I started dating, it was like locking two Brahma bulls together by the horns and throwing a hot cow in the pasture. Now, I was pretty fit, bench pressing in the mid-six-hundred-pound range and entering strongman contests with Johnny Perry. Johnny and I had been training Amy and she had just won her first world title in powerlifting—not to mention the fact that she is a redhead and that’s like having a powder keg on the front burner of a five-dollar stove. Amy has also always been hotter than hell’s basement on the day of reckoning but more ornery than a blind mule pulling a plow backward uphill. So naturally, it was only a matter of time before we would have our first throwdown; and I was determined that, when it was over, she’d rather stare at the sun with binoculars than to ever tangle with me again.

  We were in Momma’s driveway after an intense training session and we got into arguing over squatting techniques. Now, I’m not one who thinks he’s always right; it’s just that I’m never wrong! So the discussion got heated. Being of a somewhat more peaceful nature, Amy decided she was just going to leave and cool off. But when she told me that, I told her she’d rather slide down a mountain of razor blades naked into a pool of rubbing alcohol than to try to leave. Her ears started turning red and I could tell she was hotter than a baby’s bottom after a spanking. She stomped over to her F-150 and fired that jewel up. I was standing about ten feet in front of the truck, thinking, She won’t run over me.

  That’s when she leaned out the window and yelled, “Ronnie, you’ve got to the count of five to move.” Then she started: “One, two …” and before she said “three” I was tearing my shirt off, telling her she knew better.

  At that po
int, I don’t know if it was the headlights coming on or the sound of the tires squealing that shocked me the most, but it was obvious my scaring tactics went over like a Little Person at a high-jump competition. Next thing I know, I was sprawled across the hood and she was flying down the driveway. I started begging her to stop. Then I knew I was in more trouble than a blind rat at the Cheesecake Factory, ’cause I saw her smile, hit the gas, and hook that truck hard right.

  Then I knew exactly how Superman felt: it ain’t the flying across the field that bothers you, it’s the landing that’ll cause you to kiss your grits. I looked up and there was Amy heading out of sight. I sprinted over to my Dodge truck and set after her like a duck chasing a June bug.

  Amy didn’t know this town too well, but I knew she was heading to the light by the Bojangles on the highway. I also knew she’d turn right and make her way back toward Wake Forest. So I took a dirt road, cut through at the Bojangles, and came the wrong way back down the highway. When I saw her turning toward me I dropped it down a gear and hit her head-on. By this time I was madder than Janet Reno’s blind date. I ran to her window, which was down about six inches, grabbed it, and shattered it into a thousand pieces. Then I leaned in, put her truck in park, and yanked out her keys. I started screaming, “You’d rather catch a Nolan Ryan fastball with your teeth than just drive off and leave me like that! Now I got your keys and you ain’t going nowhere!”

  You’d think by now she’d be just a tad intimidated; but she was cooler than a Colorado collie in an Arctic ice storm. A few guys from Bojangles came running over, and I figured it was a good night to be heroic, so I turned my attention on them. Just as we were about to break out like inmates with a soap set of the guard’s keys, I heard someone yelling. There was Amy, who, during the commotion, had gotten out of her truck and eased over to mine. I’d left my keys in the ignition when I jumped out, so Amy just backed my truck up, dropped that mug in drive, and was heading straight toward me! By the look on her face I could tell she was madder than a mule munchin’ on bumblebees.

  As I dove for my life, I’ll never forget her yelling, “If you’re gonna be stupid, you’d better be tough!” I lay there in the dirt and watched as she and my truck drifted off into the darkness.

  It took two weeks, twenty dozen roses, and about twelve poems to get her back—and a whole lot more before she told me what she had done with my truck. But I learned a great lesson that night: there are two theories about arguing with a woman … and neither one of them works.

  [Advice]

  1. If you’re gonna be stupid, you’d better be tough.

  2. If you ain’t got good manners, you’d better have fast reflexes.

  3. If you think nobody cares, try missing a car payment.

  4. When you hit rock bottom, you have two choices: climb out or dig.

  5. Never argue with an idiot. He’ll drag you down to his level and beat you with his experience.

  6. Eat one live toad first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen the rest of the day.

  7. Never let the doorknob hit you where the good Lord split you.

  8. Do your best, then just let the rough end drag.

  9. It’s always darkest before dawn. So if you’re gonna steal the neighbor’s paper, that’s the time to do it.

  10. Always forgive your enemies … but never forget their names.

  11. Never go skinny-dipping with snapping turtles.

  12. Never Nair your nether regions.

  13. If you’re gonna eat it, don’t name it.

  14. You can’t fly with eagles when you run with turkeys.

  15. If you’re gonna talk behind my back, kiss my tail while you’re there.

  16. Remember: God gave you two heads, but only enough blood to run one at a time.

  17. Never lock horns with a man named after a forest animal.

  21

  If Everything’s Coming Your Way … You’re in the Wrong Lane

  Back in the day, when I had to haul a repo on a rollback flatbed, I found that taking the car was tougher than wrestling a tennis ball from an alligator. I could locate the collateral easy enough, but that was just the first step. Getting it hooked, loaded, and then driving away without losing a tooth was sometimes harder than Chinese arithmetic.

  Then things were always made more difficult because my first agent, Brooks, had the tact of a Sherman tank in a china shop and must have learned to whisper at a sawmill—so we never had the advantage of stealth. Not to mention: we both had perfect twenty-five-year-old beer bellies, so it wasn’t like we could hide very well.

  One day our lien holder called and informed us that he had an unusually hard repo for us. The car was a Caddy with rims and the debtor was crazier than a hippie at a hula-hoop convention and meaner than a pack of wild dogs on a three-legged cat. Apparently, he had hired a repo agent before us and the car’s debtor had beaten the brakes off of him. (And it didn’t help at all that he was so little he’d have to run around twice just to make a shadow.) Well, me and Brooks figured this would be a good measuring stick for our talents, and it might even get us noticed by a few other lien holders (which would mean more business for us)—so we went for it.

  Since this guy was well aware his Caddy was up for repo, we figured the best way to slap this bull was from the front. We were actually more excited than a Thanksgiving turkey in the yard the day after Christmas. So we loaded up in that old rollback and headed out like a herd of turtles.

  Now, this debtor lived down a dirt path off a side road, and when you got to the end, his house was on the right and there was a neighbor’s house just across the yard on the left. We knew that, heading down this path, they’d see us coming a mile away. And to tell you the truth, I’d rather have the fleas of a thousand camels in my crotch with my arms too short to scratch than to get spotted coming into a repo before I could get some chains on the unit. But in this case, we had to do the best we could do and let the rough end drag. Worst-case scenario, I figured, wasn’t nuthin’ a shot and a shotgun couldn’t take care of.

  Well, we rounded the corner and there was our Caddy. But I saw every light in the house coming on. I jumped out of the truck and, quicker than a fat rat on a Cheeto, I was under that car laying the J hooks on the axle. I crawled back out and started yelling at Brooks to tighten the cables. But as I spun around, I realized I was right about one thing: it definitely wasn’t nuthin’ a shot and shotgun couldn’t handle! Problem was, I was on the business end of that shotgun and the guy holding it had crazy in his eyes.

  “Mister,” he said to me, “you’re only alive because it’s a sin to kill you. But out here, we don’t worry about no laws. So you can either drop and run or you can stay and get dropped.”

  It didn’t take me but a second to realize that I was ready to disappear like a set of twenty-four-inch gold rims at a Jay-Z concert. But since I had already hooked that Caddy, I figured I’d rather pound salt up my tail with a steel brush than to let that car go.

  I looked him right in the eye. “Mister, before I can leave, I gotta get to my truck to loosen the winch and get these chains off.” He agreed to let me get back in my truck, which was all the lead I needed to try and make an escape.

  Now, this ol’ boy might have been tough and crazy, but I quickly realized that he was also as dumb as mud on a wood fence. So I yelled to Brooks, who looked as confused as a pawless dog trying to bury a bone in an ice-covered river; I told him to climb in the car. The second his feet hit the floor, I sailed into that driver’s seat faster than a jaguar on go juice and slapped that jewel into drive. I started dragging that Caddy down the driveway—with that man in tow—Brooks cheering me on like we was about to score the winning touchdown at the homecoming game, and me smiling like a catfish swimming upstream from the herd.

  Dust was flying and the Caddy was bouncing around like a hobbyhorse at a birthday party. Suddenly, I saw lights coming toward us down the driveway. Seems his neighbor was coming home and we were hanging out there like a
buzzard sitting on a gun barrel. At that point, I knew I’d rather skinny-dip in a pool full of armpits than to get back out and deal with this debtor—especially now that he had backup. But I was caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. With nothing else left to do, I got out to face the music.

  Well, like I said, the only thing we had going for us was the fact that this guy didn’t have both oars in the water. If stupid could fly, he would have been a jumbo jet! But he was still holding all the cards—in the form of a 12-gauge persuasion tool! I crawled out with my tail tucked between my legs and just started unhooking the Caddy from the rollback. The neighbor had chimed in by this time, and it was really obvious that I was the bear caught with his hand in the hive.

  But there’s always more than one way to skin a catfish on a Friday night. And since this guy’s neighbor was on the same intellectual level as he and Brooks were, I was in the perfect position. I looked over at Brooks and gave him a wink. Though sometimes he’s as slow as a bucket of spit and half as useful, I knew that he was aware I was about to do something far less than stupid.

  I’ve learned a cat will always blink when you hit it over the head with a sledgehammer. So I quietly said, “Sir, I’m really sorry we tried to pull a fast one over on you. If you’ll give us the keys, we’ll put your Caddy back in the spot where we found it and you won’t never see us again.”

  Well, you could have buttered my butt and called me a biscuit when I saw him hand Brooks the keys—against the ranting of his neighbor. Brooks eased in and fired that Caddy up. I unhooked the chains and he eased the car back to the parking spot.

  Then Brooks got out and handed the guy the keys! He was living proof that evolution can go backwards! Here I thought we were on the same page—but I guess Brooks was reading a different book. We got in the truck and, as the neighbor pulled his car around to let us drive by, I jumped on Brooks like a fly on a dead bull.