My Best Worst Day: To Chad With Love

Imagine Casy Kassem is saying:

This very special post dedication goes out to a very special man, miles away from his friends and family, in a foreign country, eating pickled embryo instead of black eyed peas on New Years Eve.Today, it is Chad that has proven to be the muse for Liz. Today, Chad, you are celebrated as the wonderful man you are. This one is for you.

Liz remembers with vague guilt AND pleasure:

About 8 years ago I was living in a rural part of the state, driving to work each day on a winding country road hardly large enough for two compacts much less my compact and a farm tractor pulled by a heavy-duty pick up. Getting onto the highway to start my daily commute was an exercise in patience and mental acuity. One glance at the radio and I could hit a deer, skid on gravel, or be squished by a truck toting chickens to slaughter. I don't recommend started every day this way, but when you live in the sticks this is one of the hazards.

Every day on my drive I would pass a herd of children waiting for their bus, their ages ranging from 6 to 12 years old. They were dumbass country children whose mothers never taught them to STAY OUT OF THE STREET; especially when the street is curvy and people like Liz perpetually run 20 minutes behind schedule.

Nearly every day I would have to come to a complete stop while the dumbass children gathered their backpacks and lunch boxes and shoes and coats out of the street and amble to the curve. Nearly every day road rage would overtake me before I had even passed another vehicle. These children could ruin a perfectly good morning commute- spilled coffee from slamming on brakes, starting the morning with horn honking, exasperated sighs of disgust. It was LIKE living in the city, only without the culture and cute outfits.

Things got worse right after Christmas. The matriarch of the dumbass children gave them a puppy. Now every Monday-Friday I would have to wait on the dumbass children to gather their backpacks and lunch boxes and shoes and coats and Puddles. Wrangling a puppy is not a quick task. It wasn't so much that my patience was stretched (which it was) as the fact that no one was supervising these children and, if you're going to have unaccompanied minors, at least teach them that kid versus car NEVER ends well.

One day, after a complete stop and assurance that all children were safely huddled on the side of the road, I slowly crept forward. The sound was like stepping on a bag of potato chips. In my rearview mirror I saw the stunned expressions on their dirty little inbred faces. As I eeked forward, I saw the crumbled pile of puppy laying on the asphalt behind me.

I took out Puddles.

As an animal lover, I think I did this puppy a favor. And the best part of this horrible experience is that when the dumbass children saw MY car coming down the street, from that day forward, they got out of the fucking way.