Some Days Are Like That

I found that I was unable to frame coherent thoughts as the barrage of innuendo descended upon me like hailstones on a freaky spring afternoon. The raptness with which my tormentors attended to their phraseology permitted an unnoticed escape by me through the French windows out onto the veranda, however. “Egotistical nabobs!” I sneered to myself as I leaped over the hedge and hastened down the grassy slope to the highway, putting distance between myself and the mansion on the hill as quickly as possible.

“Time to do the hitchhiker bit again,” I told myself. There was no way to use my car, which had been hoisted up onto the roof and left in an inverted state, tires pointing upward like the legs on a dead June bug's carcass. So I stood by the road, waiting for someone who might be kind enough to give me a lift.

Long minutes passed without a single vehicle coming into view. I was too far from anywhere even to think of walking. Then, in the distance, a line of black cars appeared, snaking along the winding road like ants on a food trail. A funeral procession, no doubt. Hardly promising as the source of a ride. Nevertheless, my need was desperate. For all I knew, my tormenters might try to recapture me. So I struck the classic hitchhiker stance, arm out, thumb extended. To my surprise, the hearse that was leading the procession rolled to a stop, the door opened, and I was beckoned inside. I sat down beside the driver and closed the door. The procession resumed.

Besides the unknown corpse in the rear of the vehicle, the driver and I were the only occupants. “Thanks,” I said, “I didn't really expect you to stop for me.”

“Oh, normally we wouldn't,” replied the driver, a shriveled little man who was eighty if he was a day. “But the corpse decided he wanted to live a little longer and skipped out about ten miles back, so we needed a replacement.”

I tell you, some days nothing seems to work out.