A Dirty Little Secret

Today is Throw Back….Tuesday?

Whatever. I didn't feel like waiting til Thursday.

I found my old blog. It, quite literally, took me THREE days to remember what my old blog was called. I'm blaming the mom-brain.

But I found it, and this is my husbands FA.VOR.ITE post of mine ever. Mostly because he likes to laugh at me.

So here it is!

**AND….for the record. I am now fully mostly capable of driving a stick! Just in case anyone was wondering if I ever learn from my mistakes!

Dirty Little Secret
There’s something you may not know about me. Something that shocks people. It’s not something I’m proud of. It’s a shameful secret I try to hide. I try to cover it up. I try to avoid certain situations so I’m not embarrassed by it.

But eventually, all secrets come to light. Skeletons come out of the closet and you have to admit your short-comings.

So I confess….. Please don’t judge me. Love me in spite of my faults.









I don’t know how to drive a standard transmission vehicle.






There. I said it.









Quit laughing.








I’m hopelessly dependent on vehicles that are smart enough to know what gear they are supposed to be in, and WHEN they are supposed to be there, AND do it automatically. People, I can’t even talk and write at the same time, how do you expect me to make my feet deal with an extra pedal and drive in a straight line all at once? And my whole life I’ve had either a dad or a husband to deal with these incompetent vehicles anyways. So even though I understand the basic concept and mechanics of a standard transmission, I’ve yet to have a really good reason to master the skill of actually driving one. Yes, I’m a pampered country girl. What can I say?

That being said, I have to explain how we water our horses. See, most normal people run a hose to a trough and fill it up. Simple. However, we’ve never been accused of being normal, or simple for that matter, and we’re not about to start trying now. A couple of the pastures we run horses on are way too far away from our water to run a hose to. So the trusty Jeep Wrangler has been transformed into a ranch water truck. (Jeep misses its California days when it was a desert lovin’ party Jeep. Poor thing….). Jeep now has a 55 gallon barrel in the back with a valve and a hose on it that we fill up and drive over to the troughs. Jeep does not have a smart transmission. It has to be told what to do.

So yesterday evening, Chuck asked me to water so he could go shoe. He knows my dirty little secret, so he said he would take care of the too-far-away-to-reach-with-a-hose pasture when he got back. Well I don’t like to feel useless, so I told him I would handle it with the condition that he had to leave before I drove the Jeep anywhere. I didn’t want him to have to witness my jerky start and stop driving technique. It’s enough that I have this inadequacy without someone laughing at it. I also didn’t want his “coaching”. I’ve learned that, as a woman, it’s just as hard to be taught something by your husband as it is your dad. But that’s a whole ‘nother post we won’t get into right now!

So I jump in the Jeep and he shows me how to start it. Seriously, I don’t even know how to do that part….Give me a little credit though, starting the Jeep involves a screwdriver and a temperamental push button, not a key because the three year old lost it. I reiterate, we’re not normal.

I, again, tell Chuck to leave before I even put it in gear to attempt to save some of my dignity. He laughingly humors me and drives off after telling me not to run anything over. He has a lot of faith in me, can you tell?

After a few jerky starts, I actually started moving! All the while giggling at myself because I’m Just. Not. That. Coordinated. I saw Trip roll his eyes at me. I think he could probably drive the Jeep better than me. But I made it all the way to the water hose, filled the barrel and get this…...I put it in REVERSE and drove BACKWARDS! I was so proud of me! In fact, I think I like reverse better than forward. It’s so low geared it’s almost impossible to kill it. Almost.

At this point, the children that were napping peacefully were now awake and I still had one more trip to make to fill the trough. After my first sucessful water run, I was so confident in my Jeep driving abilities that I figured I could do it with a nine month old on my lap and a three year old riding shot gun. No problem. I figured wrong…. We started out ok. Wade glared at me once for hurling him into the dash board. He quickly decided it was safer to sit down and hold on. Wes tried to steer us off the road and into a fence because he wouldn’t let go of the steering wheel. But we eventually made it back to the water hose, got ‘er filled, and headed back to the pasture. On the way, I look down and see the floor board filling with water. I yell “WADE! Why is there water in here?!!” because, typically, if something is flooding the three year old had something to do with it. He didn’t say anything. I just got the “Oh crap, I’m in trouble” blank stare. Apparently, before Wade jumped back in the Jeep, he opened the valve on the barrel AFTER I had tucked the hose back in the Jeep. I decide to just hurry and get to the trough, because I just had to back up to it at this point. Backing up sounds easy, but remember that I have a nine month old on my lap still, a kid now trying to jump on the floor in the water, and I’m not as handy at driving this thing as I’d like to think I am. And the ground is really really bumpy by the trough.

The details get a little fuzzy now. Somehow, between driving backwards, holding on to the baby, yelling at the kid to stay out of the water and trying to avoid running over a bike and hitting the fence, I slammed the brakes a tad too hard and the barrel catapulted out of the Jeep. Oops...

I got out and told the horses to mind their own business and quit looking at me like that, and assessed the damage. I thought the valve was done for since that’s the end the barrel landed on, but I was lucky. It was ok. It just leaks a lot more than it used to now. I'm sure that when Chuck is done laughing at me, he can repair it to it's former water-proof state. Wade told me "It's ok, dad can fix it" after apologizing for filling the Jeep with water. That kid sure can sweet talk his momma when he feels the need!

I banned Wade to his sandbox, Wes to the lawn, and considered waiting for Chuck to come home and fix my mess. But my pride said no, so i emptied 55 gallons of water onto the ground and very gracefully lugged the barrel back in the Jeep and cinched it down TIGHT. The next trip was a lot less uneventful.

Then Chuck called to check on me. He asked what i broke. (Like i said, he has a lot of faith in me!) I told him "Nothin'....". What?? I didn't BREAK anything! And the horses have water.

Until tonight.

Then I have to do it all over again.

Maybe I should let Trip do it...