Suzanna Danna

I’ve been told that I am in the dark place and I need to climb my janked (pronounced jank, like yank… ED) ass out. So, in light of watching… and I’m not kidding… You Don't Mess with the Zohan over the weekend and seeing this character…

I would like to make fun of my ex-husband.

A little brevity and a few tales of some of the most redneck behavior should bring me back around to some giggle-snorts.

Not to mention that I just realized that my ex-husband looks like a brown-eyed (contacts) Rob Schneider playing a Pakistani. This information is awesome, and a little disturbing.

For those of you playing the home game (On the Notify List) you have already seen a picture of the ex. For those of you not. I have a present for you, and not because you are good boys and girls (you should totally be spanked) but because I give, I am a giver. That is what I do.

Yep. That’s X.

Do not judge me.

I cut his brother out of the shot because I don’t think the world at large is ready for that much assholery. (Is SO a word.)

Side note: Where in the blue blazes are all of these bruises coming from? My knee, my right hand, my ankle, my hip and both forearms. It’s like I’ve been training for a pillow fight with Janice Dickenson. Not really, she could probably kill me with one clench of her buttocks.

Okay, let the sniggering begin.

When I married my X he was living in a 1976 doublewide Redman trailer. His (not ours, his) “home” was at the bottom of a hill and the “driveway” was often washed out and covered with red clay. Slippery shit. So we (I) would hook the box blade up to the John Deere and get to scraping. We’d (I’d) move dirt (clay) out of the way and try to re-grade the driveway to some respectable and usable capacity.

We also raised emus.

I’ll stop there and let that sink in.

Emus.

Big fucking chickens.

Just to the south of the “house” was a dog pen, hurricane fenced with a nice little gate. To the west of the “house” was one of those sheds that you can buy at Home Depot with the little corrugated steel siding and the tin roof. It had a linoleum floor and was stacked from the floor to the non-insulated ceiling with shit.

Some of the shit had been nice before. There were antique roll top desks and china cabinets, bed frames and boxes of paper, artwork and farm tools. When humidity had taken over the door warped shut and nobody ever went in there anymore.

X decided he needed a new building in that exact spot for it would be between the soon to be built chick runs for the emu babies and a small incubation room/food storage shop.

So, the shed had to be moved.

How to move a shed that had been sitting there for about ten years?

X had the idea to jack the little shed up on some logs and roll that motherfucker across the dangerously sloped yard using momentum and gravity to their advantages. “Like the fucking Egyptians built the pyramids, for God’s sake! Gah!” he said. I pointed out a small issue. “Darling sweetheart, that is an excellent arrangement seeing as how we have the man power and the cylindrical wooden poles that you require for this master plan.” He gloated. “Oh wait,” I continued, “We only have those square railroad ties behind the house. Drat.”

He cursed up a blue streak and then started thinking.

His personal motto was, “If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’.” And I wondered why I had problems with him being faithful. Golly, I just don’t know how I couldn’t have seen that one coming!

He decided to make a sled of sorts out of some tin. He would lift the shed gently onto the tin using the bucket of the tractor and then slide it across the yard and safely to the north side of the “house”. He went to the barn and brought back a rusted piece of steel, which he then placed gently in front of the shed. He was almost there; I could see a look of triumph in his eyes. He maneuvered the tractor around to the shed and without ties around the bottom of the shed for support he just gently pushed against the roof of the shed to lift it.

The roof made a screeching noise of tortured metal and bent at an odd angle then pulled free from the sides of the rest of the structure.

I went inside, got a beer, my smokes and a phone. I was not going to be selfish and not share this great moment in stupidity with the world. I came back out to the porch, settled on the swing and called my father in law.

Pa*: Y’eeeello.
self: Pa’, it’s Sue… you have to come see this.
Pa: Ut oh, what now.
self: X is moving [the sound of metal screaming cuts me off… then a fit of giggles muffle my words]
Pa: What the hell was that?
self: Seriously, get down here. It’s awesome.
Pa: What is that dumbass doing with my tractor?
self: You looking out the window?
Pa: Yeah.
self: He’s trying to move the shed.

*Seriously…. Pa. As in Ma and Pa… Kettle.

After X ripped part of the roof off he forgot to figure out a way to actually lift the shed onto his home made sled. Or how to attach the sled to the tractor for that matter.

It was starting to drizzle and my ex-husband was sitting in the seat of the tractor cursing with the speed of an auctioneer. The many adjectives and phrases using whore, lazy ass and piece of shit were astounding in number and variety. I cannot tell you how many times he basically made a guttural scream at his frustration before pounding the steering column of the tractor.

When his father pulled into the driveway and got out of his truck, smiling amiably at his son and then headed to sit on the porch swing with me. X pointed an accusatory finger at me and yelled out, “She called you didn’t she!?” Pa got my back on that one, “No son, the whole county can hear what sounds like you tearing a water tower apart.”

Pa bummed a smoke and whispered, “How long has he been at this?” “Oh, about an hour or so” I replied. We sat and watched in silence as the tension mounted.

X yelled a triumphant “Ah HA!” and bounded out of the tractor seat. He went to his truck and pulled out several long canvas tie downs. Then he raided his daddy’s truck box for the same thing. He got enough material to create a sling to loop around the bottom rear of the shed and then tie to the tractor. He did so and then let out the clutch of the tractor and took the slack up with his tie downs.

The shed had been made with several 4x6’s attached horizontally to the bottom of the structure so if it was sitting on the ground it would have some protection from moisture. It was around the corners of the shed and these struts that X had looped his sling. He took up more slack and the shed started forward an inch at a time. X was ecstatic. He was pulling it so slowly that a small mound of red clay built up in front of the struts. For about two feet the clay parted and went under the shed but after the successful two feet a small snap and then a much louder cracking sound was heard. We yelled for him to stop but he was focused.

He must have hit a root, some gravel or just a small jerk from the tractor because something caused the strap to slip all the way off the struts and just pull the very bottom edge of the shed. X had enough force going that the cracking sound continued to get louder. All the sudden, SNAP! The shed was pulled completely off of the struts. It pulled forward about five feet then tipped about six inches and buried its’ front edge into the soft clay soil.

I was laughing so hard that it was that silent, wheezy Muttley laugh that completely incapacitates you and makes you cry and do that “No more, no more!” hand gesture that is completely futile.

(Muttley laugh here: Download file)

The shed, an 8’x10' structure, was now hanging off of the struts and buried in a shallow groove of earth.

X turned the tractor around and rolled around behind the shed. He backed up to it and put the box blade against the side (back) of the shed and pushed on the shed about two feet below the window. The shed shuddered and then pushed all the way off the struts and made a nice burrow into the spongy ground.

By this time Pa was so red in the face that I was afraid he would have an aneurysm. Tears streamed down his stubbly cheeks and his hair was in disarray. If my ex husband looks like a Pakistani version of Rob Schneider then his father is a dead ringer for Walter Matthau. He was mad that his son was tearing up their property, but the absurdity of it was just too much not to be funny.

X pulled away from the carnage and lowered the bucket. He pushed the struts out of the way with the bucket then turned the tractor around again and pushed on the lowest part of the shed with the box blade. Slowly it began to move, he gave it a little too much gas and it jackknifed to the left. He got around behind it and slowly backed it in a circle and then pushed it across the yard leaving at least an eight foot swatch of destruction behind him.

He missed the propane tank by mere inches but got the little shed secured squarely to the north of the “house” up against the fence. The frame was warped, the roof was pulled halfway off and some of the linoleum was still stuck to the struts so there were holes in the floor, but he got that shed where he wanted it.

And that was some of the funniest shit I have ever seen.

Someday I will tell you about how he and his brother blew up a lake.