Screeching Women

This week finds Trixie and me at Lake Texoma for group camping and some fishing.

Leaving our winter haven of South Padre Island and pulling the huge RV north 600 miles can be a little nerve-wracking to say the least.

Just imagine taking your eyelids and pulling them back over your head and you can imagine the strain Ol Dutch had to endure. Never mind that there are thousands of 80-year-old men doing it without a care. That’s because they either don’t care if they die or have high confidence in their insurance coverage.

Navigation usually falls to Trixie when we travel because, well, she wants to be in complete control. Or, she is a woman. Or, I don’t ask for directions. One of those is the real reason.

We started the day and all was going fine until the wagon boss (that’s Ol’ Dutch for all you who are wondering) is directed to some downtown area with stop lights, narrow streets and school zones. This leads into a time that can only be compared to The Twilight Zone.

It also leads to what is known as “a fight.” Now Trixie did have a good excuse this time as the day before we left her phone took a dive into the Gulf of Mexico and she no way to access her maps. It was an old, old antiquated phone anyway and the next day I’m sure someone found it on the beach as the fish didn’t even want one that old.

If you travel as much as I do, you know wrong turns are to be expected and Ol' Dutch kept his cool this time as we did a drive by exploration of the historical houses of Victoria, Texas.

The real issue occurs, however, when Trixie believes I have not seen the truck stop in front of us and she lets out a screech.

This is somewhere between a yell and a holler and when unfurled sets Ol' Dutch on his ear. It also happens when a car is coming head on in our lane, or  a red light 10 blocks away, an email from a friend or my dog Cooper jumping into the backseat. As you can see, we have a problem.

I never know if I am about to be killed or greeted with a wet sloppy kiss from my dog. Her response all sounds the same and causes not a small amount of stress on my already stressed heart.

Even here at the Lake, the screech finds a way to haunt my tranquil days. Riding down the lake today we were trolling, a fishing method when you let your line out behind the boat and pull along some shiny doohickey that the fish are supposed to bite.

So there we were riding along in the sunshine, Ol' Dutch looking along the far away bank just having a good time when Trixie gets a bite. Now Trixie somehow missed the memo about calmly saying “I have a fish on” and the shriek made its appearance at the slightest bump on her line.

This causes what is known as “erratic boat driving” by Dutch as I am sure we are about to collide with an ocean liner from her tone.

I know a lot of you must suffer from the same kind of pains with your travel partner and not a few of us have stomped on an imaginary brake pedal when in the passenger seat and a close call occurs.

To those of you blessed with a sleeper when you travel count your lucky stars. But if you are following Ol' Dutch down the road or at the lake be sure and give him a wide birth as you never know when Trixie will get a text from a friend and let out a man altering screech.

Are We Just Friends

“I just want to be friends” has been used so much by men and women alike that it’s a wonder it even works anymore. It’s like an old vinyl record that just won’t go away even though you no longer have the phonograph to play it on.

About three years ago Ol' Dutch was just meandering along minding his own business when he himself fell for just such a line.

Having been tricked into laying some tile for our church, I was approached by a tall, dark headed vixen of no unknown beauty who offered to help me. She turned out to be pretty good help and her mom fed me lunch every day, too. This should have sent off warning signals clear to the Center for Volcanic Detection in Los Angelos, California but Ol' Dutch fell for it hook, line and sinker.

But I was lonely and needed the help and thought I was in control of the situation and besides, she said that she just wanted to be friends. She was very clear with me that once the summer was over she was off to California or Nepal or Mozambique and her “life” so we needed to remain “just friends.” Little did I know but Trixie was in a double-speak, spin cycle only to be rivaled by the industrial load machine at the local washerteria.

Since Ol' Dutch had been married way too long, he didn’t really know how these things worked. I was happy to think I found a woman of like mind as I was. The summer proceeded wonderfully being “just friends” as that in itself has definite boundaries; the most important of which involves money.

You see, when you are “just friends” you go “dutch” which being my name seemed perfect. Trixie was always sharing out of her bounty and wherever we went she was always pulling money out of a seemingly limitless purse.

So life proceeded very nicely until one day, Ol’ Dutch woke up and we were “more than friends.” I guess I should have known that time had come because we had fallen into an old couple routine of hanging out together during the day and staying in at night. And that, my friends, is what you call perfect.

Until last week when the earth moved a tad under Ol’ Dutch’s planted-deep-in-the-mud feet. It seems that Trixie thinks we should have a date night every once in a while. How did she miss the memo? We men have steady girlfriends so we can move through the dating phase, aka “expensive and detrimental to our bank account,” as soon as possible.

Here, I had thought all along that she had melded into a stay-at-home girlfriend type where in reality she was just biding her time until Ol' Dutch was sucked completely into her web.

Everywhere I looked brochures for museums, dolphin watching cruises, coupons for romantic dinners and even, the local movie theatre guide started appearing around the place. Do you think that is a hint? Just the other evening, I mentioned night fishing and she opted to watch, “The Voice” instead.

I guess I will have to start considering some “date nights” in the future to keep Trixie from bolting to some unknown place as she oft gets a faraway look in her eyes as we pass some brightly lit venue of nightlife offerings.

Let this be a lesson to all of you single men out there: the world is full of traps and crevasses just waiting to swallow up the unsuspecting traveler unused to the wiles of a desperate woman.

Perhaps I should ask Trixie if we can just be friends again? Then, maybe I will just stick my hand in the meat grinder. I am sure that will be less painful.