Crumbs From the Corner: Adventures in Woolgathering

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Of Wheels and Words



"Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course."
-William Shakespeare

Mater read my composition regarding her curious three-wheeled-car adventure. She mulled it over and finally commented that it was quite the wrong three-wheel story.
But there are many words in the world, and an infinite number of ways to fashion a story, and sufficient nouns and adjectives and adverbs left over from the first outing that I might yet circumnavigate Mater's choice of tale about an ill-fated wheel.
I was lounging in my pram- I know because I was there, and because I recollect the entire scene with alarming precision.
I was being pushed up the road by my mother and my neck was wrapped with a scarf. I felt neither chilled nor tired: I was wholly protected from the elements. Those were the days before Mater possessed a car, and we were not out for any pleasant stroll but striving to get from one place to another.
My scarf drifted in a sudden breeze, became tangled in one of the back wheels, and began to strangle it. The wheel emerged as the loser in the battle and promptly became detached from the pram.
As we struggled to continue our journey against the tide of a furious wind, I kept insisting that I was sorry- perhaps because it was my own wayward scarf that bestowed such misery upon us. Sorry, sorry, sorry I shouted over and over into the gusts, through my mangled scarf.
I suspect that a three-legged donkey would have carried us home faster than my ailing, rickety carriage on a road of disrepair and endless craters. To be sure, he would have cheerfully consumed the scarf with a single, audible munch, but the fellow would have taken us home at a compensatory speed.

3 comments:

Lanny said...

I so enjoy your stories. How thankful your Mater must have been that you were not the one that ended up getting choked!

Pappy said...

Prams, Trams, and Motorcars - A famous Irish comedy film starring John O'Candy and The Elementary. Your poor Mater. You've done it again. My girls also enjoy entertaining anyone who will listen with stories of their life with Pappy. I fall back on that great Hillary Clinton line when she was questioned under oath, "I don't remember."

Phyllis Hunt McGowan said...

Lanny, thanks :) I suppose she was glad, but I didn't know it until we made it home and could relax!

Texican, I think I like your title better. I'm changing my name to Ele O' Mentary. Thanks for the tip. I now have a stage name.

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