The Three Stooges Do America

This journey has been marked by slapstick from the very first day. Will pulled the RV up our driveway to begin loading a year’s worth of clothes and books and dishes and bedding from the garage. I went into the house to talk with Laney, who was going to be renting our house for the year. After Will moved in a few loads he decided to make the bed. Suddenly he felt a lurch and the RV began rolling back down the driveway. He raced to the front of the RV and pulled on the brake just as it was rolling into the street.

I looked out the living room window as the RV began to roll by and idly wondered why Will was moving it. Was it not close enough to the garage? Why didn’t he ask for my help in reversing? I wandered outside and saw Will gripping the wheel tightly, eyes wide. That was the last time he forgot to put it into gear when parking.

Bodie, of course, has been the source of much of our slapstick. Every time we go for a walk he manages to wrap himself around someone. Once he pulled me straight out of the RV, missing all three steps, when he was in a hurry to get outside. Ben is wakened most mornings by Bodie landing on the bed next to him and then flopping his head – as big as Ben’s own – onto Ben's chest. Bodie sleeps at the foot of our bed and when I have to get up during the night, which I invariably do at least once, I have to step over him. This startles him, even when I try to warn him I’m coming, and he jumps up and runs toward the kitchen. But he jumps up between my legs, and he is tall, so I end up riding Bodie halfway down the hallway most nights.

The most recent incident (besides the nightly Bodie rides) was in New Orleans. Ben needed to get something from the car after dark, so he grabbed a flashlight and headed out the door. We heard a crash and Ben started yelling for us. Will and I jumped out of the bed – luckily Bodie had already headed for the door – and ran to see what had happened. Ben was rolling on the ground, holding on to his leg. I saw that the RV steps had not come down, which they should do automatically when the door opens.

I jumped down from the doorway and knelt next to Ben. I felt his legs and arms and decided quickly that he had not broken anything. As I pulled him up, my bare feet began to burn horribly and I realized that I had stepped into a fire ant nest. I hopped from foot to foot as I pulled him inside. In the RV, Will cleaned his wounds and plastered him with band-aids. I tried to help, but kept yelping as I discovered more fire ants crawling on my feet, continuing to bite. Almost a week later, I still have a dozen blisters on my feet that itch constantly.

Are you wondering why Ben didn’t notice that the stairs were missing? Particularly as he was carrying a flashlight? I wondered that too. I asked him why he hadn’t used the flashlight to see the stairs, or lack of stairs in this case. He said that he wasn’t looking at the stairs because he was looking around for (I’m not making this up) “rabid squirrels and grenades”.