I hate being short...

I packed a few things, fed the chickens, fed the cats and loaded up my lab, Susie to take a short trip to spend the night with my husband. Before I leave, I have to load the dog's crate into the back of my truck. Uggh! I manage to get it in the truck bed, but it will not fit with the soft fold over cover I have on it. So I toggle each lever and fold it back panel by panel. That's good, and I start my trip.

My husband semi-retired last Sept. 2007 on a Friday and hired on with a new company on the following Monday. That has got to be the shortest retirement time on record. It was actually planned. The last twenty-five years my husband has worked the oilfield with chemicals and the last seven he drove over a thousand miles a week to get to the armpit of the world, Talco, Tx. He pretty much hated the last seven years and the dreaded drive because as soon as he gets in a truck, he falls asleep.

He lives in our travel trailer, which we bought from our son in Colorado, with his dog in another town. A much smaller town than where we currently live. There is just one problem, he does not get to come home very often because he now works for an oil company and he is in charge of a lot of stuff. We decided to wait at least a year to see how the job was and then I would move to his little town. Problem is there is no housing in this small little bleep on the road. That is why I was going to his little town to look at some houses.

The houses are way too expensive and we could never build what we have at today's prices. I am in between a rock and a hard place. He will probably work another ten years, by then I'll be dead from taking care of this place by myself, he will sell the house and live in the travel trailer. Ha! Ha! Not really funny, but that is what I fear will happen. I don't want to live in our home alone and him live in another town. Of course all my friends are laughing at me. "Why are you complaining?" "You've got it good." Maybe they don't want to be with their husband, but I want to live with my husband .

OK, back to this trip. I have been on the road for about thirty minutes and I am looking at the cover on my truck bed and then swoosh...it's gone... I see it in the road. I back up and try to retrieve this thing from the highway. The trucks whirl by me at breaking speed and I am waiting for the traffic to slow down so I can get this stupid truck bed cover.

Ka-Bam, an eighteen wheeler runs over it and it breaks before I can retrieve it from the road. I get the damn thing only not to be able to put it in the truck. Why you ask? Because I am too short. That's right too damn short to get this silly cover in my truck. Of course, my cell phone is not charged, and right now, I am having a shitty damn day. My dog is barking from the back seat. I think I am going to stroke at this very moment.

So what do I do? Can't get the thing in my truck because I am too short, it would not fit the length of my truck which I got it in that way, but it needed to go in on the diagonal and I am too freakin short. In my defense, my truck was on the shoulder on a slope. I can't even get in my truck bed without a ladder because I am too short! I have a running board, but not a thing for the truck bed except this huge ass bumper and of course it is four feet tall and I am too short. Be sides being too short, I am too stupid and too old to be doing this on the side of the road. Yes, I know that I am spoiled by my husband. I do not think he spoils me, rather I am just use to his height. He is 6'1" and I am barely 5"1/2".

When I finally come rolling in to his trailer, he can tell I am mad. He can't believe that I left that piece of shit on the side of the road. I said we could drive back and get it. We can't because we have a really good friends birthday party to go in yet another town. By then, I am hot, sweaty and dirty and my day is pretty much shot. We hem and haw about going to the party, but the guy was his boss when he was in the Air Force and they are our kids godparents. So we go and stay about an hour. I am glad that we went because we have not seen them in a while.

We look a couple of houses and decide that we had better stay put for now. I did look for the cover on my way back, but saw no sign of it. That trip cost me about eight-hundred dollars. Think I will stay off the road for a while. I forgot to mention that I did not get any sleep last night because the trailer shakes every time my husband rolls over in bed. It is like an earthquake. Don't laugh. This is not funny. That is a another story by itself.

I know where I am going tomorrow, to the gym to start exercising again so I won't be this weak dork of a person that I am. I just can't believe how weak I have become since this RA thing and it makes me mad as hell. I won't give up without a good fight! I hate being short and a weak dork. Thanks for listening to me.