Armadillos and Cat Turds

Our trip home through the outer regions of the civilized word was destined for trouble from the start.   There was a part of Georgia we passed through that was very hilly.  That road was so steep they had thoughtfully provided a place for slower drivers to pull off and allow braver people to pass.   We also drove by HUGE confederate flags flying over single wides elevated on stacked cinderblocks.  There were hundreds of Armadillos lying lifeless by the side of the road.   We saw at least 50 Florida Citrus Centers, Plantation Peach Outlets and Big Daddy's Fireworks tents.

After the gigantic hill we approached an intersection.  It was not a right angle crossing but shaped more like an "X."  Having just gone about 100 miles at 25 miles an hour the stop sign really didn't register.  P lifted her foot and squirmed in her chair.   "Stop..., stop sign..., STOP!"  Oh hell, that's me... she's talking to me.  So I jammed on the brakes.  All kinds of stuff began moving around in the back of the coach.  Beer cans were rolling in the fridge,  pet food sliding, parrot wings flapping, waterbowls sloshing over.  

This is the sudden stop I was worrying about.  Maybe I should just remove my foot and hurtle right on through the 4 way stop?  How bad could it be?  We have out of state licence plates.   The flat grassy intersection was deserted.  I was seriously considering ignoring the stop signs completely.  P was bracing for some kind of disaster.  Her shoulders were up and she had a very firm grip on both arms of her seat.  She was struggling against inertia by bracing both her feet on the floor of the coach.    Just then a very distracting thing happened.   A cat rapidly came toward the front of the coach accompanied by a strong obnoxious odor.  He was sort of leaping as he desperately tried to control his trajectory.   He bounced off the CD player with all fours then landed against the windshield in a crouch as we screeched to a stop.  Siamese had a funny look on his face and his posture was not the best.  It soon became obvious that the cat had been in the catbox during the panic braking.  Poor little guy was hanging a rope just prior to the application of the brakes which caused his immediate, untimely, ejection from his sandy commode.  One little log was still dangling from his chocolate starfish.  He was cowering against the glass with a pained expression on his cat face and scuffing his butt from one side of the coach to the other while leaving a pathetic, spotty, beige, turd particle smudged, putrid, skid mark across the top of the dashboard.

"Pull over", she said.