You know what I hate?
Losing things.
You know what I hate even more than losing things?
MARY ELLEN losing things.
You know what I hate even more than Mary Ellen losing things?
Me blaming Mary Ellen for losing things, and then discovering that she wasn't the culprit...I was.
Mary is away in Florida for a couple of weeks. She's having a good old time in the sun with friends of ours. She's living the good life, while I'm back here on the farm shoveling horse crap and getting my own meals. (How many nights in a row can a man eat hamburgers?)
Yesterday, I needed the hose. Spring is just about ready to be sprung, and the temperatures no longer are dipping below the freezing mark.
So, if the hose is left outside overnight now, it won't freeze and crack.
Now, I have animals on my property, including three horses, a pony, two German shepherds, two cats, and, apparently, 100,000 ground moles.
In the springtime, the first grass that grows in the pastures is extremely lush, and it has a very high water content. If the pony eats that grass for a week or so, she begins to founder, which means that the bottoms of her hooves get extremely sore to the point where she can barely walk. So, for the first few weeks in spring, she has to be put into a separate paddock that doesn't contain the lush grass.
The problem with that is the water trough for the horses is in another paddock. So, water has to be taken to a tub in the pony's paddock by way of a garden hose, or, when the hose can't be found, by Jim hauling heavy, five-gallon buckets from the spigot to the tub.
Yesterday, I put the pony in the paddock. So, I needed the hose.
Now, I distinctly remember last fall watching Mary Ellen coil up the hose in preparation for storing it for the winter.
As I thought about it, I realized that there were four places on the property where she was likely to put it: the basement of the house, the new horse barn, the old horse barn, or the garage.
So, I trekked off to the new barn with a confident step in search of the hose that will easily dispense life-sustaining water to my beloved pony while, at the same time, saving my chronically sore back from the trauma of lugging five-gallon buckets. (Water weighs eight pounds per gallon. Eight times five is forty freaking pounds of liquid. That's a pain. Not to mention the mess and aggravation of the stuff slopping over the top of the bucket in transit and saturating my shoes and pants.)
Once in the barn, I take a quick look-see in the main corridor.
No hose.
In the tack room?
Nope.
In the hayloft?
Nada.
Okay, one place down, three others to go.
I took my life into hands as I entered the old horse barn, which is sinking into the ground by a good four to five inches every year. I looked around the ground floor.
Nothing.
I walked gingerly up the rickety, rotten wooden steps leading to the loft. The floor boards of the old loft creaked and groaned out piercing, ominous warnings as I put my weight on them. I looked down and could see daylight coming up from between them. (Did I ever mention to you that I'm afraid of heights?)
No freaking hose.
I threw some of the junk around up there with hopes of uncovering the hose. I picked up one piece of rotten wood and attempted to throw it to back wall. Well, Sandy Koufax I ain't. Instead of hitting the back wall, the wood flew up to the ceiling, narrowly missing a nest occupied by barn swallows. The commotion was enough to REALLY piss off the swallows, and the little bastards began shrieking and dive-bombing me! As I turned to run down from the loft and away from the kamikazes, I tripped on the uneven, ancient steps and ended up taking an unceremonious swan dive into a mound of wet, black, moldy, use-to-be hay that came over with Columbus.
The crap got embedded into my ears, nose and mouth. I really thought I was going to puke. It tasted kind of like one of my mother's homemade pirogues, only better.
After a momentary bout with the dry heaves, I made my way out of the old barn and to the garage where a close inspection of both overcrowded bays turned up nothing.
Then slowly, with hope waning in my heart and weariness starting to take its toll, I made the long day's journey into the night that is the basement of our house.
To my utter dismay and growing frustration, my search came up empty once again!
At this point I was irritated beyond belief at Mary Ellen. She ALWAYS does this, I remember thinking. She ALWAYS fails to put things back where they belong!
I called my wife on my cell phone. She answered with her perennially cheerful and perky voice. "Hi, my honey!!!! What's up?"
After a brief pause that was calculated for effect, I hissed, "Where the hell did you put the freaking garden hose?"
She thought for a moment and then said, "I don't think I put it anywhere!"

"Yes. You did. Last fall, I remember you coiling it up in the yard."
She vaguely remembered doing that also.
"So, where the hell did you put the damned thing?"
She couldn't remember.
After several minutes of relating everything that had just happened to me in my quest for the freaking hose, I laid the guilt on pretty heavily.
"Now, my head splitting, my stomach is twisted into a knot, and I'm going to have to haul water across the yard for the pony."
Well, she couldn't remember what she had done with the hose, in spite of all my "god damn its!" and "son of a bitches."
She ended up sheepishly saying, "I'm sorry, Honey!" Then I hung up the phone.
I hauled six buckets of water from the spigot to the pony's tub. When I finished, my back was killing me and my feet were soaked.
As I was heading back to house to cook myself some supper (hamburgers) my cell phone rang. It was Mary Ellen.
"Did you look in the new shed?" she asked.
"The new shed?" I repeated.
"Yeah," she said. "The shed that we bought last year and put on the far side of the garage."
The NEW shed! I had forgotten about that! The thing isn't visible from the yard or the house, so I never thought of it!
Suddenly, I felt like I was struck by a runaway train! I KNEW where the hose was! I KNEW it because the memory of Mary Ellen coiling up the hose for winter storage last fall all at once became complete. I closed my eyes and watched her coil the thing around her arm. Then I saw her as she handed it to me and said, "Please put into safe storage."
I'M the idiot who put the thing away...in the new freaking shed!
Being the man that I am, I immediately admitted my mistake to Mary. And she being the wonderful woman that she is, laughed, said that no apology was necessary, and told me that she loved me.
I apologized again anyway, feeling like a heel, and I told her that I loved her too.
And I do.
But I HATE that stupid shed!