Beyond Appearances

Shit Shoveller

I walk down the beautiful, but long driveway. A ranch isn't something small, so I'm hoping it'll be easy to find. I should've asked for exact coordinates, but she embarrassed me. Like I'd ever like Johnny. "He has a past." What does that even mean? We all have pasts.

My thoughts stop when I turn down a path at the end of the driveway and see the bad boy wearing nothing but jeans and those sexy tattoos. Did I say sexy? I meant wonderfully artistic.

I think I found the ranch, judging by the smell of animal feces instead of magnolias. Johnny jogs over to meet me, and it takes every ounce of strength in me to hold back touching his godly body when he comes over. Thankfully his personality is anything but charming, and when he starts barking orders I'm pulled out of the trance.

"Muck the horse stalls. There's muck buckets, and pitch forks hanging against the back wall. Don't do the stalls that have a horse in them. Any questions?" He stares at me, as if I am a child.

"No problem." I trek off to the horse barn. I grab the pitch fork and drag the bucket to the first stall. Despite it being dusty, and smelling like shit, the barn is beautiful. Oak wood everywhere, but adorned with horse shoe fixtures. There has to be 15 horses. That's a lot of poop scooping.

I pick up the piles of waste and dispose of them in buckets. When the buckets get full I bring them to a trailer full of poop attached to the tractor. People go on and on about cross fit, but shoveling shit is just as good.

I finish after shoveling for a hour and a half. I walk out of the barn to look for Johnny, so he can tell me what to do next. I find him mending a fence where the cattle is held.

"Done so fast?" Surprise on his face. "Yeah, so what's next?" He laughs, "Same thing, just do the goat pens." I nod and walk off.

The goats are funny little creatures. They are always bumping heads, jumping, or bellowing. I enter the gates and scoop. Thankfully they're lighter creatures. On the second pen I realize the one goat is a mother, and she's going crazy. Something is not right.

I look around for a little goat roaming around outside of the pen, but see nothing. I listen closely, and hear a small cry in the distant. I follow the noise until I see a little baby goat crying out. It's black fur tangled up in barbed fencing.

I don't want to get cut trying to pull it out, so I peel off my shirt and put it on the fence while I free the little goat. Just when I think we're out of the woods, it starts freaking out in my arms causing me to fall on the fencing without a shirt on. It slices through my skin no problem. "Shit! Come on little guy, work with me!" I yell at no one, but the little goat staring up at me.

I stand up, pushing through the pain, and put my ripped tank top back on. I walk back over to the pen and place Dingleberry, that's what I named him, back in with his mother and siblings. Thankfully that was my last task, so I go to tell Johnny I'm done for the day.

I find him still mending fences. "I'm headed back. See ya tomorrow." He never looks up at me. "Princess break a nail or something? The goats finally do you in?" He turns at looks at me. His face instantly falls. "No asshole, I had to go find a missing baby, that happened to be in barbed wire. Might want to fix their lousy fence next," I bite back. I walk away, but he runs to catch me. "I'm sorry I didn't me..."

I cut him off and laugh at him. "I have worked for everything in my life. I'm not some princess, or spoiled brat. So next time you make an assumption, make sure you're right about it." He stands there holding his face. I walk away and flip him off.

I walk the long path back to the house, dying to crawl into the claw foot tub. When I walk in Sarah immediately comes after me. "What happened? Are you alright?" I raise my hand to stop her. "I'm fine, I'm going to take a hot bath."

I walk into my room and immediately start peeling the clothes off. I wrap my self in a towel, and put my hair in a bun. I start filling the water with scalding hot water. Once it's filled enough to cover my body, I sit. The warmth burns at first, but then slowly eases my pain. I soak up the ease, but am interrupted when there's a knock at my door, just like this morning.

With a grunt, I pull myself out, and wrap myself in a robe. With an exasperated sigh I open the door. "Veronica, I'm so sorry. I didn't know..." I put my hand over his mouth. "Listen, I don't know you, you don't know me. Let's just not jump to conclusions anymore. So you're forgiven or whatever the hell you wanted to hear. If you'll excuse me, I have a warm bath calling my name." He goes to say more, but just leaves with a good night.

I go back to the bath, but it's lost it's appeal. The interruption has left my once piping hot bath, into an Antarctic glacier. Maybe life here isn't so great.