The stories of..... SWEG!!!

Unspeakably Stupid

Story #14:

The Moles Next Door

When I was in growing up, I had some cousins who lived just a couple miles or so from me, out in the country. It was a large family, four boys and two girls, and they had a small farm with cows.

There was also a small farm next door to them, which was bought and sold many times over the years.

By the time I was in high school, a family moved in next door to my cousins who were known only as "The Moles". This was because they looked about as close to a mole as any human you had ever seen. Tiny, squinty eyes and buck teeth were the norm for the family, whom I never really met, but some of the young Moles attended the same high school as I did.

I had a rowdy acquaintance named Deon who was all too familiar with the Moles. He was a friend of my cousins' also, which was how he originally came to be acquainted with the Moles. He particularly enjoyed torturing one member of the Mole family named Charlie. Charlie Mole helped out in the school cafeteria around lunch time. A half hour or so before lunchtime, Charlie had the task of wheeling a big cart full of cinnamon rolls from one part of the cafeteria to another. Unfortunately for Charlie, this was usually the time that Deon was taking a break in the cafeteria. And so, nearly every day, Deon would bomb poor Charlie Mole with empty milk cartons, or whatever other debris happened to be nearby, during the trip. This would upset Charlie greatly, who would yell at Deon and tell one of the cafeteria ladies about the attack, but Deon was always long gone by the time the cafeteria lady would come out to confront him. Eventually, Deon began stealing cinnamon rolls in a hit-and-run style attack as Charlie wheeled the cart by.

One afternoon during the following summer, Deon and I were returning from a trip to my cousins' house in my dad's old '72 Chevy pickup. We were probably stoned and also drinking beer, but certainly not looking for trouble of any kind.

Now, on the road between my cousins' house and mine, there was a huge valley with a creek than ran through the bottom. A bridge crossed the creek at the bottom of the rather steep valley. Many people liked to fish and hike around this crossing, so there were often people walking along the road near the bridge.

So, as Deon and I turned the last corner before the road dropped down toward the creek, a couple of figures could be made out walking right down the center of the road, on the yellow line, on the other side of the bridge. They were accompanied by a large white Husky dog. Before I could comment on what a couple of idiots they must be for walking down the middle of the road, Deon recognized them. "MOLES!" he screamed. With no further words, we each rolled down our window to scream at the Moles as we went by, and I floored it, which would get their attention.

The Moles looked behind them to see the big blue Chevy pickup flying down the middle of the street, coming right at them. Stupidly, they split up, with one Mole going over to the left side of the road, the other Mole to the right. As we rolled by, we each screamed nasty threats to our respective Moles. After screaming at the Mole on my side of the street, I looked up to see the large white dog. It was standing in the street sideways, perfectly still, paying no attention to us, its head lined up with the left-front corner of the pickup. It was already too late. The front bumper of the truck, which was moving at something like 60 MPH, caught the dog's head dead-on, probably damn near decapitating it. Realizing we'd just accidentally killed their dog in a hit-and-run only made us laugh harder, and I floored it outta there.

The following September, school started again. I had a friend named Dickie, a quiet, nice fellow who used to smoke dope and occasionally take other interesting drugs with some of my friends and I. One day very early in the new school year, I was in the high school's smoking area, recounting this whole Mole tale with a few friends who also knew and disliked the Moles. We were standing in a big circle, and the story got a good laugh. Just as I was finishing the story by recalling how the dog had been killed, Dickie joined the group. Having just heard the very tail-end of my story, he then proceeded to tell the sad story of how he had been down at the Salmon Creek bridge one day that summer, and his Husky had wandered off with these two guys he didn't know, and how the two guys came and told him that his dog had been killed by some screaming maniacs in a pickup truck.

Dickie had missed all but the end of my story, so he had no idea. A couple of people in the group had added it up, and they looked at me, trying not to laugh. One guy laughed at me really hard, and it was all I could do not to laugh out loud myself. But nobody told Dickie. Soon, the bell rang and we cleared out of the smoking area, and all was forgotten.

Sorry about that, Dickie.