Gold lame' baseball jackets

You know something? You people are lucky you aren’t me. I moved to The Compound a couple of years ago, thinking I would live out life in peace and tranquility. I’d listen to the songs of the mockingbirds and meadowlarks in the morning. I would view incredible sunrises and spectacular sunsets. I would smash spiders and shoot snakes wherever I found them. A life well spent on the Plains.

And, then…Cousin Fred moved in.

So, yesterday I was inside the main house plotting the course for a new project I’m working on. I heard a commotion outside. I merely peeked out the blinds, afraid of what I would find. I should have just gone to bed and hidden under the covers at that point.

I could see Friend Lamont atop one of the 50 foot speaker towers. He appears to be disassembling it. He’s lowering the pieces with a rope to the ground where the Hairdressing Hydrologist Gigi, wearing a hardhat, is untying the pieces and waving to Friend Lamont to pull the rope back up.

Izzy, the non-driving Buddhist vegan with irretrievably poor eyesight consultant from OKC, was standing off to one side wearing a gold lamé baseball jacket and skintight white jeans. He was shouting into a diamond studded bullhorn encouragement to the people actually doing the work.

Okay, actually he was shouting that there isn’t possibly enough time to get everything done before the end of July. And, that we need more help. That part he directed somewhere back to the northwest, where I presumed Cousin Fred was doing something.

In the middle of it all, I see The Nephew pull up on the road out front with his truck loaded with something really big that’s covered in canvas. Cousin Fred comes running out from an area where I couldn’t see him as I’m peeking through a small opening in the blinds.

As Cousin Fred runs toward The Nephew’s big rig he cast a furtive glance over his shoulder, probably looking to see if I’m watching. I remained cowering inside behind the blinds.

Cousin Fred is now directing The Nephew to bring the load over behind the Cabinet Saloon replication on the north lawn. Out of nowhere comes some guy on a forklift driving toward The Cab. A forklift? Where the hell did that come from?

I can’t ignore it any longer. I step out onto the front porch as The Nephew parks his truck over on the east side of The Cab and shuts down. Somewhere above me, I hear the cackling of The Wife as she observes the activity on the yard. As I step out from under the porch cover onto the sidewalk, an empty glass whisky bottle flies past my head and breaks on the cement. I turn to see The Wife cackling and slapping her knee, a filterless cigarette dangles from the corner of her mouth.

“Missed youse,” she shouts as ash falls onto the roof.

I move down to The Cab. Cousin Fred is startled to see me. The Nephew and mystery man on the forklift are busy unloading the truck. Turns out the bulk of the load are the biggest speakers I’ve ever seen in my life.

I ask Cousin Fred what the hell is going on.

“What the hell is going on?”

“This is the sound system for the music festival, cousin. It’s the system AC/DC used on their last U.S. tour. 50,000 watts…hell, they’ll hear us in Tulsa.”

“What did this cost?”

“Practically nothing cousin. We’re leasing it. Just had to fetch it from New Jersey.”

I looked at the road-weary Nephew, who promptly informed me not to expect him to haul it back to Jersey after the show.

“That place sucks for driving a truck.”

With that, he handed me an invoice for his services.

I asked him if it included a family discount.

He sneered and went back to work unstrapping the equipment.

I pointed to the guy on the forklift and asked Cousin Fred, “So, who the f*** is that?”
“Oh, him? That’s Bert, the forklift driver. He and the forklift are on loan from the Lowe’s in Enid.”

“On loan?”

“Pretty much.”

Great…now there’s a hot forklift and probably a hotter driver on the property. Eh well, what’s one more soul on The Compound?

I asked why Friend Lamont is disassembling the speaker towers.

Cousin Fred responded, “Well, Izzy says that speaker towers are so 60’s cliché. We’ll hoist these babies,” he said as the slapped one of the monster speakers on the ground, “up on the framing over the stage. We can use some of the materials from the towers to build the frame on the stage.”

As he said that, I looked northwest to see that the stage is beginning to take shape along the edge of a ridge that runs north of the main house.

Cousin Fred continued, “Yeah, we’ll mount those babies to the frame that also hold the video screens.”

“Video screens?”

“Yeah, I have your daughter bringing those from Florida. We’re leasing them too. Paul McCartney used them on his last U.S. tour.”

The Daughter? I know she just graduated from the George Mason School for Advanced Truck Driving, but she needs to start earning a living.

“She has student loans to pay! She can’t be hauling stuff cross-country for nothing.”
Cousin Fred responded, “Oh, she isn’t. I told her to bill you.”

Well, maybe I’ll get a family discount from her. I was about to say something about the mixing-control board that would be required to handle a 50K watt sound system and a video display when I saw the last case coming off The Nephew’s trailer. It was a monster and was marked “Delicate Electronics – Handle With Care”…Bert promptly dropped it off the forklift.

It’s going to be a long summer.

That is all!
 
 

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