Country girls are handy to have around
FALLING FAR FROM THE TREE
Country girls know how to get things done and everyone should have one on their payroll.
Last Tuesday I needed to run to the convenience store and, very briefly, my car acted like it wasn’t going to start but it did. Thought it was strange, but I have been running the air conditioner on full blast for a while.
Later, when I went to leave for the day, I told Mary Lou and Shannon that I would see them in the morning. Got in the car and this time it wouldn’t start and it was making a clicking sound.
So I go back inside and asked Mary Lou to come outside and see what was wrong with my car. She asked if it was making a clicking sound. I told her it was, and she said I need a new battery.
We went outside and she asked me to get in and pop the hood, which I did. It takes me a good five minutes to find the button I need to press to get it open, but by the time I got out of the car she had it opened with the stick thing already in its place to hold it up.
She looked around and then asked for a Coke. I just looked at her funny and thought, well she’s fixing my car out in this heat, so I’ll go get her a cold drink.
When I got back outside, she showed me all this white crusty stuff on one of the two things on the battery. She took a big swig of the Coke and then started pouring it on the battery. I just looked at her all crazy. Amazingly the Coke made the w hite c rusty s tuff m elt away. And people drink that stuff. Gene happened to be leaving right about then and he offered to jump it off. It started right back up.
Mary Lou asked if I was going straight home. I told her I wasn’t because I needed to make a stop on the way home. She told me to drive it for a while so it would stay charged, so I went to the turn off at FM 1786 and came back into town.
You’ll note that when I went in the first time, I asked Mary Lou instead of Shannon to come listen to my car, because Mary Lou knows more about cars than either Shannon or I combined.
Steve at Steve’s Texaco had to keep my car overnight. He has dad’s number but not mine, so he called him to tell him my car was ready. I had told him what Mary Lou had done. He told dad, “Bob Loehr taught that girl a few things.”
And that’s why it’s crucial to have a country girl on hand at all times. This isn’t the first time she has come between me and disaster.
When we were having issues with a squirrel in the office, she is the one who caught it in two seconds.
When we found our office cat, Mavis, we could hear her meowing all day but couldn’t find her. Mary Lou found her in two seconds.
She rescued our other office cat, Cinder, who was thrown outside in the frigid temperatures earlier this year.
Shannon and I tried to catch a little mouse who had come in the office and whom the cats were terrorizing. No luck. Mary Lou caught it in two seconds.
The Reporter suffered badly during COVID like most businesses did. I hired Mary Lou in 2021 and she helped to turn things around for us.
So find yourself a country girl and keep her around.