A Look of Horror

Two ‘q’s’ and now I notice three ‘u’s’ in a city name. Whew. (Etymology*: after the Duke of Alburquerque, viceroy (1702-11) of New Spain: altered probably by confusion with Affonso de Albuquerque) Sorry.

I left on Friday the 17th. It had snowed all night and snowed all the way to Santa Fe. My rig worked great. Passed many wrecks – lots of slush on the highway ready for hydroplane fun.

One lady on the trip was driving a Ford pickup with a huge ‘fifth wheel’ trailer. Driving the rig for the first time ever – her husband Larry passed away a year or so ago. She left on Thursday night before the snow and made it fine.

We’re at dinner on Saturday and she’s talking pretty much continuously throughout the 1.5 hours at the restaurant. After a while no

one is paying much attention, just nodding and trying to be polite.

She’s been apprehensive about this trip, her husband always did the driving (she did the navigating – and talking, probably). Now that she made a 300+ mile trip OK, she’s proud of herself, I would be too. Towing a 10,000 lb trailer requires your full attention. Her neighbor helped her get set up and ready for the trip.

She brings up the subject of being a single woman – how she’s learning to cope by herself without a hubby. The safety issue.

One of the things she does is leave a man’s ball cap on the dashboard of the truck. This will let possible molesters and other indecent people know she does have a hubby, he’s just temporarily absent. Plus she has a macho bumper sticker or two: US Army vet, etc. Her mom taught her these tricks.

My suggestion was for her to put a (fake) bloody hand print on the inside of the passenger window as her ‘last line of defense’.

Not sure she figured out I was joking. From her reaction, I doubt if she’ll take my recommendation.

(*Etymology is the study of the roots and history of words; and how their form and meaning have changed over time.)