Steven Includes The Family

It's time for another chapter of The Stevening of Hillbilly Mom. Even Steven is playing fast and loose with Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's life. Now he pulls Farmer H into the mix.

Thursday, the boys and I left school on a mission. A mission to grab some weekly cash from the automated teller, and pick up some boys' supper. Thursday is their fast food night, what with Pro Bowler H taking his 140 lifetime average to bowling league night. For those of you who don't bowl, a perfect game is 300. So you can see that Bowler H is a tad below average for life.

Normally, that bank machine spits out twenties like there's no tomorrow. I have our weekly cash allowance faster than you can say, "Thank the Gummi Mary, Farmer H did not duct-tape a board to the goat's head." But on this day, the Thursday before Labor Day, when a goodly number of folks were likely stocking up on cash for the holiday weekend, the money-shooter whirred like a blender full of strawberry daiquiris. Or so I've heard. Then it commenced to spit out TENS. The Hillbilly weekly cash budget requires a lot of tens. I was a bit miffed at the audacity of that machine to make my currency choice for me.

But that was not to be the extent of my minus column in the big tally sheet of Even Steven. The Sonic drive-thru window girl proudly handed me a Diet Coke, No Ice, after I had clearly enunciated a Diet Coke With Lime, and the order-taker dude had repeated back a Diet Coke With Lime. The window gal seemed perturbed when I handed it right back to her, snapping in my best the-customer-is-always-right voice, "I said, Diet Coke WITH LIME." Rather than simply pouring out a bit of soda, and adding ice and lime, she dumped the whole beverage, peered into the cup, and then discarded it. I shudder to think what she saw, and what had nearly been served to me. Good thing we could watch her make the new one through the window.

The Pony took a swig of his Sprite, and choked. "That is WATER!!!" Oh, the horror. I took a swig, the #1 son took a swig, and three Hillbillies agreed: water. When the window gal handed me my new Diet Coke With Lime, I handed back the 'Sprite.' "It's water. Taste it." She looked at me like I was the crazy one. "Eww! I'm not tasting it." She set it aside, and drew a Sprite from the fountain. I can only hope that she did not serve that water to the car behind us. She should have dumped it right there.

Smarting from the Stevening times three, I pointed T-Hoe towards home. Farmer H called as I crossed the rickety, rusty bridge to Hillmomba. "I won three filets! I'm bringing them home now. I'll grill them this weekend."

It didn't enter my mind to ask how and where Farmer H had won three filet mignons. I knew it was an act of Steven.