Really officer

Among other things, her feet were killin’ her. Damn this Georgia sun. It felt like she had been walkin’ for hours. Nothing on her was dry. Suzie bet that if you rung out her bra, a pint of sweat could be collected. ‘Stick out your thumb fool’! She scolded herself. ‘Otherwise, no one will ever give us a ride’. But as hot as she was, she couldn’t. How could she be sure that the rando who picked her up wouldn’t be a psycho killer? Or worse.

With each passing vehicle, her emotions see-sawed between anger – for the position she found herself in. To despair. How on God’s green Earth was she supposed to walk 98 miles?

What she wouldn’t give about right now for sunglasses? A hat? Tenna-shoes and a pair of socks? WATER! Let alone a ride.

Her thoughts were a million miles from the heat and hurt as she walked straight into the back side of a car.  “Georgia tags,” she muttered. “At least someone is havin’ a worse day than her.” In a heat induced stupor; motions that made her look like she was on ‘the stuff’, she came eye to mirrored sunglasses with a Georgia state trooper. 

“Mam, you understand that walkin’ on the side of I-75 is illegal?” On a normal day, that thick Southern accent would have been a major turn on. But right now, her brain was fried. Quite literally.

With swol feet, shattered nerves and the stank of sun induced sweat, she blurted out between sobs, “he kicked me out. I was teasin’ my friend about a fictional event, and he kicked me out.” The trooper didn’t move. Unsympathetic to her plight. “Really officer, I was teasin’ him about how he couldn’t drive and eat a bbq sandwich. That he would have sauce all over him, the steerin’ wheel, there wouldn’t be enough napkins to clean up the mess. ‘Cause, now days you only get 1.” She angerly raised 1 finger. “I mean, who can clean up a bbq mess with 1 napkin? His wife and I thought it was funny. But he kicked me out. Pulled over and kicked me out. 98 miles,” she interjected. “We were 98 miles from our destination. No purse! No phone! No WATER!” Her mouth puckered at the thought of water. “Really officer. He kicked me out. Over a hypothetical bbq mess.”