Gotta Go

My Husby and I were leaving for ‘town’.

Living where we were at the time, on a farm between Fort Macleod and Lethbridge, said trip, or others like it, were a highlight.

We buckled our baby in.

I climbed into my seat.

Grant started the vehicle and began backing up.

Suddenly, he stopped.

And shut off the truck.

I looked at him. “What are you doing?”

“Just realized that I forgot to water the pigs! I’ll be right back.”

He jumped out of the car and ran to the pig pen.

Now, I should mention, here, that the pig pen was just out of sight of where my baby and I sat in the truck.

We waited.

And waited.

Finally, impatient, I climbed from the truck and walked over.

But as I came around the corner of the building, I saw my husband, back to me and facing away from the pig pen.

I won’t say exactly what he was doing, but it definitely had something to do with water.

I stood there for a moment.

Finally, “Just what are you watering those pigs with?”

He jumped. “Ummm . . .”

But a new term had just been created.

From then on, in the Tolley family, if someone had to . . . relieve themselves, instead of the generic, ‘have to see a man about a horse’, or the more boring, ‘where’s the restroom?’, we used the newly created, ‘gotta water the pigs’.

It worked.

You may think our family is weird.

I prefer the term ‘delightfully imperfect’.