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Hee-Haw [ Written 2009. Updated with Proof 2021]

Place: Southport, Connecticut.

Time: Somewhere in the late 1980s.

Status: Married.

Mood: Pissed off and not sufficiently in touch with her feelings. Again.

It was one of those arguments that, if they don’t end a marriage outright, threaten it with premature extinction. Like most, it was my fault. Like most, it probably started over a small thing in the way that explosions start with a spark in a primer. Whatever it was, like an explosion, it quickly escalated to the well-worn phrase that those who are wrong always use at the end, “Okay, that’s it. I’m out of here!”

And out the door I went. And down to the driveway I went. And into the car I went. Out of the driveway and into the road I drove taking a hard left that would lead me down the right curve, then the left curve, then onto the main road. Halfway down this road I pulled the car over, turned off the engine, and sat there listening to the June Bugs whirr in the warm summer evening.

Well, I thought, that’ll show her. I’m gone.

At which point it dawned on my small reptile brain, as it must have to countless husbands, that although I was gone I had no place to go.

Of course, that wasn’t quite true. In theory, I had every place to go. Everyplace except back to the house I’d just left. I was parked close to the I-95 and the Boston Post Road on coastal Connecticut. I could go west-north-south wherever…. but I couldn’t go back. At least not right then. That would be too humiliating…. too much like a Monty Python sketch. So I chose the solution that countless husbands have taken, I headed to the nearest hotel/motel.

In this case, the nearest hotel/motel was an extensive establishment just off the Post Road. I pulled in front of the entrance and went inside. The check-in clerk visibly brightened as I walked in and gave me an effusive welcome. It didn’t really lighten my mood to be greeted so warmly. I just asked for a quiet room where I could relax and take stock.

“A quiet room? We have a fine quiet room for you just across the parking lot. I’m sure you’ll find it most satisfactory.”

If the word “Whatever” had been in use then, I’m sure I would have spoken it. As it was I wasn’t paying that much attention. He took my registration and credit card information and passed me the key. “Just pull across the way. It’s on the ground floor. Do you need any help with your luggage?”

I needed no help at all with my luggage since I didn’t have any luggage. Storming out of a house loses its impact if you pause to do anything sane like, say, pack a bag. I took the key and paused a bit looking at the indoor swimming pool that was just off the lobby. I didn’t note the clerk pick up the phone and mumble into it.

The exhaustion, the adrenaline jag, that sets in after anger passes were beginning to overwhelm me. I left the lobby and drove the car about twenty yards to park in front of my room, my rented refuge. I was looking forward to the solace of television and a fully stocked mini-bar. If I got hungry later there was a Greek Diner about a hundred yards down the road with “Breakfast All Day.”

It was not a good plan but it was the only plan I had. Maybe later I’d admit I’d become an extraterrestrial in my own town and “Phone home” seeking forgiveness. Maybe.

Stupefied I walked up to the motel room door, put the key in the lock, turned it, and opened the door.

There were dim lights on in the room so I stood in the doorway and scanned the room left to right for a moment. Wall, bathroom entrance, a wall with flocked green wallpaper and bad seascape (at least it wasn’t clowns), bed, night table, donkey eating a bale of hay.

“Hold it. Scan room again please,” said brain.

Wall, bathroom, seascape, bed, table, donkey eating a bale of hay. A small donkey. A large bale of hay. In the night and in the dim hotel room in the corner. A calm and not too big donkey… eating hay.

Check nose. Yup, smells like a fairly clean donkey in there.

One more time.

Situation same. Wall, picture, bed, donkey…. wait…. wall…. slightly at an angle instead of flat a portion of the wall where there should have been a sharp corner. Look more closely and see a thin place in the wallpaper. Hear a soft whirring noise. Then the phone rings.

The phone is on the table next to the bed and the donkey. I am in the doorway. It rings and it rings. I do not move. It stops ringing and the door of the room next to mine opens and Alan Funt’s son Peter walks over to me with a clipboard, a pasted-on smile and his hand held out.

“Hi, I’m Peter Funt. Smile, you’re on Candid Camera!

Candid Camera was an ancient staple of TV running from 1948 until it petered out at the end of the 1980s with a few brief returns since then. It is now virtually extinct, but it was big “laff-riot” TV in its day.

“The premise of the show involved concealed cameras filming ordinary people being confronted with unusual situations, sometimes involving trick props, such as a desk with drawers that pop open when one is closed or a car with a hidden extra gas tank.”

In my case, it would seem that the gag was that random travelers of the Boston Post Road who’d come to the hotel/motel for refuge would be treated to a donkey in their room and filmed from behind a blind next to the wall. It probably seemed like a fine premise for a gag show into its fourth decade, but I — for one — was not exactly in the mood.

Instead of being the good-sport the show depended on I gave Peter Funt a look that caused him to take two careful steps back and lower his hand. I reached forward and slowly closed the door to the donkey room noting that, across the way, the check-in clerk and others are in the entrance to the lobby watching what happens next. They were all, of course, in on the gag.

In the next minute or so, Peter Funt brings me into their little circle of funsters. I remember that he seemed most concerned I sign the release form he had on his clipboard. I refused and asked, “Am I going to be charged for this.”

“No, of course not, the room’s on us and we’ll stand you for a new one for tonight with no donkey if you prefer, and dinner’s on us. Just sign this and…”

He was talking to a swirl of dust motes in the air.

Me? I was in the car and out of the parking lot and gone up the Boston Post Road and home. Long before they’d reset the room and walked the donkey, I was softly knocking on my front door seeking forgiveness and a room for the night. Without farm animals.

I was very tired. I was glad to be home.


***********************

Many years after I wrote about this in 2009 and many, many years after it happened, some kind soul put this clip on YouTube. I wasn’t having a bad dream after all.

Comments on this entry are closed.

  • ghostsniper December 7, 2017, 10:07 AM

    Some how this seems familiar, but I don’t remember reading it before. Most strange.

  • Sam L. December 7, 2017, 12:39 PM

    Hi, Honey. Your idiot is back.

  • Lance de Boyle December 7, 2017, 1:32 PM

    Motel room was hotsy-totsy.
    Donkey was in my house.
    Pulling a long face.
    No apologies.
    Forked hay in her general direction.
    Went to the garage.
    Mused awhile with Senor Quervo.

  • Jayne December 8, 2017, 5:03 AM

    Spectacularly bad timing.

  • Snakepit Kansas December 8, 2017, 5:13 AM

    That kind of started out like the ending to my first marriage. At the time I was still young and lacking in confrontation skills, but that day I found them. That Saturday morning I advised my wife that due to the financial mess that we were in, I would be handling the family finances from there out. There would be no of me being cussed out in front of her son and a few other ground rules that should not have to be verbalized in a true marriage. She was unusually quiet until I finished my speech about how thing were going to change if I was to remain married to her. I asked her for her thoughts and she essentially replied “Fuck off”. She didn’t believe me, obviously. With complete control and calmness I got up, retrieved my fathers old Air Force flight bag and filled it up with clothes. It did not take long as I did not have much. My wife approached me and asked what I was doing and I simply replied “I am fucking off”.
    I left that day and never went back. Didn’t even consider it.

  • Fuel Filter December 8, 2017, 10:28 AM

    @Snakepit:

    I certainly hope, for your own mental health, you have gone full-on red-pill and MGTOW. I did after my first ex poisoned my kids against me and then this scrunt destroyed my second marriage to a wonderful woman named Julie. I’m quite certain she loved every second of her divorce-rape and hateful campaign against me. (Perhaps I’ll get into the story in more detail in the future…)

    You probably know these sites by now but here they are for all the men here. The first one is pretty basic. The second is better written.

    Returnofkings.com

    http://heartiste.wordpress.com/

    Read carefully and swallow the pill. Life is better without women in your life. (naturally, if you happen to have a good one —they are as rare as hens teeth— hang on for dear life.)

    Good luck to all the younger men here. 

  • gwbnyc July 27, 2021, 10:41 AM

    twice.
    both occurences wife didn’t give a fuck what she had done and still doesn’t.

    wizened.

  • Anonymous July 27, 2021, 11:28 AM

    Returnofkings.com has been on hiatus since October 2018.
    Heartiste was banned by WordPress for a terms of service violation, most likely not using someone’s pronouns.

    Does anyone know any others?

  • Dirk July 27, 2021, 12:26 PM

    Married my high school sweetheart, buck teeth huge ass, a sex machine! My god was she naughty!!!. She would Do It anyway I wanted it! What my young mind didn’t comprehend was MY sex machine, needed aaa assistance at least daily!

    Being on the USS CoralSea presented a minor problem. Reasonably certain she went on to service the entire west coast fleet sailors. The girl was a no shit machine! We were 19. Took orders to ROTA Spain, where she happily continued her community service single hardly.

    Even went to council in we’re I discovered her extra productive sex life was MY fault. Lord knows I stepped up to the plate, she dam near killed me! .

    Last I saw of her was as I put her on a plane headed home. Not a bad person, just a lady with a tall tall sex drive. She literally,couldn’t get enough. Had to cut my losses, didn’t want to die young, but ooo what a way to go.

    She went on to receive her PHd in education, still in Calif. two years ago, I get a call, turns out it was our anniversary date and she called to apologize . After she reminded me of the date, I said well happy adversely honey! Went on for an hour kinda a12 step make,amends kinda thing.

    Even told me she would take me back after all those bad things I did! We’ll Christina, let me thank about that, I’ll get back to you, at this number. The silly bitch bursts out saying Nono this is my husbands number!!!.

    I laughed shook my head and hung up. Isn’t life strange some times.

    So I asked my present wife of 38 years what she thought of me moving back with Christina. My current wife told me to don’t forget to send lots of money every month on the forest or second.

    We both laughed

    Guys life is what we make it, as I’ve learned in fact LIFE is the lesson. Don’t fret, don’t hate, get back on the horse and ride it like ya stole it.

    Our world is chalked full of wonderful women looking to love a man, even a broke man. You will know her when she’s the right one.

    Fellas it isn’t the man who pick, it’s the woman! Don’t ever forget it,

    Dirk

  • Jewel July 27, 2021, 12:35 PM

    Here are some of the best thinkers on MGTOW with YouTube channels: Karen Straughan, Stefan Molyneux and Black Pigeon. Interestingly, they are all Canadians. Bjørn Anders Bull-Hansen is Norwegian and also really good on this topic. Overall, it is no longer just about men going their own ways, but people of sane minds separating from the insane overlords, which happen, sadly, to be frothing feminists and suicidal soy-simps.
    We’ve run out of Greek letters to describe the crazy cat ladies who are now running the show.

  • jwm July 27, 2021, 2:02 PM

    Heartiste is on GAB, posting as “King of All Nads”.

    JWM

  • lpdbw July 28, 2021, 6:26 AM

    There’s a youtuber whose channel is called Better Bachelor you might check out.

  • Anonymous July 28, 2021, 8:43 AM

    Did they go across the street to eat here?

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8c/6b/2a/8c6b2a79ea27e3648c6a6f55abd75cc2.jpg

    Bray’s Belly Buster in Hazel Park, MI a Detroit suburb. Sadly, no longer there.

  • James ONeil July 28, 2021, 10:08 AM

    Reminded me of a friend of mine that, “That’s it, I’m otta here!” year, many many years, ago:

    There they were, Richard and his son, Louie, in the river boat on the Chena.

    His wife Mary, on the shore saying, “You really are leaving, aren’t you?”

    Richard replying, “Hell yes I am!” as he pulls the rope starts the engine, Takes off down the Chena from Fairbanks, into the Tanana River, into the Yukon, down the Yukon to Kotlik, across Norton Sound, around the point and to Kotzebue where they opened a bakery for a few months.

    Of course there’s a lot more to the story including the orca, killer whale longer than the boat, the paced then all the way across Norton Sound.

  • Bob Dwyer July 28, 2021, 12:20 PM

    Whoever cursed you with that “may you have an interesting life” was the most effective damn curser to come down the pike.