Over the course of my life I have been asked to take a number of examinations to prove that I'm a sentient being, and I passed them all. In fact, the tests have universally agreed that I'm not overly deficient in intelligence and am capable of making rational decisions.
Unfortunately, you can't always tell that by my actions. Yesterday was a case in point.
Although I had left school later than usual, and I knew that I needed to arrive home in time to run an errand or two before I had to dress up and come back to school to host a table for our annual school-supporters' banquet, I saw the clouds...and the sun...and the sun on the clouds..and the fields luxuriating under the new-fallen rain.
Because we've been in a long, pitiless drought,
I wanted to see water. I plead that I was bewildered by welcome sights: blue streams curving around green terraces, tree feet wading in puddles, heavy clouds soft-shielding the sun.
I turned south and followed the country roads where pictures beckoned from every side.
Sounds rational, doesn't it?
It wasn't really.
I had forgotten one little item.
Dirt roads covered by six inches of rain and left to sit overnight turn into mud.
Need I say that it was a long ride home? Need I explain that gravel roads make unusual furrows under the onslaught of flood run-off? Need I describe the blank stare of unconcerned cattle or the color of the mud that now coats the bottom third of my vehicle? I'll spare you.
The fact is, I made it home, finished my errands, arrived at the banquet on time, and nobody knows about my lapse of sanity...well, except you. You know now. And the cows. They know.
