By Holly Hester

I’ve been trying out maxi dresses. Yesterday, I wore a “fancy” one. I did fancy things in it such as take my son to his speech therapy class, pick up my kids at a play date, and do a load of laundry at the Laundromat because our water heater had just exploded. I even took the brood out for a Slurpee. (I was feeling reckless.) I never let my kids have Slurpees, so you can imagine their shock when I suggested we swing by a 7-11. They’ll be even more shocked when we actually go back, for Free Slurpee Day on July 11 (7-11!). (I can’t resist the free part.) And I will definitely be wearing a maxi dress because drinking a Slurpee in a black maxi dress with pearls—well, it just doesn’t get any better than that.

The “fancy maxi” day also included getting our pig, Hogan, a checkup. Despite my spiffy attire, the vet still treated me as he always does—like I’m a complete moron. Here’s a little tidbit of a conversation we had:

Vet: Do you know that dairy farm on your way out of town?

Me: Yes, but I didn’t know that was a dairy farm.

Vet: (condescendingly): You didn’t? You see cows there, don’t you?

Me: Yes, but I thought they could be beef cows.

Vet: (even more condescendingly): They’re Holsteins. When was the last time you saw a Holstein beef cow?

Me: Well, I didn’t know they were Holsteins.

Vet: Really? And you live in the country?

The conversation went downhill from there. After a while I went inside the house and grabbed my copy of Cows of the World and How to Identify Them and shoved it page by page down the vet’s throat. Or at least I fantasized about doing that. In reality, I stood there and did nothing. I don’t own a book like that because I prefer to read things that are actually interesting!

Hogan had two foxtails caught in his eye. Foxtail is a type of grass that grows in Sonoma County and is just terrible for animals. When I asked the vet if there was anything I could do to prevent this from happening to Hogan in the future, he suggested that I get a really large outdoor vacuum and vacuum our property.

I’ve lived in the country for six years now, and I have never seen anyone vacuuming grass. And what’s an outdoor vacuum anyway? I think he just wanted me to go to Lowe’s and ask for one so the salespeople would laugh at me.

“Excuse me, I need to buy one of them outdoor vacuums for my yard. I’ll also need a really long extension cord and enough vacuum bags for six acres.”

Women in fancy maxi dresses might go to the Laundromat. We might even gulp down free

Slurpees, but we do not, under any circumstances, vacuum around and under trees…

That is so stupid. 

Holly Hester lives in Sebastopol and writes about life on her blog, Riot Ranch. Find her book, Escape from Ugly Mom Island!, on Amazon.