I wrote in this column a year ago about a couple of newly weds, “Dave and Heather,” who made and swore their vows, one of which was to not repair the driveway so as to discourage frequent visits from their in-laws.

Well, so far the theory has proven out, because the ones who have four-wheel-drive high clearance trucks can’t afford enough gas to “lock in” 4-wheel-drive and make it up the drive.

Aside from that, things have progressed in the usual fashion. They fight and raise more hell than two wildcats in a bucket.

He says, “She snores to wake the dead.”

She says, “He has a phenomenal gas problem.”

He says, “The witch won’t cook fresh road kill.”

She responds, “The lazy (bad word) hogs the t.v. and eats the icing off the cake and belches like a foundered bull.”

I spoke up, intending to lighten the conversation, “Y’all used to go camping and fishing a lot, do you still do that?”

“If I could get that harpie close to a lake again I’d roll her up in a tent and drown her,” Dave stated flatly.

“Well, what about the music y’all used to play?” I queried.

“If I could find out where he hides his blues harp, I’d lace it with strychnine,” she replied in a bitter voice.

Well, I was by that time striving desperately to avoid being in the midst of a domestic violence case and grasping at straws as a redneck mediator. I consider that position to be as dangerous as that of a diplomat in Saudi Arabia.

Hell, if the combatants don’t get you, the government (at whatever level) will intervene. It’s a fact that if you cause a neighborhood disturbance between y’alls windshield and your spouse’s baseball bat, the neighbors will indeed be disturbed.

The same principles apply to other forms of carnage involving handy kitchen chairs, cell phones a’flyin, flung beer bottles and a partridge in a pear tree.

(The partridge might be exonerated but the pear tree can be confirmed as a legitimate weapon of domestic violence).

Even if your nearest neighbor lives a half a mile away and you were using a 20 gauge shot gun, it will on the average come to the attention of somebody, and result in incarceration of both parties at a local jail house and the witness (possibly me) could be subpoenaed as a witness, which could interfere with anybody’s day (especially mine).

The next problem was how I might get away from real estate carnage without suffering personal injury, and leaving no evidence of my presence, fingerprints, DNA records, video or voice recordings.

Well, I left the scene confident that there probably wouldn’t be any evidence left of my personal attendance (and probably none of the apartment or warriors either), and made it cross country in the dark of the night and tried to sleep the whole damned episode off my mind, in my own bed at Moccasin Bend.

At about 8 a.m. the following morning the dogs went off and a horn started blowing.
“Hey Ricky, Hey Ricky!”

Lo and behold, it was Dave and Heather screaming in harmony.

“Ricky, we hit a helluva lick at the casino last night. You wanna cold beer? We’re on our honeymoon!”

Ain’t love grand,

Ricky Harpole