Slumber Me Mateys

Slumber Me Mateys
by Vivian Gilbert Zabel

         The wind had picked up enough to blow leaves into the entry way when I opened to the door to my first visitors. Octobers Lie and pendragon squealed as they barreled into the house trying to balance sleeping bags and sacks of goodies. One end of a sleeping bag wrapped around Octobers Lie's head, causing her to run into Orions Moon's back. I grabbed Orions before she tumbled to the floor. I unwrapped October's head so that she could see again.

         "Wow! I thought I was going to drop everything all over the drive," October sighed as she dropped the different kinds of bags on one of the sofas, where half slid off onto the floor. As she bent to pick up her run-away belongings, she knocked Orions nearly off her feet.

         After recovering her balance, Orions looked around. "Looks like your livingroom is large enough for all of us."

         "Yes, and the guys can stay out in the backyard in the tent." As I turned to answer the door again, I added, "Please, make yourselves comfortable. Uh, October, please just leave your things right there and have a seat."

         Standing on the porch were The Milkman with his special companion Bovine Bessie . "Hi, have room for us?"

         "Sure, but I don't think Bessie will be very comfortable in the house." I walked out on the porch. "I thought you guys - excuse me, Bessie, and gal - could stay in the tent in the backyard. Come on." I led them toward the gate at the side of the house.

         Before we went through the fence opening, a car drove up and wordstalker and Mongeaux jumped out and started pulling their gear from the back seat. The Milkman and Bessie waited with me until the two newcomers joined us.

         As soon as I showed them their "room," I told the men, "Bring your extra gear into the house when you're settled. The food and drinks will ready by then. Oh, there's some hay and a tub of water on the other side of the tent, Bessie. I hope you like alfalfa."

         Apparently the red and white Holstein did like alfalfa. She bumped me with her head, bellowed, "Mooooo," then trotted around the tent.

         When I returned to the livingroom, I found my husband Robert entertaining four women with his collection of jokes. Becky Simpson and ♥Marvelous Melia♥ had arrived while I helped the guys find their sleeping quarters.

         "Hi, ladies," I greeted them before going to the kitchen to help my daugher, rhianon, and best friend for over thirty years, Jacque Graham finish the food for the buffet.

         All the women soon piled in the tiny kitchen to help. By the time the men came in the back door, the food and drinks sat waiting. The men dropped their extra bags and equipment in one corner before attacking the buffet.

         "Bessie isn't very happy that the tent isn't big enough for the three of us and her," The Milkman informed us as he stacked his plate high with goodies.

         "Well, I'm not giving up my place for a cow!" Wordstalker retorted. He frowned at the mile-high pile of food on the other man's plate. "I'm glad Viv provided hay for your friend, if she eats anything like you."

         "Hey, both of you, leave something for the rest of us," Mongeaux mumbled.

         As the group of friends sat eating, the phone rang. I answered, "Hello."

         "Oh, Viv, I'm so sorry. My babysitter's daughter is ill, and I can't find anyone else," daycare nearly sobbed.

         "Oh, no. I was wondering where you were. Ahhh, we'll miss you. We'll have to do this again soon so that you can be here," I told her.

         Finally, after watching a movie, the men, except for Robert, left for their sleeping bags in the tent. Robert crawled into our bed in the bedroom while the other women and I all settled on couches and in recliners or on the floor. After a time of chatting, one by one everyone fell asleep, not even realizing that a storm struck sending thunder and lightning crashing and zipping across the sky. Rain poured in sheets.

         Outside, though, Bessie knew very well that the storm had hit. Wet and miserable, she decided she had suffered enough while the humans stayed warm and dry. Sticking her head into the tent, she grabbed one end of the sleeping bag closest to the opening and tugged it outside. Sticking her head back under the tent, she pulled the next bag into the rain. By the time the The Milkman and Wordstalker crawled out of their soggy bedrolls, Bessie lay chewing her cud snugly in the middle of the tent.

         "What in the **%%#@#&&^ happened?" Mongeaux yelled, as he tried to unzip the stuck opening of his sleeping bag. Finally, he managed to standup in the bag and hopped toward the house. He had only covered a few feet when he was thrown to the ground as a loud clattering and clanging boomed across the night. "Ooooph! Get off me! What is that?"

         "Owwww! My foot!" Wordstalker yelled. As he hopped away from whatever he had run into in the dark, a lightning flash lit up the night revealing a monster rising above them. His eyes popped as he stared at the horrible thing in front of him.

         The Milkman threw up his hands to ward off the 'thing' as it leaped toward him. "Aaaagggghhhh!" His cry echoed through the house awakening everyone inside.

         The backyard light flicked on as five women and one man stared from the windows facing the yard. The men outside stared even more as one by one the dry, comfortable observers burst into laughter.

         "What's so @#@%$$%& funny?" one of men yelled. "Look at that monster ..."

         The three half-drowned men turned as one to stare at the monster to find a pile of Robert's 'junk' that he had piled out of the way so that the tent would have room to be set up.

         "Mom! You didn't warn them about Dad's stuff?" Rhianon asked between laughs. "Oh, no!" She turned to Orions Moon. "Do you know about Dad's collecting junk to make things from?"

         "I do," Becky L. Simpson answered. "He and I have had lots of fun with that 'junk,' as you call it."

         "Come on in, guys. You look as if you need warm showers and a change of clothes." I tried to keep from laughing any more, but I know my lips kept quirking. "I'm sorry you had to meet Robert's hobby like that."

         The wet, miserable men sloshed their way into the house where warmth and dryness waited. Later, everyone sat around with mugs of cocoa, laughing and talking about the "monster."

         Meanwhile in the backyard, except when she peeked out and to see that nothing had really gotten The Milkman, Bessie closed her eyes and slept in comfort.