Nobody Puts Baby in the Tar Pit

It must be Summer here at mysuestories manor. I know this because this past weekend brought our annual summer ritual....the repaving of the driveway. Yes, the mountain man, a man who could not care less if his shoes matched, has an affectation that requires our driveway to be relaid with burning hot tar annually. Apparently? That old adage of “once you go black top, you never go down the dirt drive again” ? It’s true.

Once a year, we subject ourselves to the inconvenience of not being able to cross our drive way. We park our cars in the back yard (Thank God for large properties and 2ND entrances!) We lose access to all the contents of our garage...stuff we don’t seem to need all year round until we can’t get to it....Why, did you know the mountain man was going to cut the grass, whack the weeds, power wash the house, AND trim the trees for the first time EVER this weekend? Yea. Unfortunately? All the
necessary equipment to accomplish the mountain man’s little list? In the garage.

This also meant that we could not get to the entrance of our dog run on the opposite side of the garage. Ever the girl scout, I made sure the gate to the run which is off the driveway was closed the night before. This way, we could just kind of pitch the dogs over the back of the fence (What? They're daschunds, for the love of Christ. They are practically shaped like footballs!)

Early Saturday morning, our paver showed up (Four a.m. early- the man must be part vampire!) He paved and laid and tared tarred painted our driveway black.
Three hours later, he was gone, and the mountain man went to toss carefully place the first of three dogs over the back fence.

I was on the side of the house when I heard the mountain man yell, "Sh!t!!(This is a family blog, no?) Sh!t! The gate is open!"

I took off at a pretty good run (if I do say so myself), knowing that two hundred little doggie prints tracking through the driveway would not be a great sight to greet the mountain man every morning for the next year. I came around the garage to the driveway, when I heard the love of my life yelling, "WALK ON THE DRIVEWAY! WALK ON THE DRIVEWAY!"

I was already in motion as I came up to the wet tar. (Note to self....flipflops are tread less). I slid with my right foot on the tar. The still very HOT tar. Thinking I was part jacka$$ bird, I leaped in the air, and for the briefest of moments I could fly!!!!!
This epiphany was followed by a much more realistic feeling of "Oh, f*ck. I can't fly".
I landed hard on my a$$, (And my leg. And my arm. And my shoulder. But mostly my a$$.) and skidded to a stop right in front of the open dog run gate. (Where, by the way, that stupid mutt who can usually run for miles before stopping? Was sitting and staring at me like I was a bowl of fruit loops minus the milk).

I peeled myself off the hot and oh so sticky tar, and I closed the gate triumphantly, ecstatic that I could move at all.

It was at this point that my beloved (and the sloth- did I mention that the sloth was not only awake at that ungodly hour, but also helping to straighten up the yard? Yeah, well, suffice it to say his efforts were well rewarded-I've never heard him laugh so long and loud!)-they came over to where I was limping away from the driveway to tell me that the mountain man had, in fact, yelled, "DON'T WALK ON THE DRIVEWAY! DON'T WALK ON THE DRIVEWAY!"

It only took thirty minutes to scrape the tar off of my skin. And clothes. And flipflops. And besides the six layers of skin I lost on my leg/thigh/foot/ass, the only severe injury was to my pride (yes, constant reader, I do still have some of that left. Or at least I did).

And now? There is a perfect implant of my ass embedded in our driveway. For a whole year. It's kind of like our own little Hollywood Walk of Fame. Kids from all over the county will come and put there butts in to the imprint of my ass to see how they measure up....

Hmmph. Well, at least now I know why it's called ASS FALLT. Sigh.

Oh, and not to worry. I was able to get the lawn mower, the weed wacker, the tree trimmer, AND the power washer out of the garage so that mountain man could make good on those promises. We'll see who laughs last.