Euche (yoo’-kay): A vow to keep a promise.
“Promises made in the heat of the night.“ That’s not going to happen here. There’s no cellular service, the car won’t start and it’s minus 10f out there. We are stiuck. Stuck in the middle of nowhere. I guess I can make a promise that I can keep: we’re going to die, Srewzybelle. Screwzybelle growled and pawed my lap as if to tell me to shut the hell up and do something.
I had my lighter. I could light a huge bonfire that would light up the night and attract help. But there were no trees in the field where we had landed. Screwzybelle started barking and running around inside the car. I got the message: light the car on fire.
How did we end up here?
I was headed to my new job in Binville. I had been hired as a parking lot attendant at the local university, where people broke the parking rules all the time. I was to undergo two weeks of training on how to apply “The Boot” to illegally parked students and staff. Professors were exempt from all parking regulations.
Me and Screwzybelle were going to stay at my Grandma’s along the way to Binville. I had taken what I thought was a shortcut and we ended up here—trapped in the snow somewhere on the Great Plains.
I stuck a copy of “White Lines,” the parking lot attendants’ professional journal, down the gas-filler pipe. It had my article “Asphalt Sudoko” published in it. But we needed a fuse to get the car fire going, so it “White Lines” was going to have to burn.. I took my luggage out of the trunk and stacked it in the snow.
I dropped my lighter in the snow. It wouldn’t light now, so I put it in my pocket to dry out. The snow stopped tor about ten seconds and I saw lights up the road! We were going to make it! I trudged through the 2-foot deep snow and Screwzybelle followed in my tracks, wagging his tail and barking.
The lights were coming from a snowplow by the side of the road. The driver had his window down and was smoking a joint. We told him where we were going and he told us to get in. There was a box on the passenger side floor with a strong smell coming from it. He said: “If you know what’s good for you, you won’t open that box!” Screwzybelle sniffed at it and whined. He pulled a .45 and yelled “That goes for the fu*ing dog too!”
I hauled Screwzybelle up on my lap and said, “Message received.” We didn’t talk at all on the way to my grandmother’s. We arrived and I thanked him for the life-saving tide. As I exited the cab, by accident, I kicked the smelly box out into the snow. A soiled adult diaper fell out. The driver aimed his pistol at me and said “Put it back in the box and hand it to me!” I looked at him like he was crazy and handed him the box. Screwzybelle sat and watched.
He sad, “I fished that out of a porta-potty at a Trump rally. I think it belonged to Trump. I want him to autograph it so I can add it to my collection of Trumpa-billia. I have it in my plow’s cab to air-cure it, so it hardens up and becomes a better writing surface. Now, get out of here and keep your mouth shut. “I promise to keep my mouth shut forever. I will never break this promise.” I sad. Screwzybelle barked his agreement.
As you can see, I broke the promise.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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