Episode Two - Leaf Peepers

Ezra intends to share a Halloween tip with his listeners, but gets sidetracked when he chooses to talk first about an annoying experience he had recently being stuck behind a leaf peeping motorist.  He also comments on his wife's apparent lack of sympathy for his annoyance, which adds to his irritation.  This commentary goes on long enough that Ezra decides to postpone the Halloween tip until next episode.

Next episode --- Episode Three --- arrives October 23, 2024.

Transcript

Episode Two:  Leaf Peepers

I Wish I Was A Mole In the Ground, first verse ---

Oh, I wish I was a mole in the ground
Yes, I wish I was a mole in the ground
‘F I’se a mole in the ground, I’d root that mountain down
Oh, I wish I was a mole in the ground

Ezra:  Th’sun’s pourin’ in here this mornin’. Nice October mornin’. Startin’ to cool off. That's okay, it happens…I don't like to think about the winter comin’, though, oh, Jesus, it’s so long and hard. Um, well, never mind, uh, so I wanted to talk, talk to you today about, um, well, I got, I got a little tip for you for, for Halloween, but before we get to that, there's somethin’ I'd like to, uh, oh, man --- so summer's done, right? It's official. First day of fall was about, um, oh, I don't know, two, three (two) weeks ago, we, we hit fall, I think. And of course, the leaves are turnin’, which makes it, you know, sorta cushions the blow of summer bein’ over with, I guess. O’course there's always somebody --- doesn't, doesn't matter how nice the leaves look, they're all pissed off because, you know, they're not as nice as they used to be. Oh, I don't, I don't know what's the matter with those people, they, it's like nature's here to entertain ‘em or somethin’. And if the show ain't good enough, they gotta bitch. But anyway, yesterday, yeah, yeah, this was yesterday, the wife and I are drivin’ home from the grocery store, and we're, uh, we're pullin’ up to this four way stop up on the hill there just outside o’ town.  And this Ford pickup with Connecticut plates, this Ford's approachin’ on my left, and he stops at the intersection and he waits, while we're still maybe, uh, maybe 30 yards from the stop sign. Roughly. And he just sits there and waits until, until I turn on my turn signal, my right turn signal, and that's, and that's when he pulls out, and drives through the intersection. So now I gotta follow this guy --- you know, he's drivin’ 20, 25 miles an hour max in a 40 mile an hour zone for about, uh, well, I had to follow him for about, uh, four miles while he and the woman next to him, his wife, I suppose, [sound of car passing by] yeah, they all peep at the leaves. So…okay, the leaves are nice and I can't blame people for wantin’ to look at ‘em, but to drive all the way from Connecticut just to obstruct local traffic? Huh?  Yeah.  And here's the, here's the thing that really, this is the kind of behavior you gotta wonder, what the hell are these people thinking? He saw me, he saw me pullin’ up to that stop sign. He waited for my signal, and that's when he pulls out. He could’ve waited, five more seconds, three seconds probably, and let me be on my way, and he could o’ had the road all to hisself. This is a narrow country road we're talkin’ about. It's paved, yeah, it's paved, but it's also narrow, it’s twisting constantly, nowhere to pass. So I have to put up with this bullshit for five miles, four miles, I don't know, so when we get to the next little town, he pulls over and he waves me around like I done somethin’ to piss him off. And I did not tailgate. I did not tail-gate. I don't do that when the wife's in the car because she's, you know, she lets me hear about it. So no tailgatin’, just drivin’, no horn honkin’, no gestures out the window, nothin’. But he's annoyed for some reason and waves me around. I was not happy. No, I was not happy. But the wife, oh, of course, you know, “Well, why don't you just calm down and enjoy the scenery?” How can I, how can I enjoy the scenery or the weather or life in the country or whatever, when I know for a goddamn fact that this Connecticut bastard has basically cut me off? He saw me comin’.  He could have waited three more seconds at the stop sign. Let me go on ahead. But no, no, no. No, no, no. He wants to obstruct traffic. He wants to go first and anybody followin’ him can just go bleep themselves. I don't…I don’t care how pretty the leaves are, when somebody says bleep you like that, I say it's physically impossible to enjoy yourself. “Namaste. Namaste,” the wife says, some voodoo Hindu, I don't know, some gibberish she brought home from her yoga class.  Supposedly means calm down or somethin’, some shit, but that's not really what she's doin’ or sayin’. She knows that that yoga talk irritates me, and she uses it to provoke me, not to calm me down. Now she denies this, o’course. And I don't, I don't know how to prove it, but I'm, I'm pretty damn sure that's what's goin’ on. If she really, if she wanted me to calm down, she'd say somethin’ like, um, I don't, “Just, just remember, you can have a beer when you get home,” yeah, somethin’ like that. But that's not what she says. She doesn't, she doesn't even speak English, no, no, she speaks voodoo Hindu because she thinks it's funny or somethin’, I don’t know, I don't, I don't know why she does it. The fact of the matter is --- well, okay, so I don't I don't know if it's a fact because like I say, I haven't figured out a way to prove it yet, but --- but my, uh, my theory, my theory is that my wife is a prankster. But, but the, the really, really sneaky kind of prankster. The kind that, uh, that never owns up, never says, “Oh, I was just kiddin’ you,” she never says that, never. She says stuff like, uh, Namaste, Namaste, and then turns and looks out the window. 

Hmm…yeah, you know what, I, I think that’s, probably enough [chuckles] for today.  Um, we’ll get to that, uh, Halloween tip next time, okay?  I was gettin’ way ahead of myself, anyway, ‘cause  Halloween’s still, um, what, two, three weeks off, somethin’ like that, anyway plenty o’ time for the tip so, uh…meantime, get yourselves out there and enjoy them leaves…yeah…ain’t they somethin’?

I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground, fourth verse, and final verse ---

Oh, I don’t like a railroad man
No, I don’t like a railroad man
‘Cause a railroad man, he’ll kill you if he can
And he’ll drink up your blood like wine

Oh, I wish I was a mole in the ground
Yes, I wish I was a mole in the ground
‘F I’se a mole in the ground, I’d root that mountain down
Oh, I wish I was a mole in the ground