We mounted the Covered Wagon and rolled out of the forest to see more of this Oregon place that pioneers walked so far to see. When Mom didn’t need both paws on the driving wheel, she fed me bits from a cheese stick she kept just out of reach in her lap.
“More, please?” I nudged her elbow and opened my cheese hole as wide as it would go to make it easier for her to aim.
“All gone!” Mom showed me both paws for an instant to prove that there was no cheese in them. She clamped one paw back on the driving wheel and gave me the empty wrapper to check her work.
I sniffed it. Sure enough, there was nothing left inside but the smell. “But I’m still hungry. You haven’t fed me in weeks.”
Mom sighed. “Okay. I’ll stop at a convenience store. I need to get gas anyway.” She shifted her position in the driving chair. “I hope that they’re quick about it. I have to pee.”
“You hope who's quick about it?” I asked, hoping they were quick, too. Especially if they had cheese.
“They don’t let you pump your own gas in Oregon. You have to wait for someone to pump it for you before you can leave the car to go to the bathroom,” Mom ’splained. “Oh god. I hope they don’t make me wait till the tank is full before I can go inside.”
“If you’re so afraid of messing up, why don’t you tell them you don’t know how to let other people do things for you?” I suggested. “Or maybe you can tell them it’s a tradition to let girls do things for themselves in your culture? It’s disrespectful to not let people follow the customs of their homeland.”
“It’s meant to create jobs. Or, that’s what they say to make me feel bad for complaining about it. I don’t see why someone has to sit out in the rain all day just to do something for me that I’m perfectly capable of doing my...” She sat up as if startled by a loud noise. “Oh dog doo! Are you supposed to tip? I don’t have cash.” Mom sunk deeper into the driving chair under her heavy mood. “Who carries cash anymore? I hate Oregon.”
“Oregonners are very old fashioned,” I reminded her. “They’ll probably be impressed that you have a horseless Covered Wagon. Do you think they’ll try to feed it hay?” Thinking about feeding made my tummy rumble. “I sure hope they have the same word for cheese in Oregon.”
Before we even left the freeway, Mom pulled her wallet out of the cubby by her feet. She slipped a card from its slot and palmed it like a dagger, just in case. The Covered Wagon clicked, took aim, and turned into a gas station. It nosed into a spot next to the juice box farthest from the only other car in the station.
Mom stared at the booty of a man leaning into the window of the other car. It was the kind of heavy stare that someone can feel when it lands on their back. She squeezed her knees together and squirmed impatiently, but she never let her eyes stop pressing on the man’s back.
When the man felt it, he popped up from the window like a meerkat. He seemed to sniffed the air for a moment before he noticed us on the far side of the juice box. He patted the other car’s windowsill in the confident, manly way that means I’ll be right back and started moseying our way. The Wagon rolled down its window before he finished his second shuffling step.
“Oh dog doo. Am I supposed to get out and greet him?” Mom whispered. “It seems rude to stay seated when he’s standing.”
“Don’t tell him you can do it yourself,” I coached. “He might be intimidated if he knew an expert was watching him.”
Mom sat up straight in the driving chair. “Quick! Be cool! Here he comes!”
“HELLO OFFICER!” I screamed through the window like Mom does when someone comes to the car for a visit. “Lovely juice boxes you have. We have ones just like it at home.”
“Oscar! Back it up!” Mom shoved her paw in the spot between the driving chair’s shoulder and the window so I couldn’t butt in anymore. “Here. Um. Do I give you my card or— uh...” She revealed her card between two fingers and dangled it casually out the window.
He took her card without a second glance and fed it to the juice box. “Sip mode?” he shouted into the juice box’s ear.
“What?” Mom leaned out the window to hear him better. She tried to look like a professor taking a question from a student so he wouldn’t know this was her first time.
“Zip code? For the credit card?”
“Wait... so... you just...? What’s the point of...”
Mom looked like she was gearing up to give business advice, so I jumped in to save him. “Good boy! You did it exactly the same way Mom does! Perfect technique. Bravo!”
My bark snapped Mom out of her shift as Manager of the Universe. She said some numbers. He poked the juice box a few times and stood up to walk away.
“Wait!” Mom reached for him like a drowning person reaches for the dog who came to save her. “Is it okay if I go to the restroom?”
“Inside on the left. Next to the cooler.” He wandered off to sit on a bucket in the shade of the building.
The window went almost all the way up, then down a bit, then back up a smidgen. “I’ll be right back,” Mom said. “I’m sorry if it gets warm in here, but I don’t want you to bother that man when he comes back to unhook the pump.”
I sat in the driving chair and watched Mom disappear into the building. The man waited until we were both sure she wasn’t coming back and took a stick from a second bucket beside him. I swiveled my ears back and gulped.
He held the stick out from his hip a little too far as he came lumbering toward me, like a caveman holds a club. Something dripped from the end of the club, leaving a trail of splatters on the pavement as he closed in.
“Don’t you dare, you knuckle-dragging troglodyte!” I screamed. “You’re lucky this here window is closed or I’d eat you up!"
He lifted his stick and took aim at the front window. My eyes closed without my permission in preparation for the smash. I reached deep inside and summoned the greatest bark there ever was.
But no crash came. When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see the caveman anymore behind the trail of slime his stick left on the window. The skidmark covered the whole top of the glass, smearing the sun and turning the Troglodyte into a fur-raising smudge. The slime drooled down the glass as he leaned in for another swipe.
The sharp stink of clean drifted in through the open spot in the window. The gap was just wide enough for me to stick my snout through. I pushed my nose into the outside air and took a curious snort.
Before I could figure out why the Wagon was being slimed by a caveman, Mom stepped out of the building. Her arms were so full of drinks and snacks that I just knew there had to be a cheese stick in there somewhere.
“Hurry!” I wagged. Mom would know what to do about the slack-jawed oaf painting the Wagon with slime.The glass dug into my chin as I tried to force more of my snout out the window.
Mom’s face burst with joy when she saw me. “Hi, Spud! Did you miss me as much as I missed you?”
She put one armful of drinks on the Wagon’s top and tapped her thigh. She twisted and tapped her other hip. She smacked each butt cheek. She grabbed each boob. It was the Where are my keys dance.
“This it no time to boogie!” I barked. “It was a rotten thing to do leaving me alone with this brute. Now feed me!”
The Troglodyte wandered back to the other car where someone might pay more attention to him. Mom looked at her feet and back along the Troglodyte’s droplet trail toward the building. “Shoot. I must have dropped them in the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” She put the other armload of drinks on the roof and ran back inside, still clutching the bag of everything snack-like in one paw.
I stared at the door and tried to make her come to me like she made the Troglodyte come to her.
It worked! It took some time to get my technique right, but when I did, Mom came running back outside with the speed someone in a crosswalk when a car is coming.
She charged back to the window and peered inside. Only she didn’t gaze lovingly into my eyes like she usually does. It was more like she was trying to figure out if dogs have belly buttons. “Hang on, Spud! I’ll get you out as soon as I can!”
“Or you could just come inside and feed me the cheese in here,” I said. I wasn’t just hungry, I was starting to get thirsty, too. Now that the sun was out, it was getting warm inside the Wagon. “With the windows down so we can feel the breeze in our ears,” I added.
The Troglodyte appeared behind Mom. “Is everything okay?”
Mom didn’t scream or recoil. She didn’t even turn away from me to look at him as she said, “I think I locked my keys in the car. And my dog’s inside.” She put both paws longingly on the window like the only thing she wanted from life was to ruffle my ears. “I asked if they had a slim jim inside, but they said I would have to call AAA. It would take them forever to for AAA to get all the way out here. And it’s getting warm.”
“I want a Slim Jim!” I panted. “Is that’s what’s in the bag? Stop messing with me and get in here before that caveman eats you.”
“You, uh...” The Troglodyte narrowed his eyes and looked from side to side. “You got a wire hanger by any chance?” He leaned in like he was telling a secret. “I used to... I mean, I used to know a guy who knew how to...”
“No, I don’t.” Mom looked desperately at the Wagon, the ground, and the sky as if any of them might have the answers. “Everything’s in the car.”
“What seems to be the trouble?” A man with parted hair and a tucked-in shirt climbed out of the other car and came to see what the fuss was about.
“Do you have a wire hanger, by chance?” Mom begged.
“I have some dry cleaning in my suitcase in the trunk. Hang on.”
While the man was unpacking his suitcase, a lady got out of the other side of his car. “Is everything okay?” she asked in the voice of someone who scowled at dogs without a leash, but still carried a baggie of treats in her purse.
“She locked her keys in the car,” the Troglodyte explained.
“And the dog’s inside,” Mom added so the lady would know who the excitement was really about.
“Here.” The man gave the hanger to the Troglodyte and reached back to make sure his shirt was still tucked in.
The Troglodyte twisted the metal like a monster showing his rage before tearing some beautiful young dog limb from limb.
“What’s the commotion?” Another man appeared in the doorway of the gas station.
“She locked her keys in the car,” the Ironed Man said.
“And her dog’s in the car,” the lady added.
“He’s helping me get inside,” Mom finished.
The Troglodyte looked at the hook in his paw like he didn’t know how it got there.
“Do you want me to call a locksmith?” the bossy man from inside the gas station asked.
Mom turned back to me. “This will be quicker.”
“I’ll go get the number, just in case." The Bossy Man gave the Troglodyte a suspicious look and turned back to the door.
When the Bossy Man’s back was turned, the Troglodyte slipped his hook through the snoot-hole in the window. It fished around the windowsill like a vaudeville hook looking for Bugs Bunny.
“Here, your wrist is smaller than mine,” the Troglodyte told Mom. “Can you reach in to see if you can guide it under that plastic lining?”
“Hang on.” Mom put the bag of snacks on the roof and held out her hand for the hook.
Everyone froze and stared at her outstretched paw.
Dangling from one finger were...
...her keys.
“Oh my god.” Mom stared at the keys like they had been put in her hand by a not-quite-welcome miracle. “They were... I was... I’m... Oh god.”
No one said anything. The only thing that broke the silence was the thump inside the doors. Mom reached out and opened the one between us. Fresh air rushed into the Wagon.
“Mom! I missed you!” I wagged. “What did you get me?”
“Do you still want me to call a locksmith?” the bossy man called.
“No thank you!” Mom shouted without looking at him. She threw bottles of root beer and fuzzy water from the roof onto the copilot’s chair before diving in after them.
With her eyes fixed straight ahead, Mom raised one hand out the window. “Thanks everyone!” she shouted as her other hand gave the Wagon the sign to giddyup.
If we were in a cartoon, the Wagon would have disappeared with a screech and a puff of smoke. In real life, we slunk away silently enough for me to hear the Troglodyte say, “Blonde moment, I guess.”
Mom pulled her hat a little lower over her eyes so no one would recognize her as we sped out of town. “I’m not even blonde. Sheesh,” she grumbled.
“I can’t take the suspense!” I blurted. “Did you bring me cheese?”
“Yeah. Sorry.” She felt around in the bag of snacks until she pulled out a limp and sweaty cheese stick. “Sorry, it’s a little warm.”
“I like it this way,” I said. “It’s like eating a slug.”
“I usually leave my keys in the ignition while I’m setting up the pump,” Mom said, like the sweaty cheese was something she needed to make an excuse for. "I don’t even think about it, it’s just muscle memory.”
“But you remembered to take them out,” I reminded her. “Good girl.”
“They couldn’t have made a fool of me like that if they’d let me pump my own gas!” She sat taller to show her righteousness. “They did this to me.”
“I thought you did that all by yourself,” I reminded her. “Who’s they?”
“Everyone in Oregon; The sanctimonious cashier, that dweeb who looked like he’d never misplaced his keys in his life, the gas-pumping guy, and all the rotten officials who sent him,” she sulked. “I hate Oregon.”