Trail Breakers have no idea where they’re going:
Into Oz or into an impassable mountain pass.
Yet they go, children and all.
Jeff walks into the hotel and Margo immediately gets up from the chair and gives him a big, long hug. “HMMM, that feels so good,” says Jeff.
After another 10 seconds, Margo breaks away and asks, “How was your visit to Best Engineering?”
“Very interesting,” Jeff answers, while turning to the refrigerator and pulling out a $10 beer, about the same cost as dinner for four down the street. The popping sound of the bottle top is comfort food for his ears. After taking a sip, Jeff continues, “They’re certainly courting us – I have the A team. Six guys, 100 years of advanced education, two published in Nature before they hit 22, over a dozen patents and they cost less than two engineers in the States. Oh, and I understand that even at that salary, they manage to live like royalty here. They all have at least a housekeeper. Their version of DINKS has cooks and physical trainers, too. They’ve a pretty darn good life here. Perhaps we should relocate.”
“Then I’d be spending half my time taking care of bovines – that don’t pay! And, I’d be thrown in jail if I ate them for payment. No thank you.”
“OK, one big decision at a time. How was the Temple? “
Margo returns to her chair, with her $7 club soda (cost of lunch for three down the street, including the same club soda) from the first world frig and another $10 beer bottle for Jeff and props her feet up on the bed. “It was absolutely beautiful and interesting. Maybe while I’m under the weather after the operation, Mirza can take you. You know their Gods have multiple arms as a show of their power and versatility?”
“Well, they also have elephant heads!” Jeff interjects. “And we certainly aren’t going to do that!”
“That is Ganesha, the remover of obstacles, the patron of arts and sciences and the deva of intellect and wisdom. He lost his human head and so his parents replaced it with the elephant one. Maybe this was just another way to give him yet another arm.” Margo gets up and drapes her right arm out straight from under her chin. She braces the out stretched arm directly under her chin with the other hand and starts swaying the entire appendage back and forth while wiggling her fingers at the end of her “trunk” arm. “The trunk is one of the most magnificent creations in the entire animal kingdom, you know. It actually has little fingers at the end of it so it can handle delicate items. We would find one very useful.”
“We’ll have to talk with Dr. Hudini about CRISPERing one up for you– but please don’t attach it to your face. How about from your stomach? Then you could wrap it around your waist when not in use. “
Margo tries lowering her arm to her stomach and gives a big sigh as the trunk becomes a pitiful midget of its former self. She shakes her head and sits down. “Sadly, it’s as useless as your brother’s arm, until I unfurl it.”
“I’m not so sure about that, Margo. Come over here and use those little fingers to wake up this trunk,” replies Jeff, pointing to his crotch.
“I wouldn’t move for a free Gucci bag right now. Your poor underutilized trunk…..
“After the temple, I went home with Mirza and met his wife and two children. And, of course their maid.”
“Tell me, how many limbs in that household???”
“His wife, Keya, only has a pitiful 4, but she is beautiful, none the less. Their children are pretty well limbed- up. And you know, even Keya says she wouldn’t have it any other way. It gives them such an advantage here. Their little boy, Raja, is so cute! He’s 6 months old and already knows how to shake it up, with all limbs.” Margo does a little dance with her hands and feet in the air. “By the end of my afternoon there, they didn’t even seem odd.”
“You’ve been rethinking our decision, right?” Jeff asks.
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
“Frost?”
“Close, Emerson. It is easy to get these authors confused for this quote. Frost was in the woods and taking a path, too.”
“Got it. Frost was the path less traveled, but either one indicates you are rethinking your decision, right?” Margo gives a half smile / half grimace and a nod. “I’m rethinking the decision, too,” Jeff continues. “I really think Tinker Bell could use the “arm up”. Margo playfully slaps him at the bad pun and shakes her head.
“But, please no trunk on Tinker,” Jeff adds.
They clink glasses. “It’s a deal.” Margo says. “Let’s call Dr. Hudini and set up the appointment to get’er done. If it’s a total disaster, we can always get her undone. It isn’t like we are heading into the wilderness without a shovel.”
“Yup,” responds Jeff while raising his beer. “Let’s give them another reason to arrest us when we return. My mother will need to come out of retirement to defend us.”