Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
During Thanksgiving I was given a room for the handicapped when I asked for an AARP discount at a Lubbock motel. After videotaping myself performing gymnastics in the shower, I was invited by USA Gymnastics to try out for the Olympics.
Chance, the lab/weiner dog I occasionally sit, and I went skiing in Ruidoso.
The resort insisted on renting him four skis. The bright side is he accidentally won the 12-and-under downhill when he slid into all the other contestants.
I took a concealed-carry class in Elida, but was disappointed when I found out it was for firearms and not weed.
Later, I went to a target range in Clovis and was detained as a suspected terrorist for starting the Democratic Oasis Facebook group in Republican-held territory.
The highlight of my year was transitioning from full-time to quarter-time in my job. I usually manage to get to the office by the crack of 10 a.m. for my two-hour shift.
That may sound leisurely, but bear in mind I have to play noon-time basketball with buddies Brad, Doc, Jody and John against college dropouts who spent too much time playing hoops with us instead of studying.
One day my left index finger got bent so crooked by a former high school linebacker it was featured in Knitting Needles Magazine. Fortunately, it wasn’t my middle finger.
Anyway, working part-time is great. I have learned all kinds of useless trivia on Jeopardy! Although I know most of the answers, I can’t think of them until Alex Trebek announces them like they are so obvious the contestants and I are stupid.
During spring break I rescued a sailor in distress in Galveston, Texas. The 20-year-old was wearing a white bikini and fell off her boogie board in knee-deep waters.
When I tried to organize a high school reunion, my classmates didn’t remember me until I reminded them I was voted “Most Likely to Knock Over a Liquor Store.”
I suffered third-degree burns lifting weights with a forgotten curling iron.
On Halloween I got 30 stitches in my head from surgery in Dallas. When I arrived at a relative’s house, her grandkids threw a fit because she wouldn’t let them wear “that man’s costume.”
On a related note, I took cousins to the Grulla National Wildlife Refuge southeast of Portales past Arch and made an important discovery — don’t leave home without sunscreen.
In June I traveled on Boutique Airlines from Clovis to see a ZZ Top/Jimmy Buffett concert in Dallas. I sat so near the pilots I steered while they ate my Tex-Mex burritos.
The next morning I received a Facebook blast-from-the-past from a woman I was engaged to on Guam in the ’70s. She jokingly said she wanted the red, sardonyx ring back — but I had no idea where it was.
After returning to Portales, I set off my smoke alarm by burning incense, and cops spent three hours searching my house.
The good news is they found the ring where I used to hide my stash.
It is so small it won’t even fit my little finger — which makes me wonder if I pulled a Roy Moore.
Contact Wendel Sloan at: [email protected]
