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We are the mud people
We are now mud people.
We have spectacular mud. It's not your run-of-the-mill watered-down dirt, but truly impressive and hearty glop. With the consistency of wet mortar and the smell of raw sewage, the mud on our farm serves as a dividing line between what we once were and what we've become.
We were once suburbanites.
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As mud people, we now have a mudroom. It's where we keep our boots. Mud people wear boots. The boots have never seen the inside of the house. Perhaps once, back when they were new, the boots may have been placed under a Christmas tree. The next day they were taken to their rightful place, the mudroom, and have lived there since.
Mud people have separate shoes to wear inside the house. They are usually slip-ons. Mud people are not into laces. Slip-ons are not to be confused with slippers. Cinderella wore a slipper. Mud people wear Cabela's.
First-time visitors may be surprised by the shoe rules at the homes of mud people. They are usually asked to leave their city shoes in the mudroom. This has led, in the past, to embarrassing visitor sock surprise difficulty.
Some would call it the apparition of the holey socks.
Fear not, visitors. Mud people are not judgmental.
There is no escape from the mud. There are no sidewalks, only beaten paths. Step off the path and you are in mud. After a few days of rain, the paths themselves become mud.
All of the mud smells like horses, no matter where it is located. The horses might be in the south pasture, standing in mud. Your cousin Emily and her youngest daughter, both dressed in their Easter dresses, in for a visit, are also standing in mud several hundred yards away on the north slope of the farm. Later, while sitting in church, they will smell like horses.
Who will get the blame?
Mud people.
We did not create the mud. We have no idea why it smells like that. We merely made the decision years ago to abandon our white Nike basketball shoes forever and move to where mud covers all.
And yet, we are persecuted!
That might be why mud people tend to stay among our own kind. It's easy to tell a mud person from the average Joe. The other day a guy came by to visit. I showed him some work I'd been doing on our barn. We both stood, conversing while ankle deep in foul-smelling muck. Neither of us particularly took notice.
We went back to the house. I invited him in for a cup of coffee. He took his shoes off before he walked through the kitchen door. "Ah," I thought. "One of us! A mud person! Welcome!"
To hear Scott Paulsen's column, visit www.observer-reporter.com. He can be heard each weekday afternoon from 3 to 7 p.m. on 1250 ESPN Radio.
