LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
CAMPOut: Delaware's New Underground Railroad |
by Fay Jacobs |
"Do you want to take a ride up towards Wilmington, have some dinner and, uh, deliver some cats?" Until the cats part it sounded appealing. Somehow my spouse had been recruited to save four cats and a dog from death row at our local shelter by transporting them to an animal rescue volunteer, who would then place them in loving homes. Ah, animal rescue. I may have sold my pick-up, but I can keep my lesbian club card current with animal rescue credits. "Well, where are we taking them?" I asked, realizing my question implied consent. "Up near the Delaware Memorial Bridge," she said. The word "near" was a definite red flag. If Bonnie wants to convince me of something, she's not above leaving out a few salient details until it's too late for me to back out. "Okay. But do you know exactly who we are meeting, where and when?" "Sure." I shoulda asked more questions. Like Siegfried and Roy, we stuffed four squirming, snarling, hissing felines into two small cat carriers and put them into our Subaru Outback (animal rescue + owning a Subaru = extra Lezzie club points). Whitey, the blind terrier, was placed in a slightly larger cage. I met Whitey when Bonnie lifted him out of his crate so I could line it with one of our large beach towels. He emitted a bloodcurdling scream along with a stream of poop pellets he'd doubtless been saving up since Thanksgiving. As I leapt back to avoid the flying BMs I got a good look at the dogat least I think it was a dog. Is there a muskrat terrier? They must have unplugged his tail from an electric socket to bring him to us. Every shaggy hair on his body stood at attention. Once we hosed the driveway and got ugly Whitey back in his crate, we headed up Route One. From the cargo hold came a series of low, rumbling growls, then random spitting, which led to a hiss, then another, followed by a scream, reaching a crescendo with an ear-splitting screech fest. I haven't heard such a good cat fight since Crystal and Alexis slugged it out on Dynasty. Finally, it got so bad that I let out an Alfred Hitchcock scream myself just to startle them all and regain some control. Luckily, Bonnie didn't drive off into a ditch. So the meow mix tried another tactic. On a feline count of ten they sent bodily fluids out of every orifice they owned. My God, they were peeing and coughing up hairballs in unison back there. Just to breathe, I wound up hanging my head out the window like a cocker spaniel. With our ears turning to icicles, our traveling menagerie was still just outside Dover. I asked Bonnie exactly where in Wilmington we were going and it turned out we were going to New Jersey. To be exact, between exit two and three on the turnpike, which is a lot closer to Manhattan than Rehoboth. Aside from the time involved in transporting these orphans across state lines, I calculated the cost in gas and tolls and wanted to spit up a hairball myself. Just then the car phone rang. It was the rescue lady letting us know she'd be two hours late to the rendezvous site. "It's okay," says Bonnie. "We can have dinner." Like I had an appetite. So we headed off road to find food and fresh air. By this time I was getting used to the low level growling and occasional spitting from the rear of the car and thankful that there'd been a cease fire in the alimentary canal warfare. Of course, once my own cat allergies kicked in, I started making pretty ugly guttural noises myself. Between sneezes I choked down some fast food (there's never slow food around when you need to kill some time) and we proceeded to the appointed rest stoparriving at least an hour and a half before the cat and dog deal was scheduled to come down. Have you ever loitered at a rest stop? Of course not. Normal people just rush in on their way somewhere else for a quick pee and a chili dog. So there we were, leisurely checking out the lovely gift shop a veritable cornucopia of packaged gummy bears and tabloids. Did you know that folks actually manufacture Jersey Turnpike souvenirs? We wound up dropping $31 for commemorative mugs, several magazines ("The truth! Who's gay and who's not in Hollywood!!!") and a bag of Twizzlers. Back at the car, the cargo bed seemed eerily quiet. Were Hogan's heroes planning something? Actually the troops were all asleep. So Bonnie and I sat, reading by dome light, about the lesbian affairs that purportedly wrecked Drew Barrymore's marriage. Tsk. Tsk. At one point, I started having trouble reading and thought my eyes were going. Why was the dome light flickering? "You don't have the lights on, do you????" I asked Bonnie, just as the car's battery wheezed it's last and plunged us into total darkness. Great. I wandered off toward the service area to find a jump start. Although we were in the actual rest stop parking lot, less than 50 yards from the gas pumps, they had to send an official Turnpike truck, from the other side of the highway, to give us a jump. Naturally, Gomer the gas jockey had to charge us the extortionist price for an actual turnpike rescue. Is this any way to treat missionaries on the pet rescue underground railroad? Finally the tardy rescue lady showed up at the...hell, I've forgotten the name of the service area. Monica Lewinsky Service Area? Pee Wee Herman Service Area (just self-service. Oh, stop it, Fay), her small car packed, like a Rubic's Cube, with a dozen cages. Retrieving the wild kingdom from our car and passing it off to hers involved a lot of scratching and screaming. And that was just me. To be consistent, when Whitey was sprung for the transfer, he once again propelled himself with a poop stream. But it was Jersey girl's problem now. And so we bid a fond farewell to our furry charges and headed for homekeeping ourselves awake humming "Born Free." We got back to Rehoboth at midnight. For the record, there aren't enough little scented evergreen trees to hang from my car's rear view mirror to mask the souvenir smells. But I look at it this way. Tolls $7.00 Dinner $12.00 Souvenirs $31.00 Jump Start $17.00 Saving Whitey's life: priceless. Fay Jacobs may be reached at CampOutReho@aol.com. Her car has been detailed and smells okay now. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 12, No. 02, March 8, 2002. |