Mrs H had responded politely but emphatically stating she would be unable join the lesbian ladies group on her cellblock, however colorful and attractive her cellmate had tried to make her invitation.  And even after shading the proposition with vague prison-y threats, Mrs H resisted. 

The lovestarved cellmate not a particularly understanding nor fun individual to begin with, became sulkish and difficult; hogging the toilet paper and soap, shaking the rails of their communal bunk bed every night until it squealed and shuddered, terrorizing Mrs H on her top bunk.  Then complaining to all within hearing range that Mrs H was a snorer and making loud rude comments so everyone on the cellblock heard every time Mrs. H's hand refused to cooperate or when her now rebellious body gave off gaseous eruptions, however subtle and delicate Mrs H hoped she could be under these close circumstances. 

Mrs H was frightened and humiliated and tried to maintain a low profile - not an easy task in this shared tiny lockup.  And she further unsuccessfully tried to be even more private in matters of personal hygiene and digestive outbursts in their 8 X 10 cell, even as her body was indifferent to her sense of polite good manners.  Mrs H would find herself shocked when her body would walk by her cellmate as she napped, she odiously farting on purpose, practically creating a cloud of ugly sulfur fumes around the woman's sleeping head.  

Heavens!

Meanwhile exactly 93.7 miles away Mr H awakens in his cot in the men's compound and considers the sad state of his mighty hound Foolish, for into his beautiful red belly hair a large swastika had been shaved, by who knows who in the night.  Mr H cries out in shock and dissatisfaction, his life at present a failed experiment in self realization and he takes this moment to sadly consider how he came to this unfortunate place in time.

It all started with Ken Kesey.  Mr H had been reading Mr. Kesey again after many years.  Soon after he went to the library and borrowed Hunter S Thompson’s “Hell’s Angels” and Tom Wolfe’s “Electric KoolAid Acid Test” detailing the life and philosophy of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and their bus based commune.  

Mr H had come to feel Mrs H was not on the bus as the author/philosopher had described.  Mr H agreed with The Prankster’s assessment of humanity: we were (all) either on the bus or off the bus.  Mr H felt he was on the bus, but Mrs H was decidedly off.  

Further, he felt she was a growing anathema to his receding wa, Mr H’s sense of balance and harmony.  While Mrs H had conformed to their increasing middle age, content in their shared middle of everything lifestyle, Mr H harbored youthful dreams, visions of himself as he careened over his personal lumpy hump of middle age.  One that Mrs H did not seem willing to respectfully consider the possibilities of. 

This was not an idiotic red sporty convertible phase or a fatal interest in tennis.  No.  This was far more integrated, pivotal and spiritual, deserving of thoughtful consideration.  Mr. H wanted to get back to the roots, ignoring the fact that his roots were suburban and thoroughly, conventionally middle class, middle American. 

The more he read Keseyism, the more he came to believe a happy hippy optimistic dream had to have become a reality by now.  That somehow, somewhere a light burned for him in a window beckoning, that a sharing and comradary and oneness with the earth was.  He knew this was his time to seek out the brilliance waiting.  Or forever hold his piece. 

Mr H had also read Thoreau and had visualized himself A Friend to God, Man, Earth and Creature alike.  He had always believed, had he wanted to, he would have as been just as capable as the next man in making his mark and his fortune caring for a farm, animals and the natural world around him. And he was correct in this - that “becoming” a farmer was not a simple matter of becoming or doing.  The truth being any man or woman would have a hell of a time if they suddenly upped and decided full time career farming was a vocation that one took up, like buying sneakers and doing aerobics.

He came to feel his job as a programmer sapped him, starving his soul of necessary cosmic nutrients.  Or at least that’s what he told himself as he secretly socked away money every payday for months, stashing his hidden lucre in a pair of old boots in the basement. 

He had given her a chance, many times hinting and musing aloud that he would love to quit his job, suggesting they might sell their little house and buy a farm.  But Mrs H would remind him he had not shown one iota of interest in even their garden and that Mr H had to be threatened with bodily harm to fertilize or mow their lawn.  He didn't care for bathing his dog or even taking him to the vet for an annual shot. 

With no interest in these small things, she’d ask, how could he think they could be farmers?  And then she’d laugh good naturedly and bring him home made cookies on a plate with a glass of milk.  To add insult to injury, she might jiggle her grand bosom at him, and suggest they could play farmer if he’d like.  Mr H would turn red and ignore her lewd enticements. 

Oh how misunderstood he was! 

Months ago Mr H came to a decision: he did not wish to break Mrs H’s heart, but the only way to get this done would be to go ahead and do it, to halt the hints and suggestions and discussions at home and to simply disappear, neither quitting nor not arguing about quitting and just going.  No explanations, no excuses and no one to laugh or jiggle at him.  He would bring her along once he found the success he believed was waiting for him.  If she was willing to accept a new, more open life with The Land and The Animals and to respect his spectacular osmosis, she would be welcome as his loving helpmate.  If not, Mr H would brave the wilderness alone. 

But instead a of commune, what he had found online turned out to be a farm camp dedicated to Neo Nazism and Overturning the Government.  Peopled by a motley group pledged to ignorance, mean spiritedness, self tattooing and making Aryan children.  There was farming, yes.  But that was the least of it.  There was an inordinate time spent on target practice which included ill kept blond children running willy-nilly, much cleaning of automatic weaponry and even more drinking home made beer (the only tolerable part of living there). 

The men terrified him, the women even more so.   They stomped around in jack boots and ugly clothing, Nazi military jackets with swastika tattooes and dirty camouflage underwear showing, using weapons as fashion accessories and cursing like sailors.  There were no cookies coming from any of their kitchens.  

And now it had come to this, that after a night of drinking beer and (terrified) comradery he would wake to find his faithful hound with a foul emblem shaved into his beautiful belly fur.  This was the last straw! At the sight of old Foolish, the smartest hound any man could ask for sullied in this way, Mr H cried like a baby.  Then he thought of Mrs H in her sweetly ordinary middle aged self and he cried all the harder, wondering if and how he and Foolish would ever get home again.   

He was bone tired of these angry, crazy people and of farming.  He hated them and it.  Most of them were insane.  Not all - it was the nicer more rational ones that had enticed him in the first place.  But the rest were crazy, angry and paranoid and once he arrived, had taken from him his savings and his car and he never got a straight answer about where any of it went.  

Then good old Foolish that wonderful damned dog had tracked him.  He woke early one morning and there he was, laying at his feet, sleeping as deeply as only a dog tired dog could, thin to the bone, his huge paws raw. No one said anything, so Foolish remained, the only light in his dark and dismal existence.  

Farming was very very strenuous, requiring a strong back and long hours and Mr H wasn’t very good at the work or particularly strong.  The farm animals hated him, the pigs either charging or purposely peeing on him, one horse had chased and biten him repeatedly.   This led to his becoming an amusement to all, this soft middle aged man and his silly farming dreams.   Their amusement was his life saver.  

Every day he thought of his former simple life: the neat work station, the computer lab with everything in it’s place; no mud, no feces, no crazy men raving about third reichs and N word people and the evil Jews, no insane women flirting withUzi's, flashing Hitler mustaches shaved onto their frequently exposed vulvas.  

In all this, Mr H's longing for his wife grew and he'd think fondly of how she'd chatter and dance while cooking at the stove or how she’d scold Foolish for tracking mud into the kitchen and when the dog would stop whatever he was doing he'd sit and slowly look up at her with that drooling devotion of his and she'd place a little piece of something in his big wet muzzle.  

But that’s how she was, always good for something to eat, a laugh and a reassuring light pat.  And he missed her dearly as he hoped hard she was still waiting for him and hadn’t fallen in love with someone else.   He worried about his job.  And their house, their life: had she been able to keep up with the bills?   Oh he couldn't fathom what he had been thinking!  Ken Kesey and all that bus garbage was now so shameful, so stupid and shallow. 

By hook or by crook, he and Foolish were getting out of this mess and were going home.  And if she had done the unthinkable, fallen in love with someone else, Mr H would win her back and make things right.  Because he was Mr H and she was Mrs H.   

And that was how it was meant to be.  

the continued mundane hijinx of Mrs H  (and now the Mr):

Chapter One: Mrs H and The Dental Hygienist

Chapter Two: Mrs H Meets The Pillsbury Dough Boy

Chapter Three: Mrs H in the Garden of Eden on a Saturday Night

Chapter Four: Mrs H in The Big House