A funny thing happened on the way to our camping trip. It can be summed up in the phrase, “Sh*t happens.” Or, for the PG, Dave Barry crowd: “Doot happens.” Either way, it was unexpected and crappy.

And I blame it on the llama. Let me explain.

My home office space has typically consisted of my awesome Crate and Barrel desk and a lot of clutter. Like, a lot. In the recent past, I hadn’t been using my desk much and it tended to function mostly as a storage repository for books, to-do lists, unread magazines, scotch tape, a menagerie of sticky notes, and other random items, including finger puppets, an old coronet, a Flash figurine, an ancient typewriter, maybe a screwdriver or two, and a half dozen or so batteries that might or might not still have a charge. It was kind of like the Island of Misfit Toys.

Doot happens.

When humankind got sent home back in March to distance themselves socially, I was quite certain that the rona was just a passing fad. So instead of really getting set up, I simply shoved some of that stuff aside, opened my laptop and started cranking away.

Fast forward four months and I began to s-l-o-w-l-y realize (duh!) that this might not be just a temporary situation. Between the virus thingy and my getting laid off, getting a new remote job... I eventually clued in. Time to make this office look GOOD.

So I started cleaning up, rearranging, and began hanging cool stuff on the walls. I already had two of my guitars and some of the kid’s art up. But the wall in front of my desk was mostly bare. To remedy this, I framed some black and whites of my favorite writers, artists, and musicians, added a few other interesting and memorable tidbits, and voila! The perfect environment for creative productivity in the midst of a panic-driven, rumor-heavy, virus-laden, stay-at-home world.

I’m telling you all of this because one of the items I hung on the wall in my sudden, short burst of interior decoration inspiration was this weird and (imo) hilarious photo of a llama in a taxi cab. I forget where I got it. But no matter how llame or lludicrous or llopsided things get, the llama llightens the lload (see what I did there?). How can you keep from turning your frown upside down when you’ve got this guy smiling at you, reminding you to enjoy the ride?

b069f9af-7e47-44c7-87a7-e42e9518df59_2x 2.jpg

Problem is, he’s turning out to be more than just comic relief. Since hanging him up in the office, all hell has literally broken loose. I’m starting to suspect that he’s behind most of the drama we’ve experienced in the past few weeks: the still-here-and-getting-worse COVID, the riots, the plethora of wildfires, maybe even the hurricanes. And I’m almost positive he’s involved in the crisis that engulfed us last weekend. I’m even ready to blame him for Kansas. Let me explain further.

As you may remember (click here for a memory jog), my last blog found us preparing to set out on one of our last camping trips of the season. Because the weather will soon turn and we probably won’t get many excursions in past Labor Day, we were heading for a short but well deserved couple of days out of town.

Until... the drama llama reared his long-necked head. He wasn’t in a taxi this time. His arrival took the form of a phone call: family emergency just as we were packing up our tent and sleeping bags. Lots of moving parts. Hours of trying to figure out how to handle it, followed by an urgent roadtrip. Instead of putting the dogs into the Jeep and driving West for a weekend of jet boiled coffee, hiking, and four-wheeling, we hastily dumped the dogs at my folks’ house (thanks again for that!), jumped into my truck and headed due East for a 13+ hour drive. It was followed by a day of stressful preparations, then an even longer drive back.

What we experienced in that weekend, in addition to familial connections, arrangements, and problem-solving sessions, was Kansas. See, we had to go to Missouri and Kansas is in the way. On the return trip (almost 15 hours) I kept fantasizing about moving Kansas out of the way. Not eliminating it. Just pushing it south or north, like in those number slider puzzles.

Here’s the thing about Kansas. While they don’t quite have a championship football team, they also don’t quite have anything else, except expansive nothingness. Driving across Kansas will convince you to join the Flat Earth Society. Oh, and there’s corn. Plenty of corn. What I had forgotten since my last jaunt across the K state was 1. It takes forever, 2. Kansas is really, really, really, REALLY wide - wider than Texas and Alaska put together, 3. Kansas is beautiful - spacious, big sky, amazing horizon - for about the first twenty minutes, 4. People in Kansas are kind-hearted and won’t write mean comments in response to this blog because they know I’m kidding (sort of), 5. Kansas is a time warp, a time trap, The Twilight Zone, and the Bermuda Triangle all wrapped up in one, 6. I don’t ever want to drive across Kansas again! Please, don’t make me!

While perpetually and eternally in Kansas, getting nowhere at 82MPH, we entertained ourselves by playing trivia games on the phone. Most of them involved crazy-hard, totally obscure questions that no one except Ken Jennings would ever know the answers to. We quickly learned that I am not Ken Jennings, even when the category is something I should be good at. For instance, while I read books and also write them, I don’t know squat when it comes to literary trivia. What do the T and S stand for in T.S. Eliot? No idea. Tony Stark? Tupac Shakur? Transylvania Samba? Next question!

The point I’m trying to make is not just that Kansas can be a less than exciting when trapped inside its fuzzy, ever-expanding borders, but that life can sometimes turn on a dime. It can go from 0-60 in a finger snap. One second you’re making sure you packed a rain jacket, your GoPro, and the ingredients for s’mores, and the next you’re trying to remember who the heck wrote Wuthering Heights (Jane Austen...?) while enjoying a spectacular view of a cornfield that stretches to the razor-sharp edge of planet earth.

The drama llama is inbound. He’s going to barge in on my life and yours.

The key to surviving these sorts of situations, I’ve come to believe, is flexibility. That’s especially critical for 2020 (official motto: You ain’t seen n-n-n-nothin’ yet!). And what makes flexibility possible is knowing beforehand that drama is coming to town. Yes, the drama llama is inbound. He’s going to barge in on my life and yours. Maybe he’s got your water heater in mind. Or the transmission on your car. Or maybe he’s planning to instigate a shortage of your favorite adult beverage (No, llama, please... anything but that!). Whatever it is, he’ll show up on your doorstep without warning, grinning like the crazed camelid that he is, ready to serve up a fresh batch of... Let’s go with the Dave Barry version: Doot.

Expect him. Wait for him. Watch for him. Don’t let him sneak up on you! When he rolls up in that taxi cab, be prepared to flex. Don’t let him break you! And above all, pray that he doesn’t have Kansas in his bag of tricks. We can survive anything but Kansas.