When something happens often, it becomes a cliché.
Journalists tend to try to avoid clichés, and I once had a journalism professor tell me that they are a sign of weak writing. I'm not sure if he meant that clichés in reality were an indication of a weak life.
The problem with some clichés is that they tend to be true.
Have you ever heard of someone who just finished paying off a vehicle, only to have it break down? That's a cliché, right? It's based on the assumption that finally once you have a break from payments, you end up having to pay more. It the same with warranties. Stuff breaks down once the warranty has expired. Everyone knows that. We have all lived a cliché moment.
I picked up the title to my truck on Saturday and broke said truck on Sunday, took it in to the shop on Tuesday, paid the guy on Wednesday and now it's Thursday, and I'm not so sure whether I shouldn't go trade the thing in this weekend.
This summer has been a busy one for the McClannahan household. It seems that since May, we've had some sort of obligation every weekend so that we could not get out into the forest for a hike or a picnic. Either that or the forest was either closed or on fire. So finally, the rains have made it wet enough that we could go out. The schedule freed up and we figured, "Let's go have a picnic."
We set out down N.M. 217, figuring we'd take Juan Tomás Road over to South 14 and then to Oak Flat Picnic Grounds. Juan Tomás is a pleasant little drive through the mountains, and the middle portion of the road — as anyone who's driven it knows — is dirt. On Sunday, after weeks of afternoon rains, the road was actually mud. No problem. I've driven in mud before. The key is to remain calm, shift it into a low gear and whatever you do, don't stop.
But of course, everyone who has driven in mud, which I'm guessing from the look of the cars and trucks I see in the parking lots of the stores around here is most everyone, knows that the ditch monsters can get you.
The ditch monsters are those strange invisible beings that jump out of the bar ditch and pull you back in. These were so named by Alan Miller, an old roommate who spent too many nights walking home after a night at the bar. On those times he didn't make it home, he would blame the ditch monsters.
We were tooling along just fine, but then the ditch monsters got me, and two wheels dropped down in the ditch. Getting out of a muddy ditch can be problematic, but the key, as I said, is to remain calm. Not everyone in our party stayed calm, and I had one kid who panicked and the other who saw the whole experience as an adventure. Their mother got them away from the truck so that father would remain almost sedate.
Rocking and cajoling, I finally freed the beast. But it was more than the power steering pump could take, and by the time we reached the pavement, turning the steering wheel had become a workout.
We knew then that our little picnic had become a lot more expensive than we had anticipated. And, as anyone out here knows, we all now have a set of clothes stained with New Mexico mud. Plus my bank account's a little lighter. So much for that economic stimulus check.
That's the trouble with clichés: most are true. And as we all know, the truth hurts.
<i>Contact Rory McClannahan at 823-7102 or online at editor@mvtelegraph.com.<;/i>
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