There is no catastrophe a good nap can’t cure
Nap Time
Texas Small Tales
…continued from yesterday
SO HERE’S HOW DIMEBOX DAN RETURNED to civilization (if there’s any place in Texas you’d consider civilized). A crusty old prospector named Geezer Pan was digging for gold on the outskirts of Dimebox, a futile enterprise if there ever was one. It was getting toward sunset, a golden sunset spreading across a horizon of tumbleweed and dust.
Pan grabbed his rifle, hoping to nail a rabbit for a little meat with his beans before the last rays of light vanished and left him alone with the moon and coyotes. He spotted a jackrabbit and followed the critter into a stand of mesquite, where he stumbled onto a nest of possums napping the day away. And in the middle of those nesting possums was an infant human child. A human child nesting with those possums like they was teddy bears protecting him from imaginary monsters.
The whelp was napping when Geezer lifted him from the nest and napping when Geezer tossed him over his shoulder. The possums knew Geezer was stealing their boy child, but they continued to nap because possums nap to avoid conflict. That’s why folks call napping, “playing possum.”
Geezer Pan stumbled onto a nest of possums napping the day…
