I like to ask David questions I already know the answers to. It’s my own private game of “How Well Do You Know Dave.” I happen to be the world champion, and I score pretty high most of the time, though every once in a while, he’ll throw me a ringer. I played and won a championship round I’m particularly proud of just this last Friday night. The two of us were in a waiting room, doing what you do in a waiting room – waiting – when Dave said, “Hey, did I tell you we got new tires on the 7430 today? Front and back. They had them in stock.”

Coleman michele
Michele and her husband, Dave, live in southern Idaho where they boast an extensive collection of...

“Wow, that’s great,” I said. “I didn’t even know that was happening” – just as if I ever would’ve known before the invoice hit my desk. “Did you have to take the tractor in, or did they install them on-site?”

“Oh, they came right out to John’s shop, and put them on there. I went over on the four-wheeler to take a look at them tonight. They look real nice.”

That was the point in the conversation when the “How Well Do You Know Dave” game got underway. The stakes I played for were high, at least they were high for Dave, though he had yet to discern that the round had started. I threw out my starting question – the question I was pretty sure I already knew the answer to. “When did you go over to do that?”

“Well, on my way home, after we took care of the bull’s hoof.”

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And that (darn his pea-pickin', rangy hide) was exactly the answer I was expecting. Bingo, double bonus and 50 points for Michele. I decided to double-check my facts, though, just to be sure. I went in with a few follow-up questions, all innocent-like, so Dave wouldn’t suspect the danger of his situation.

“So, was this before or after you almost passed out?”

“Well, after, on my way home.”

“After you couldn’t walk?”

“Well, yeah, but I’d made it to the four-wheeler by then, so I was fine.”

“Fine, even though you told me that you have never, in your life, had an experience like that, where you suddenly had no use of half your body, and your pain level was at a 10?”

“At that point, my leg only hurt bad when I tried to use it.”

Again, darn his pea-pickin' hide. I didn’t even try to hide the fact that he had just lost the game. “So, to get this straight, when I was doing paperwork in the office tonight, and the girls came in and said, 'Dad broke himself!' and I asked, 'What happened???', and they said, 'He can’t walk,' and I said, 'Where is he?' and they said, 'He’s coming home on the four-wheeler,' and I was left wondering what in the world had happened, and why you were coming home on the four-wheeler alone, and where in the hay-nanny-nanny you could be, you were over looking at tractor tires?”

“Well, yeah, Michele. It was just on the way.”

It was fortunate for Dave that we happened to be in the waiting room of St. Luke’s Quick Care, because if he had suddenly needed a doctor for any additional reasons, the medics were handy. Of course, the only reason we were in the hospital at all was because Dave’s brother-in-law, the doctor, had told him to go in. My insights into the matter had just been wind whistling around his ears.

Later that night, after we crutched on home with muscle relaxants, ice and, of course, crutches, Dave’s dad and brother came over to assess the Dave damage. He told them the whole story – the same story that we had just entertained a receptionist, two nurses and a physician’s assistant with. He had a rapt audience.

Apparently, the whole adventure started when Dave sent one of our bulls running down the stackyard toward the corral so the hoof trimmer could take a look at him. The bull, just like every bull always ever has done, decided to switch back and try to return to the other cattle. Dave moved to head him off, just like he’s done a thousand times before, but then suddenly, out of the clear blue, he found himself falling to the earth like Newton’s apple. When he tried to stand back up, he had no left leg, or at least no left leg that was any good to him. Pain radiated up the back of the dangling appendage like lightning, so severe he nearly hit the ground again, and his world went woozy. Fortunately, the girls were there feeding and were able to get the four-wheeler over to him, and he managed to hoist himself up onto it. Of course, a man with a four-wheeler doesn’t need a left leg, and so all was right again with the world. Since the hoof trimmer was waiting, Dave figured they might as well finish the job. He had the girls retrieve the bull, and he helpfully followed along behind the three of them, barking orders from the four-wheeler.

I told Dave’s dad and John about Dave stopping by the shop afterward to check out the new tires on the tractor instead of acting like a reasonable injured person, and his dad said, “That’s good! That tractor really needed new tires.”

“Yeah”, said John, “all four of them were filled with fluid.”

And then all three of those Coleman men moved on to what I guess was a much more riveting topic of conversation: tractors and the tires that make them work and look so much better.

I’m wondering how I can leverage this information about Coleman men to my advantage. I think I need to keep new tractor tires on hand to pull out whenever I need to change the topic of conversation, divert attention or cover my tracks. “Well, yeah, Dave, I suppose that is a pallet of chocolate-covered gummy bears, but I’m not sure since they are behind these really nice new tires.”

I’d bet all my game points and half the pallet of gummy bears that it’d work every time.