“That’s the third damn post today,” he muttered, kicking at the sawdust pile like it owed him money. The chickens scattered, clucking indignantly from their dust baths near the tractor tires. Bubba’s overalls sagged with the weight of pocket knives, loose change, and half a ham sandwich wrapped in gas station napkins…”and it’s still too short.” Just last week before he switched, he tried melting the posts with an acetylene torch but burned the outhouse down.
Bubba spat a brown stream of chewing tobacco into the dirt, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and squinted at the crooked post leaning stubbornly against the barn. The chainsaw lay dead at his feet, belly up, in the afternoon heat…gasping. His cousin Earl lounged on an upturned bucket. “You reckon them city boys get pre-cut or measure twice?”
“Pre-cut is for pussies and old wemen,” Bubba grunted, reaching down to yank the chainsaw’s pull cord with enough force to pop his shoulder. The engine coughed, sputtered, then died again. A stray hound trotted over, sniffing at the sawdust like it might taste like breakfast. Bubba nudged it away with his boot—not mean, just firm—and the dog flopped down in the shade with a sigh that said it’d seen stupider things than a man fighting a post.
Earl picked at a scab on his knee, squinting up at Bubba like he was a slow-moving train wreck. “Ain’t you got a tape worm in one them pockets, or pole tacks?” Bubba patted his overalls, producing a bent nail, two cigarette butts, and what might’ve been a rabbit’s foot before giving up. The post wobbled mockingly in the breeze. “Measure twice, cut once,” Earl drawled, spitting a sunflower seed shell into the dirt. “Or in your case, measure never, cut thrice, burn the shitter down.”
The chainsaw gave one last half-hearted growl when Bubba yanked it again—then silence, except for the distant hum of cicadas and the clank of Aunt Marge’s wind chimes made from shotgun shells. Bubba stared at the post like it’d personally insulted his mama. Behind him, the hound farted lazily, like listening to an old George Jones Song, just for emphasis.
