the end of my sag career

yesterday at 4:30 p.m., i completed my professional sag driver career. that day would have made anyone quit.

it all started out in a little town in minnesota. i couldn't make hide nor hair out of the directions on the cue sheet. luckily, i saw a few bikers across the street talking to a local guy, so i turned around and he told me how to get out of town.

on the way out of town, we were to turn on county road 9, but when i arrived there, it was closed under construction. my phone rang about then and it was jan. she was up ahead and told me to tell everyone to go on to county road 11. nine riders were at the construction sign, so i told them i would go ahead and find road 11, then come back and tell them.

i sped ahead three miles and surely enough, if you turned left off of 160 north, there it was. i raced back, found a turn-around, and told them it was straight ahead. then i decided to go back to the construction block and leave a message for the other riders.

i found a black marker in my purse and a rumpled paper on the clipboard, then wrote the directions on it, taped it to the road closed sign, and hoped for the best. i then raced ahead of the front-runners to give them a sag stop. i then waited for the rest of the group.

right in the middle of groups, i received a call from janet saying that vickie had been knocked to the ground by a big dog about a half-mile from where i was. i waited for the other riders, then drove quickly to the rum shack to await the front-runners, of which vickie was a part.

vickie was still riding, but her mouth was badly swollen and she had road scrapes on one arm. she didn't want me to call 911, so i went into the rum shack, got her some ice, and kathryn fashioned a neck-piece with ice inside it so they could continue on the ride. talk about tough!!

next, it was time to go see how the ones in the back of the pack were doing. i had picked up georgia along the road because her cracked ribs were giving her fits. thank heaven for her. she was navigating and answering the phone on this terror ride.

we found everyone else at the pub and grub. the best thing about that place was the proprietor, whose t-shirt read: i'm in the business of pussy and business is great. i guessed this was a red-neck place. he was talking about the three funerals in the community that week. we couldn't see a community, but surmised it was the farmers who lived nearby.

getting ready to leave after a huge blt sandwich, the phone rang. it was a voice saying, "we're six miles from town and need a ride." we didn't know who it was, but there was a note of desperation in her voice.

georgia and i sped off, trying to keep our promise of being there in 15 minutes. suddenly, we saw a sign pointing to the left: little falls - 11. we took a left, then ran into highway 10.

"none of this is on our cue sheet," georgia said.

"maybe we need to turn around," i said.

re-tracing our path, we finally found county road 35, which we had completely missed the first time round. about four miles down this road, we found patty sitting on the side of the road, with ann administering help to her, having waited more than an hour while we wild-goose-chased around the county.

it seems that patty started to pass out on her bike, then couldn't breathe. she used her inhaler to help that problem, then her blood pressure started tanking out. thank heavens she was with ann, the only medical doctor in the group, who started giving her liquids and other bike-rider concoctions. georgia and i helped patty into the car, and about this time, ann's hip started acting up. so there we were, the wounded helping the infirm. between the three of us, we finally got all the bikes on the car and started toward town.

"do you want to go to the emergency room?" i asked patty.

"no, i think i'm starting to feel better," she said.

after delivering georgia, ann, and patty to the hotel, i still needed to find the last three sheep--linda, barb, and lorrie. going backwards on the cue sheet, i found them seven miles from town.

i went on ahead of them, then waited at the turn that wasn't on the cue sheet. in the meantime, barb had a flat and lorrie gave her the front tire from her bike so she could continue on. i went back to lorrie, who had just completed the tire change and was installing barb's front tire on her bike.

"wanna ride?" i asked.

"no, i think i can make it," said lorrie, just as exhausted as everyone else had been.

"i'm calling it a day, then," i said.

"see you in town," lorrie replied.

about at the end of my rope, i drove to town, gassed up the car, and vowed that this was the end of my short sag driver career. janet bee did an intervention hug with me in the lobby of the hotel and offered to do the dishes after supper. that's the part of driving a sag wagon i will miss the least.