Thursday December 11, 2025 Road-trip to Tuff Rubber Balls No. 2: Hurry Up And Wait.

 

   "Ula barely allowed Sven’s butt to alight on the seat before he started backing his ‘94 Toyota no-frill two-wheel drive pickup onto the highway."

    “Now vat’s takin’ you so long, Sven?” Ula hollered impatiently from the car, eight years ago (2019) “You said dis vas yust goin’ to take a minute! Ve’re burnin’ daylight ‘ere!

    “Yah, Ula! I’ll be out in da vag of a dog’s tail, you betcha,” answered Sven from inside an old weather-beaten two-holer behind a one-room school, north of Gud-drudge, Minnesoter.

    “Sven! Good grief!” Ula bellowed two minutes later, this time sounding the horn for good measure. Pigeons flew from the schoolhouse roof.

  “All right, all ready, den!” said frustrated Sven, pushing the frail door open, its rusted hinges squealing, his pants still in disarray in all the commotion. A car heading north from ‘Gud-drudge’ shot by the intersection, presumably soon becoming a mere speck on the horizon. “I’m comin’! I’m comin’!”

    Ula barely allowed Sven’s butt to alight on the seat before he started backing his ‘94 Toyota no-frill two-wheel drive pickup onto the highway, rigorously turn the steering wheel hand over hand because he had opted for ‘no power steering’ just as he had for ‘no power windows’ and a 5-speed manual transmission.

   “Lord Almighty! Ula!” Sven shrieked. “Can’t you let me in before you go??”

   “I t’ought you vere dun goin’!” Ula snapped back, turning the steering wheel the other way, then shifting gears as the truck’s speed increased. “Ve coulda been t’irty miles farder down da road if you hadn’t needed to relieve yourself!”

   “T’irty miles? Dat’s an exaggeration, if dere ever vas vun, you ol’ codger,“ Sven said, still trying to get his pants zipped up and his seatbelt locked-in between the rapid gear shifts. “I vud ‘ave stopped for you, if you ‘ad needed to go, Ula. It vasn’t somet’ing I planned on doin’. It must ‘ave been all dose pickled eggs I ate at da Palmville Pub last night. Dat, or dose pickled turkey gizzerts.”

   “Vell, maybe if you vere more careful about vat you ate,” Ula said authoritatively, setting the cruise control at fifty-three miles per hour for the ultimate fuel economy. “You could moreso plan dis function dan let it surprise you--and annoy me!”

     Sven and Ula were on their way to Tuff Rubber Balls, Minnesoter to get a cellphone for Sven, who had unfortunately lost his old flip phone during deer season. Ula had Sven on his teen line plan and had to go along to the BS & More Store there because he had all the information required in the breast pocket of his Wannaska Township Board uniform jacket.

     Ula was familiar with the agonizingly long time often required at the BS & More store and would’ve preferred to get him and Sven there just as the door opened and not a second later. He feared joining the possibly long lines of winter-clad cellphone owners languishing along the building waiting to get in, and those sitting in their heated cars with long ropes extended from their bumpers designating their spots in line. Or those courageous few who camped there overnight and left their camp chairs or backpacks in line so to periodically relieve themselves at the Tesaro Station across the side street. Stress levels were high enough having to deal with hot-headed line-budgers, that Ula was even thinking of accelerating to sixty because Sven had vexed him so.

  Sven was innocent of all this, ignorance being one of his more lovable characteristics. He’s always been slow to understand things right off like Social Security; Medicare A & B & C; stock market terminology; insurance jargon; smartphone usage; and the subsequent costs of their respective plans without investing in a lot extensive book-learning. Even so, he would’ve gone by himself, but he needed Ula’s cell plan information and I.D. but it, and Ula’s uniform jacket, weren’t going anywhere without Ula.

    “So tell me,” said Ula, his hands at ‘ten til two’ on the steering wheel. “'ow’d you lose your old phone again?”

    “I don’t know,” answered Sven, looking at hundreds of acres of still-standing corn in snow-covered fields speeding by. “It vas kind of bizarre, like ven I dropped dat pair of binoculars overboard from Knorr’s boat four years ago. It vas yust ka-poot, gone!”

    “No splash, den?” Ula said, trying to ease the atmosphere after their heated exchange at the outhouse, his eyes glued to the road. “You dint ‘ear it splash into da snow below your deer stand? Or maybe ricochet off da two by four cross-members or anyt’ing? It didn’t cry, “‘HELP ME!’”?

   “Never heard a t’ing,” Sven said, oblivious to Ula’s attempt at getting a smile out of him. “I yust noticed it vasn’t in my yacket pocket at some point, and after goin’ t’rough all my pockets in my yacket, jeans and bib-overalls two or t’ree times, I realized it vas gone. I’ve looked every vere I could t’ink of, in da house and in da cars, in my truck, in my udder clothes. I’ve been on my knees vit’ da flashlight, lookin’ to see if it vas accidentally kicked under somet’ing. Couldn’t call it because I'd told all da hunters to set dere phones on vibrate ven dey vent out to dere stands, and I did too. Plus, da damn t’ing is vite to boot -- and vit’ all dis snow on da ground, good grief, maybe I von't find it next spring, eh.”

     Ula stayed on the highways wanting to make fast time instead of taking the usual cross-country scenic routes the two friends usually took on their trips to Tuff Rubber Balls, making a 58-mile road trip from Wannaska, a one hundred-plus mile road trip through Gentilly, or Dorothy, or Lengby just to see the sights. They didn’t have the luxury of time this trip. The BS & More Store opened at 10:00 am -- and here it was, 1:45 pm. It was only open until seven.

     “More speed,” Ula thought. “Ve need more speed.”

     Sven must have been reading Ula’s mind, for about that time, he said, “Remember now Ula, I’m buying da gas for dis trip -- and lunch. I’m owin’ you big time for your sacrifice today, ‘elpin’ me out of dis jam an’ all. Put da pedal to da metal, pardner.”

     The sudden acceleration to sixty-two miles per hour pushed them both back against the back of their seats, their seat belts going slack in a heartbeat; the dream catcher hanging from the rear view mirror striking the headliner with a swoosh, its feathers all a-quiver; the truck’s three wheel covers a-blur; once-frozen leaves from an early fall yard clean-up roaring out of the pickup box on cyclonic winds.

    “HOO-YAH!” Sven hollered excitedly over the rush of wind through the poor weather-sealed truck doors. “Dis is better dan da Reed River County Fair! GIVE ‘ER DA HEAT, MAN! GIVE ‘ER DA HEAT!!”

    Just ahead was Tuff Rubber Balls, the white Farmers Coop Grain Elevators looming majestically between the sun visors as towering testaments to Northwest Minnesota’s agricultural success. Sven and Ula’s shoulders became slowly deplastered from the seat backs as Ula slowed the truck and they entered town past the ball fields and football stadium of Northland community and technical college.

   Ice fishing shacks had begun to spring up near the 3rd Street Bridge, despite warnings in the newspaper and on the radio that the ice there was unsafe so early in the month. One fisherman fished from a small boat atop the ice--just in case the officials were right.

  Just east of the railroad tracks, Ula downshifted, and turned the truck south on Davis Avenue North, past K&M Transmission and Repair to the east, and the two block-long dilapidated building remains of a grain handling business along the railroad siding to the west.

  Throwing further caution to the wind, he tore past the Fraternal Order of Eagles and very nearly past the Veterans Memorial Park across the railroad tracks from the Tuff Rubber Balls City Hall and Michael's Meats, Inc., before Sven cautioned him about the upcoming stop sign there. Ula stopped in time, turned on his blinker, and when it was clear, turned easterly back across the Red Lake River onto Highway 59 toward their hurried rendezvous at the BS & More Store.

  “Good grief, I see eight customers in dere, and vun in a veel chair,” Ula said, peering into the big reflective windows of the BS & More Store while vigorously turning into a strangely available parking spot. “Eight customers could mean at least a four 'our vait. Ve are so doomed.”

“Vell, da guy in da veel chair can’t 'elp dat, Ula,” said Sven, trying to give at least one of the customers some consideration as he hurried to get out of his seat belt and out of the little two-seated truck. “Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe dere are only seven customers ahead of us.”

   Entering the building, both guys were astonished to see only four people in the whole well-lighted place, two customers at a table with one male associate, and a quite lovely associate sitting all by herself at a tall stylistic table with four similar-styled stools around it, just awaiting their arrival. Ula looked shocked. Sven was timid. “Can I help you gentlemen?” the associate asked them. “What are you looking for today?”

  Sven was wont to reply, stammering around the whole point of their trip, when Ula coolly said, looking at her, then towards Sven, “Dis guy needs a new cellphone. He lost ‘is vile ‘e vas deer huntin' last month.”

   Pulling a stool closer to her with the toe of one of her knee-high boots, the associate said smiling coyly, “Come ‘ere gramps, and tell me how you lost your phone.”