There’s something inherently wrong with spitting out of a moving vehicle in which those unfamiliar with the basic laws of physics here on Earth are doomed to suffer the rebuke of the works of Newton, Einstien, and other smart dudes who had things figured out.
I don’t know the exact year or location, so for the sake of this story let’s just assume the events of this semi-authentic line of bull I’m about to weave took place in the 1950’s in west Texas.
Young Ed was riding in a car with his little brother James. Uncle Johnny was driving. Sport, the most generic of dogs was in the back seat hanging his head out the window.
Now as much as you should be able to see where this story is going, I’m going to keep writing it.
So let’s get back to the physics discussion. As I understand it, a vehicle driving down the road at a certain rate of speed with a window or two open tends to create a vacuum within the passenger compartment. That means that if you toss something out the front window while driving, your jettisoned debris could get sucked into the back seat if the window behind you is open.
Enough of the science stuff. Let’s talk about Uncle Johnny. There are two very specific features about Uncle Johnny which should be noted, as they are important to this line of bull. The first tidbit is the fact that his left hand was graced with a trigger finger and a thumb. The remaining three fingers had been lost at approximately the knuckle in some sort of accident while Johnny was working on an oil well. His two nephews would eventually pick up his habit of working a steering wheel with their right hands only, properly posted at about 11 o’clock.
Even still, Uncle Johnny could knuckle his way through a song on a violin with the best of ’em.
The other memorable feature about Uncle Johnny was that he dipped snuff. One can only imagine that it was common place for men to do so out in west Texas at the time. Whereas this aforementioned weave of bull has already been declared as semi-authentic, the reader is admonished to accept reality within the story and agree that dipping snuff in the 50’s in west Texas was as common place as scratching and farting.
And so, on a hot summer day out in the middle of flat, west Texas, Uncle Johnny, Ed, and James drove along while Sport paced the back seat, looking out each of the open windows. As Sport approached the driver’s side in his rhythmic fashion, Uncle Johnny performed one of his own systematic processes by hocking a Copenhagen-laden loogie out of his own window.
At that point, physics took over.
Just as Sport got to the window to inspect the port side of the vehicle, the speed Uncle Johnny was driving coalesced with the vacuum in the cabin and landed a colorful combination of chewing tobacco and snot smack dab on the panting tongue of Sport.
Newton’s Third Law kicked in, which involved Sport taking every step he could generate from his little doggy skull in order to expel the foreign substance. Subsequent steps were taken to kill the taste. I won’t go into details about those steps beyond stating the mere fact that he began licking things which humans either won’t or can’t.
When all was said and done, Sport was convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Uncle Johnny had done that on purpose, and that physics was nothing but a heartless bitch.
