As promised Charlotte had all the contractors at the boat at 7 a.m. the next morning and working non-stop. With her new “God inspired” fervor the ark started coming along quite nicely. In fact Charlotte took over the entire overseeing of the construction of the ark, and because of this Noah was given the assignment of collecting animals. Noah really didn’t consider this too much of a task though, the way he thought of it, it was a four week camping trip away from the wife, his “good” children, and most of all the old man. It also gave him some time to reflect on all the dead trees and the coming of the end of the world, as he knew it.
So around 8:30 then morning after Charlotte took over the progression of the ark Noah loaded up the lama, which he bought from the zoo, and set off to collect animals. Interestingly enough, it turns out that 45% of Noah’s animal collecting gear included jugs of spirit tempered grape juice, which he had placed at the bottom of every bag. The general belief and expectation was that Noah was going out to collect animals, but the truth was that Noah was meeting me up in the woods where he and I could have a month long farewell to say goodbye to and mourn the awaiting extinction of all he loved and held dear. Sure it might have been my suggestion, but I had been a friend of Noah’s for years, he might have put on a good show to everyone, but he was angry and hurting and he deserved to have some time to say goodbye to the land he loved.
A month in the woods gives a man a lot of time to think, even a drunken man, and Noah had a lot to think about. I mostly listened to his rants, but when someone has a good point about something, I try to be supportive. There were times that we even attempted to fulfill some of his tasks of collecting animals, but even the best intentions after a few jugs of wine things proved to be a little more problematic than expected. Bunnies were the first and, sadly, only creature we attempted to catch. Noah had the ingenious idea that if he placed a few carrots in the middle of a rope trap that when the bunnies came to eat he could pull on the rope and capture the varmint. This might have worked, but by the time a rabbits showed up Noah had eaten most of the carrots and was passed out next to his trap.
Pops was still gloating at the fine job He had done with handling the Charlotte situation and was overly pleased by her determination to make Him happy. He was so pleased that He decided to reward Himself with a little trip with just Him and the misses. With Charlotte in charge Pops knew everything would be just fine. By the time He and Mom got home three earth weeks had gone by, and with only one week to go, he figured it would be a good time to see how everything was wrapping up. Pops stopped by to talk to Charlotte and was pleased to see that the ark was almost done. He then learned that Noah had not returned yet and with the flood only a short time away she suggested to Pops that is might be a good idea for Him to go check on her husband.
I had headed back to town to restock some of our depleted wine supply when Dad got to the camp. The only animal anywhere near the place was Noah’s lama, whom after consuming Noah’s special mixture of oats and wine, was in a very stationary position and would not be moving anytime soon. During one of our many intoxicated discussions Noah became motivated to construct a barely functioning hammock, “In the shade!” he exclaimed, which I thought was brilliant thinking. And it was in that barely functioning hammock that Pops found a completely non-functional Noah.
Pops annoyance was advanced enough that He skipped over the whole clearing of the throat to get someone’s attention and went straight to the yelling part. And when a god yells, it is a force that can shake a universe, but Noah didn’t even budge. The man was out and no amount of godly yelling was going to help. So Pops did something that was rather unexpected, instead of waiting around to scream at a hung over Noah, He decided to offer a little help and direct the animals of the land to go to Noah and wait for the time of the storm when they would be placed on a God’s special safety boat. The animals agreed and with that Pops felt that things were back on track and left, taking pleasure in the fact the flood would be happening soon. He could start over and make things better, more like He wanted them to be instead of how they had become.
As sweet of a gesture as this was it was a little too late. In Noah’s passes of consciousness he would wake up and see all these animals that he was suppose to catch and place in cages, but being hung over and still quite soused, he was suspicious of this and would scare them away, thinking that they were after this wine. After driving away the animals, Noah was a little tired and went back to sleep. The animals once again gathered around Noah, waiting to be taken to the boat, like God said, but once I got back to the camp with more wine, I reacted in much the same way Noah did. Granted, I didn’t help that I had been drinking on my way back to the camp. Still, seeing all those animals huddled around Noah did freak me out a bit. It looked like a much of Hawaiians gathered around a pig that had been marinating in wine and herbs for four days and was now about to come out of the pit. It was unsettling and from that I had a surge to try to protect Noah from all those blood thirsty varmints. I think it was me screaming, running up and kicking an innocent squirrel away from Noah’s feet the motivated the entire camp to clear out in seconds. The scream of the squirrel is what made Noah wake up in a frightened motion that shot him out of the hammock and onto the ground, resulting in him starting to cry. The end was coming, and this depressed him. Seeing him get depressed made me want to see him happy, so I encouraged him to drink more, which resulted in him shooing all of the animals. He kept away telling them to be free and to head to higher ground, because the end was near. And this pretty much sums up the last week of Noah’s animal collecting. He took an extra three days of sleeping and drinking water to get rid of his hangover and travel back home and face a finished boat and a soon to be very upset wife. It was in his new found soberness, in conjunction with his very slow walking that he came up with a plan, a plan that just might keep him from getting the physically harmed and quite possibly a fooling around time with the misses…he just had to make sure he worded it right.
Charlotte was inside the ark putting up some last minute finishing touches when Noah arrived home. This played to Noah’s advantage and allowed him to take a shower and brush his teeth to help alleviate any suspicion that his month, while in the wilderness, had spend a majority of its time consuming liquid spirits. After getting cleaned up, Noah did get some flowers and then set foot into the boat with the goal to convince Charlotte that he was still allowed on the boat when it started to rain even though the animals he was suppose to get would not be joining them. When Noah approached Charlotte with a big smile and a handful of fresh flowers, she knew something was a miss.
I’m not sure how exactly this distrust got started, but it has one of the few things throughout the beginning of time that men have never figured out in regards to women. Men have acquired this set formula where, if they have done something that they deem the woman in their life would not approve of they change their social pattern and show up with smiles and flowers. And because this is such a large shift in the character of the man, the women automatically knows that the man has done something that they would not approve of. But in order to find out what the man has done they smile back and graciously accept the flowers and abide the time when they can subtly inquire about what the man has been doing and ultimately discover the reason that they received the flowers and what the man did wrong. And this is exactly what Charlotte did to Noah, well to a degree.
Because Noah’s actions where a direct result of his task and why he was away for the past month, the warm smiles and appreciation of getting flowers only lasted about 3 minutes, until she asked, “So honey, where are the animals?” This was his cue, and without missing a beat he began relating his story about the animal collection.
“Well, honey the thing is, I realized something about 3 days ago, while I was getting all the animals ready to lead them back here, it was something I had never thought about. And to be honest I don’t think that our holy dictator that is making us do this realized exactly what I did.”
“What are you talking about Noah?” said Charlotte.
Noah noticed that bad mouthing deity always made is wife’s nostrils flare, and when the flaring would begin the explosion was soon to follow, he had to sum up and sum up fast. “Honey, it was the shit!”
“What?”
“Animals eat a lot of food and the need to get rid of the waste they produce, with the animals I got to fill that boat, in just a two weeks time there were piles and stench everywhere. I had to move camp every few days just to be able to breath. There are only three small holes for the stench to escape on that boat, and where are we supposed to put all of that waste? So I made a decision, my kids and especially my wife are not going to live in shit and filth while some chief executive of the cosmos destroys all his children because he planted a few bad seeds. He can strike me dead, I don’t care, but I will not make you live in animal waste no matter the circumstances.”
Noah noticed that the flaring was gone. He felt it was truly one of his more brilliant moments. Charlotte stepped up to him, put her arms around him and asked in an appreciative but thankful tone, “What about the animals when the flood comes?”
“That God fella says he made them, I figure he can make more. You know with him being all-powerful and all. We’ll make a few rafts too just in case, ok?”
Charlotte smiled, kissed Noah and said, “Honey, I’m glad your home. Let’s go in the house I want to give you something.”
Noah knew exactly what that meant. This was truly his greatest triumph. Not only did he not get in trouble with the misses, but also he got her appreciation and affection. Sure there was still that God bully to deal with, but tonight he had won.
