4) The Farmer, The Fox, The Feed, And The Hen

A farmer stands on a river bank. He has quite the conundrum: He must get himself, his fox, his hen, and a bag of feed safely to the other side, but he can only take one with him at a time, and the fox can not be left alone with the hen, or the hen left alone with the feed.

You were given two pieces of blue yarn and told to place them on your desk vertically and parallel to one another (your river). Then your third grade teacher came around and gave you each four popsicle sticks. You were asked to label them: farmer, fox, hen, feed.

Then the riddle… How does the farmer get everyone from point A to point B?

The room of third graders fell silent as they worked to get the farmer to the other side of the river.

Foxes ate hens, hens ate feed, the farmer was striking out…

And now you’re there all over again.

How do we get the funds to fund this move, pay for everything up front, get out of the house, pick up the kids from school, sign the final bit of paperwork, then get our dog, cat, and the five of us into a vehicle bound for a destination 1200 miles away?

We had it all figured out. The index cards. We had come up with a solution: containers for all of our belongings and we would rent a 12 passenger van to fit us and our bags containing everything we would need for the next two weeks.

Except that in waiting to make sure that every piece of the puzzle fit… we lost out on the 12 passenger van.

Not a single 12 passenger van left in the entire eastern United States during the time you needed it. And you know this because you called every single rental company, “I’m sorry ma’am… it looks like all those vans are sold out.”

Even worse… all that was left were 5 passenger vehicles… which was most definitely not going to work for your family.

The farmer brings the feed over. The fox eats the hen.

You have a real problem and not much time to solve it.

You search for the index cards. You need this worked out today. Immediately.

They’re not on the counter, they’re not near all the stacks of boxes waiting to be packed full, you even open up your husband’s closet thinking that maybe he’s put them away. You can’t find them.

Shit.

You grab a thin stack off the long stationary paper pad attached to the fridge with a magnet. You hastily pull off sheets, not bothering to count how many. You have no idea how to solve this problem… and a big problem it is.

The farmer brings the fox over. The hen eats the feed.

“There’s always a BRIGHT side,” promises the pink-purple sheet of long stationary.

Perhaps your husband can drive up with the dog in a rental car?

You can fly up with the kids and the cat?

Your husband can pick up your best friend on the way?

How do we stay on budget now?

Once we get to NY we will no longer have a vehicle… we have to buy one shortly thereafter… but in the meantime… what’s the closest and least expensive airport to fly into and how in the hell will anyone pick you and the kids and the cat up?

When should you fly up? After you close on the church? Before?

On one sheet you’ve scribbled down flight numbers, times, ticket prices.

On another sheet you’ve written out a checklist of every major rental company in the continental US… “sorry ma’am… no vans.” You check them off one by one.

Then you decide that maybe you should just wait in St Petersburg till that home sale money hits your bank account and you go buy your new car locally and drive THAT up to New York. On another sheet you have googled over and over again: what is the best, most reliable, used 8 passenger SUV… then you scrawled makes and models down and began to search which years to avoid, which are good years for each and every ‘reliable’ SUV that you’ve found.

“Will I have to pay for the tag here? Or can I just get the tag when we reach our destination?”

You type out before sending an email to a local dealership.

“Great question… you can get the tag when you get to where you’re going… do you have a phone number so we can discuss your plans further? Did you look at this SUV that we have here… you can come down to Sarasota to test drive it.”

You delete the email… you don’t have time to test drive anything.

The farmer brings the hen over. The farmer goes back for the fox. The fox eats the hen.

You have long sheets of paper with flights, rental options (or not), and a list of 13 different recommended SUVs with a list of model years to avoid or seek…

And you’re absolutely no closer to solving the riddle. “There’s always a BRIGHT side,” reads the stationary.

Your patience is shot. The kids are loud and keep interrupting you. You raise your voice when they argue. You read and re-read your notes, the colorful stationary hastily laid out without a plan.

You’re no further than you were when you started. Time to get dinner ready, the show must go on… You gather the colorful sheets of nothingness, toss them onto your laptop’s keyboard then close up the entire computer, sandwiching the useless stationary.

The farmer brings the hen over. The farmer goes back for the feed. The hen eats the feed.

When David gets home you hash out the flying with the kids, car rental idea for him idea. He immediately shoots it down. He wants you all to go up together. This is going to be an adventure. How about he rents a huge Uhaul and drives up in that with the dog. You follow alone with the kids and the cat. You hate the idea of driving 1200 miles alone with a cat and three kids. You argue about that… no yelling, just a disagreement, but the kids are in earshot.

Later that night as you tuck the kids into bed they tell you that they don’t like when you yell. That they also get nervous when you and dad get into an argument because, “Dad might break up with you.”

That makes you laugh… “I can assure you, that’s not going to happen… we’re married.”

“Well you can get divorced…” You give hugs and kisses. You promise that’s not going to happen. You apologize for not having any patience. You tell them that stress is not an excuse and that you will work on that whole ‘losing my temper under duress’ thing. You feel like a complete piece of shit.

The farmer brings the hen over. The raft grounds on a cluster of rocks.

Later David comes into the bedroom, you’re reading a book in bed… a true story about a Mensa member who poisons his neighbors. That’s quite the way to fix a problem… You wonder if he had index cards. “Can we talk?” David says.

You put the book down and take off your reading glasses.

“I don’t want to fight. This is stressful enough. If you want to fly up there with the kids… I thought about that and I understand your hesitation to drive up on your own. So if that’s what you want to do… I’ll make do and figure out the rest. This won’t be the trip I wanted… but… if it makes you feel better…”

Your icy exterior melts away. You’re back on the same team… a minor obstacle on the river, the two of you manage to steer the raft off the rocks.

“I don’t want to argue either,” you say.

You both decide that by the following day you will have figured out a plan together and you will lock in, no matter what, before midnight of that evening. There’s clarity again. You’re on the same course. You can do better, be better tomorrow. You don’t have to yell. You can work on your patience… That’s what all this is after all… a new adventure, a chance to be better, do better… a new beginning.

You kiss your husband goodnight. You feel bad about a lot of shit. But you also feel at ease. The stress melts away. Tomorrow is a new day… we will figure all this out, and we will do it with grace, resiliency and a bit more patience.

You take off your glasses, turn off the light, and shelf the book on the end table by your bed. You put the TrueCrime Channel on the TV… somehow that always lulls you to sleep. David is already snoring. You are out before the commercials end and the killer is caught…

The farmer brings the hen across. The farmer goes back to get the fox. The farmer brings the fox to the other side then brings the hen back with him. The farmer then leaves the hen back where he started, grabs the bag of feed and brings it over to the side with the fox. The farmer makes one last trip to pick the hen back up. The group is safely across the river.