Marathon Dodgeball

Gawlmighty felt like a cat in the dog pound. Everywhere he turned,
people were trying to kill him. The big ape had still been bouncing
the orange fool like a basketball when Gawlmighty slipped out the
door and ran for his life. Gawlmighty wasn't sure who was behind it
all but he had his suspicions.

"Dang hobosexuals!" he whispered.

Gawlmighty, like most cornered animals, thought only of going home
when mercilessly pursued. They'd never think to look for him in the only
place he'd lived in his whole life before moving into the White House,
he reasoned with an obvious lack of practice. He'd catch a ride with a
trucker and be back in Texas in no time.

After standing on the side of the highway for twelve hours with his thumb
stuck out, Gawlmighty finally got a ride. An antique Ford Fairlane slowly
glided over to the shoulder a few yards in front of him. Gawlmighty held
onto his hat and ran up to meet his benefactor.

A little old lady with an orange flower in her hat sat in the driver's seat of
the Ford looking through the steering wheel as he came up alongside the
car. When he opened the door, she looked his way with a big smile and
said, "Hello dear, how far are you going?"

Gawlmighty waited for the expected reaction to his fame. But, though
she looked right at him, she showed no recognition. "Gawldurn, lady,"
Gawlmighty thought, "I been president for three years. I'm a green lizard
in a yellow cowboy hat and red cowboy boots. Ring a friggin' bell?"

But the old dear just kept looking in his direction and smiling.

"Uh, I'm headed fer Texas," Gawlmighty said.

"Why that's just fine," she said pulling back out on the highway in front
of a truck that ran over the meridian and crashed into a tree to avoid
her. "I can take you as far as Arkansas, "she said as if nothing out
of the ordinary had just happened.

Gawlmighty looked back at the smoking truck and said, "I hope you
can, lady. I hope you can."

Somewhere between Virginia and Tennessee, the old lady introduced
herself as Elmira McGoo and told Gawlmighty that she really wasn't
supposed to be driving because the dumb doctors claimed that she
was legally blind but they didn't know what all they were talking about
because she could see just fine if she squinted.

Gawlmighty, a horrified look on his face, both hands gripping the seat and
both boots up on the dash, couldn't help but believe that she'd never seen
a treetop in her life. If she'd caused less than a hundred wrecks since they
left Virginia he had miscounted. A

She was arrested in Arkansas for 7324 unpaid tickets. Gawlmighty, still
unrecognized, was put out on the side of the interstate. He stood on the
side of the highway for two hours with his thumb out before a bright
orange Cadillac pulled over to give him a ride.

The coincidence never occurred to Gawlmighty.