by Kiki Mcdonald

Created on: May 21, 2008

Last night, I stayed up fairly late reading. Reading about pioneers. Whenever I think about pioneers, I wonder how in the world they got up every morning, knowing what their day would hold.

When I am sitting on the interstate in bumper-to-bumper traffic, thinking how miserable my life is, I have to remind myself, it could be worse. I could be sitting in covered wagon traffic in Sierra Nevada on Donner Pass. I could be riding in a covered wagon with a horrible case of gangrene in a blizzard so thick that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face and if you could, if you could, then you would have to come to terms with the fact that you were now down to only three fingers.

Then I think to myself, I am glad pioneers are no longer around, because if they were still around, you couldn't complain about anything. Seriously. Their lives were a living hell.

Just think if you shared an office with a pioneer. You come in late and you are bitching about how you got a flat tire on the way to work. Sue Beth starts up about the time the wagon wheel got stuck in quick sand on the Oregon Trail and it took down two of their oxen. Having a bad hair day? Sue Beth immediately pipes in about the time her two red headed sisters were scalped and left for dead on the side of the trail. I complain about daughter throwing a fit while I was getting her ready for daycare, and Sue Beth starts counting out loud the number of children she buried in the red clay between Kansas and California.

Things take on an even darker tone in the break room. Someone from accounting starts talking about their cat being sick and having to take it to the vet when next thing you know, Sue Beth chimes in about the time the puma crept in the Armstrong's wagon and ate three of their babies before the Daddy killed him with a shotgun. A hush falls over the break room as everyone absently pokes at their lean cuisines. I excuse myself to go to the vending machine for a bag of Doritos. When Sue Beth gets a glimpse of the Doritos I am holding when I return to the office, she says I should save my hard earned money with the winter comin' up and all; besides she has plenty more of Tom Jeffer's salt cured haunches left over thar in the knapsack, maybe even a bit of his tender young wife. Yep, that sure was a bad winter up there in Donner Pass.....

You get the general idea. You just can't ever complain in front of a pioneer, they are always going to one up you. Without even trying.

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