{Short one here, just for fun.)
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Dale looked up at the mess left by the guys he had hired to cut a stand of trees. They got the trees cut OK, even sawed them into blocks for him, rolling the blocks down the hillside into a huge pile.
Firewood, and free except for the cost of the two guys he had hired. Looking at the stack, he knew there was nearly a dozen full cords there, enough for his house for the next 2 and maybe 3 years.
He had offered them $25 per cord to do the job, not a lot of money he knew, but hiring someone to work was easy. Even at the low price, the two guys worked hard, but paying them did clean out his checking account.
That was neat, not only was there now some added sunlight on his Corn patch, but it would be a long time before he had to cut any more.
With nearly 30 acres of big Alder trees, he wasn't going to run out any time soon.
It would have been fine except they cut the smaller limbs off and left them pretty much where they fell and that pissed Dale off.
He asked them about cleaning up the mess but they told him that wasn't part of the deal and they wanted another $200 to do it.
Fuck that, he paid them for what they had done and sent them on their way. It was probably well worth having them do it but he was out of money, so he decided he would just do it himself.
A month later the fucking brush was still there, Dale had actually gone out and started on it since every time he looked out his kitchen window he could see the mess. The little stuff he could just cut up with his limb lopping tool, the bigger stuff had to be moved to where it could be sawed up.
But being 69, just getting up the hill was difficult, pulling on huge Alder branches lying every which way was even harder.
Dale did fire up the big wood splitter he had built. It had a 17.5 horsepower lawnmower engine on it, a pump and hydraulic ram with a 30" stroke, 2400 pounds per square inch pressure. No yanking on a damn starter rope either, he had installed a battery and a push button starter.
There was even a dandy winch for picking up and loading the heavier blocks.
One flick of the handle and the block of wood was in two pieces, easy. That part he knew he could do. Dale popped all of the blocks of wood into smaller pieces, then piled those in the wood room.
It took him a full week, a dozen cords of wood is one hell of a big pile.
By the time he got all of that done, every single one of his 69 year old muscles were complaining.
He just could not remember ever hurting so badly.
The fires he built sure felt good, he liked it nice and warm now, and nothing is better than a good wood fire. He did have electric heat, but lord was that getting expensive, plus even standing in front of the damn thing he couldn't get fully warm.
Taking a long last irritated look at all the brush, Dale decided fuck it, he went inside the house and sat down in his chair.
Living alone is actually OK, no worries about dirty dishes in the sink, get to the laundry when the mood strikes, it's an easy way to live.
He did own a vaccum cleaner but had never plugged it in.
TV was nice, Dale watched a lot of that, read some books. He also liked the naughty story websites, although a lot of those were on the sick side for his tastes.
His favorite stories were the ones about women showing off, letting men get naughty peeks at their hidden treasures.
Some woman doing that in a video did nothing for him, he was partial to the real thing.
His very favorite time was when that Social Security check arrived. For a few days he had some extra dollars, so he would get in the old Ford pickup and drive down to the nudie bar.
That was fun, he always sat in the 2nd row because then he didn't have to keep putting precious dollars up on the stage, the dancers would be reacting to the dollar tossed up there by the guy up front and Dale got in on it too.
The dancers didn't seem to mind Dale looking over the other guy's shoulder much.
But then the monthly light bill, phone bill, all of that arrived and Dale had to wait the rest of the month to get to look as some pussy again.
He had never had a strange piece since he got married at age 30, that lasted 25 years and then his wife Caroline decided to go "find" herself. Caroline had been barely 18 years old when he married her, life had been good but it actually was boring so he didn't blame her all that much.
Way back when he was younger, he would sometimes get himself some of that dancer nookie. In fact Caroline was up on the stage, that is where he had met her.
The girls back then all wore G-strings and pasties, but even then for a few bucks they would let their G-string slide sideways when the bartender wasn't looking. Caroline had done her share of that stuff, part of what he liked about her. She had also responded well to his string of $5 bills, most of the guys just threw rare singles.
What the hell, he had money back then and no one to spend it on, not really.
After about three times of watching Caroline do her thing up on stage, he got a real closeup look in his bedroom that night. They hooked up, Dale was married and that was the end of his going to the night clubs.
That was odd, he met Caroline in one of those places yet she would get all huffy at the idea of him going to one of them.
So he just didn't, not for 25 years. But he did manage to talk Caroline into dancing for him a few times at home, and out at the beach she did not mind at all dropping her top, or even rarely running around naked as a Jaybird.
But she got older, and a bit more matronly, all of that stuff ended.
Now the dancers were all stark naked, Dale liked that. Of course with his silver hair and wrinkled face he knew he was never going to get any of that young pussy ever again, it was just the way things were.
Damn shame, too. Everything still worked just the way it always had, all he had to do really was think about some gal letting him have a look at her privates and up it came.
But the ones that interested him took one look at all of the wrinkles, the white hair, and they wandered off.
He could maybe hire a hooker, but with around $100 left over each month to play with, fat chance of much of that.
He did miss it, solo sexuality was OK but not enough. Sometimes he thought about all the years, wondering if perhaps he had wasted some of them? Caroline had been a good wife, never cheating that he ever suspected, always keeping a good house, willing in the bedroom although he couldn't call her eager.
The last dozen years she had acted more like it was a chore, just something she did like cook and clean.
So Dale's life was now just him. The good part was he did get to come and go as he damn well pleased.
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That fucking brush! It became an obsession, so Dale bit the bullet and skipped the nudie bar, saving up some money. Then he ran an ad online, that was free.
"Part time job, removing and piling brush. Person applying needs to be strong. $10 per hour." It read.
It took just 20 minutes, his phone rang. It was a female voice, for God's sakes.
"I am calling about the job?" She asked.
"I think I need a man, some of the brush is pretty big." He told her.
