Floods and Rants

We survived the great flood yesterday. Husband wanted me to come see the creek so I put on my coveralls, boots, grabbed an umbrella, and tramped down there. Now 10 months out of the year our creek is just a big ditch with a trickle of water. Yesterday it was a good 4 feet deep and flowing like a little river. The field was so flooded that water was flowing into the creek like a waterfall. And you couldn't see where the pond ended and the field began. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Husband unplugged the electric fence because portions of it were under water. Our livestock is pretty tame, and rarely try to escape. (He'd reading over my shoulder as I type and says, "Only the fence through the ditch was under water, and the livestock was locked up in the woods.") He stepped over the fence and up onto an old electric pole at the edge of the field. "We can just walk on the pole," He says. "Yeah, right!" I reply. He promptly slips and almost falls off the pole. I step over the fence and take a step to get to the pole. When I put my foot down I went into the water up to my knees! I'm not sure what I stepped in, but Husband had to help me out. After that, the umbrella was pretty pointless.

It was a mess! And when Husband went to check on the hogs he found out water was seeping into the farrowing house. One stall was full of water. He had to take the day off work to dig a ditch, move the orphan piglets into another shed, and move the sow from the stall full of water to a higher position. He didn't get in until well after dark. But the ducks loved every minute of it!

Now I'm going to go on a brief rant. You've been given fair warning. If you don't know me in the "real" world, I should preface this by telling you that I stand a little over 5' 5" tall and I weigh a whopping 96 lbs...Maybe. I've always been skinny. Not thin. Not slender. Not willowy. Not slight of build. SKINNY, perhaps even scrawny. I am well aware of this fact. I have never forgotten it. My issue is with people who feel the need to point it out to me.

Today I had both boys at Wal-Mart with me. They were in one of those humongus carts you can strap 2 toddlers in and still have a place to hook a baby seat and room for groceries. These things are a godsend for anyone with more than 1 child. And they are large.

I came to a corner I needed to round, but there was an older couple blocking the way while they spoke to another woman. I said excuse me, carts were shifted, and I maneuvered around them all (with a little difficulty due to the positions of their carts and the size of mine). As I rounded the corner the male half of the couple said, "You're 'bout too damn skinny to be pushin' that thing!" I laughed a small, forced, fake laugh and said something inane like, "Yeah, I am," and pushed on.

Here's my problem. If I had been 5'5" tall and weighed 400 lbs, he would have never said, "You're 'bout too damn fat to be pushin' that thing!" Why is it OK for him to comment on my size at all? And believe me this is far from the first time this has happened. For some reason total strangers feel it acceptable to make these remarks to me on a regular basis. Does it not occur to them that I may be just as self-conscious about my weight as someone overweight? This is high on my list of pet peeves. People I know and love comment on my weight. Most of the time it doesn't bother me (too much), but I still think if I had the opposite problem it would be completely taboo. Am I being overly sensitive? Please be honest, I really want to know.