Oh Satan, you silly goose!

I would like to discuss with you a person of interest that most of us in society today find to be generally very unpleasant; Satan. Satan is considered a menace largely because he is one of the most annoying people anyone has ever encountered. Now, I make it a general rule of thumb to try not to gossip about other people in an effort to avoid hurting their feelings, but Satan doesn't count. We can gossip about Satan all day long if we want to, and never be brought to judgement for it. In fact, we are encouraged to warn people about Satan and even treat him very badly by making him leave the premises- and we're praised for doing so! Satan is the one person that we are supposed to be rude to, a concept rather hard to grasp by many, many people across the globe.
Satan is like the kid in the neighborhood that picks his nose and smells like tomato soup. Nobody really wants to be around him and you could say that right to his face but it never seems to sink in. He never gets the hint. He keeps showing up largely uninvited and wants to hang out. Parents really don't like their kids to hang out with Satan because they usually consider him to be a bad influence. Whenever kids are with him, they tend to get into trouble, and kids are the one's who usually have the hardest time being rude to Satan. Think about it this way: we drill it into our kids heads that they have to be kind to everyone and yet they are supposed to ignore Satan, order him leave, and never ever invite him to any party! We would ground our children if they ever treated another person the way we are telling them to treat Satan. No wonder they're confused! This must be the reason so many of our young people are on drugs, fornicating and staying out past curfew. They don't want to hurt Satan's feelings! Imagine the following scenario: A teenage girl comes home at 2 a.m. and explains to her furious mother that while at her best friends house, another group of friends came over and picked them up to go visit even more friends, and while with this group of friends who were visiting friends, other friends called and wanted them to come over. So the teenager gets into a car with her best friend and their other friends and their friends and while en route to visit the latest group of friends, the best friends dad calls and tells his daughter that she has to go home, so the friend that is driving has to turn the car around and go drop off the best friend. Then, as soon as they are back on the road and almost to their original destination, the friend who was driving suddenly noticed the time and since they were almost to the latest friends house, the friend with the car decided to drop all the other friends off and just leave them there in order to get herself home on time. (Just as a side note, this is exactly the type of explanation I get from one of my own teenage daughters when she is out past her curfew.) The teenager continues to explain how they had waited and waited for the parents of one of the friends to show up and give each of them a ride home but as it turned out, they never showed up because those parents had left town the day before and weren't due back until three days later. Finally, the teenage girl's mother speaks up and asks a series of important questions beginning with "Why didn't you call me?"
"Because nobody had a phone except Satan, and he wouldn't let me use his." The girl replies
"Satan!? You were with Satan??" exclaims the mother in horror and disbelief, "How many times have I told you that you are never to go anywhere with Satan!" The girl realizes her mistake and immediately tries to defend him, "What has Satan ever done to you? Geeze mom, your sooo judgemental!"
"Every time you are with him, you do something stupid!" The mother scolds,
"Like what?" demands the girl,
"Like getting into a car after midnight with a group of kids that I've never met and staying out until two in the morning without so much as a phone call!"
" I told you that nobody had a phone!"
"Satan had a phone, but he wouldn't let you use it!!"
"He didn't want anyone to use up all his minutes!"
"He is not the kind of guy I want you hanging around with!"
"Because of that?"
"Because he's fowl mouthed, bad tempered and violent! And besides, Terlene Harris told me that he talked Alice Henry into fornicating with that Freddy Gibson and Freddy got her pregnant!"
''Freddy almost got her pregnant." The teenager corrects,
"How do you almost get someone pregnant? There is no such thing as almost being pregnant, you either are or you aren't! They don't have a pregnancy test with a window for a 'yes', a ' no' or an 'almost' !"
"So what am I supposed to do, hurt Satan's feelings? You may be able to do that but I can't!"
"Oh for Pete's sake, it's Satan! He doesn't have feelings!"
The irony of this is that we mother's really aren't sure of whether or not Satan has feelings. In fact, for most of us who have a natural tendency toward nurturing, we may have actually worried about Satan's feelings, cared about them and had no desire to cause him more misery than he already has. Take Helen Marshall for example; Satan always shows up at Helen's house about the same time every month, like clock work. She could just be doing the dishes and minding her business when Satan comes over and begins pointing out all the work Helen does around the house with barely a word of thanks from her family. Helen begins to see some truth in this and is suddenly seized with an overpowering urge to go find her husband and kick him for what he will assume is no apparent reason. Instead of just getting a backbone and demanding Satan leave her and her family alone, she only blushes at Satan's suggestions and responds shyly with "Oh Satan, you silly goose, why would I want to hurt my sweet husband?" Later we discover that it's women like Helen who end up not only kicking but killing they're poor husbands when something as basic as a midol would have done the trick without a prison sentence attached.
I suppose this is one of the many reasons that no one really likes Satan. He has been involved in more scandals and life sentences than anyone could count, he defrauds and con's people, disrupts relationships and encourages my husband to pass gas in the car on the freeway in a snowstorm, thereby ensuring there will be no escape for those of us who have had the misfortune of being born with a nose. Does Satan get a bad rap? No, but it's the little things he does that bother us the most. When you lose your car key's, you can bet Satan had something to do with it. When you trip on the sidewalk in front of someone you want to impress, it's Satan. When you have finally saved up enough money to retire and then find out you need a triple bypass, Satan! The only good news about Satan is that when we are really backed into a corner, Satan serves as a perfectly acceptable scapegoat. And he doesn't smell like tomato soup.

The grass is always greener over the Toilet tank

The next lesson for today comes from my Uncle, a very dignified man. Polished, handsome and well educated, he recently retired from his position as an economics professor at a prominent University. Think of him in an Indiana Jones sort of way. His first love has always been geology. He loves rocks. But, like Professor Jones, he chose to pursue a career in teaching rather than travel the globe in pursuit of rocky adventures. But also like Indiana, adventure seemed to find him.
Now, I'm not sure my Uncle would want his reputation as a competent professional to be ruffled by using his real name. He does in fact have many associations with other highly regarded individuals. So, out of respect for my Uncle, I will call him "Nancy".
 Nancy was traveling some years ago, along with his wife and my parents, to a family reunion. Seeing as they had been in the car for some time, they decided it was time to stop at a gas station. After gassing up and such, they thought it best to take advantage of the restrooms while the opportunity was there. After a few minutes, everyone returned to the car except for Nancy. They waited and waited for him, and after a while thought that maybe somebody should go in and find him to see if he was alright. Just as they were about to do that, Nancy returned to the car. He was red in the face and refused to give any explanation as to what took him so long. They traveled on and some hours later, arrived at a relatives home for the reunion. Later that night after some prodding, Nancy finally divulged his restroom secrets.
He told the others that he had gone into a stall and locked the door. When he was ready to leave, he tried the stall door, but it wouldn't open. Making sure it was unlocked, he tried again and again to open the door but to no avail. He finally looked over his options. He called for help but the room was empty. Then he thought to crawl under the door but for some reason decided against it. After all his failed attempts to free himself from his toilet prison, he finally decided that he had no choice but to climb over the stall. He stood up on the toilet, got his footing on the toilet paper holder and threw a leg over the stall door as one would if he were about to mount a saddle, only not quite making it. With one leg over the top of the door and both hands clasped tightly to it, the weight of his body caused the door to swing open, just as another guy walked into the bathroom. He'd been trying to open the door the wrong way but didn't realize that until he was ontop of the door, riding it like a horse while some guy stood there and watched.
Uh hu. True story.

Never close your eyes while on a treadmill

There is a particularly important tip that I will give you today: Never close your eyes while still on a treadmill. It is by sad experience that I learned this embarrassing lesson. You see, one fine day while at the gym, I was running on the treadmill. Anyone who has actually done this knows that after running at a good clip for awhile, you begin to sweat and may become tired. This was the case for me that day. I had been running for about thirty minutes and I still had five or so minutes left on the clock. The timer was ticking away more and more slowly it seemed. I tried to distract myself by watching the guy next to me who had come into the gym and gotten on a treadmill wearing what looked like lederhosen (those short German overalls with the suspenders), a big straw hat, hiking boots and a walking stick. He must have been about forty years old, but he had a wiry gray ZZ top-ish beard that didn't end until it reached his navel. Quite honestly, he looked like the roaming Gnome.
Now, as grateful as I am in cases like this for such a distraction, the traveling Gnome didn't keep my attention for very long. Images of the Gnome's life had flashed through my head rather quickly (he had a wife and two children, they lived in a tree somewhere, or maybe in a van down by the river, they ate porridge that could be left in a pot for up to nine days, they scheduled exactly what time they would eat their cheese, their only toiletries consisted of a shovel and some really big leaves, etc.) but the images were gone as soon as my body decided it could just not go any longer. With only two minutes left on the timer, I was determined to go the length. I mean, what if this were not just a run on a treadmill but a run for my life? What if I were being chased by aliens or a man with a bloody machete? Would I not run the two minute distance to safety? Yes, we all would. So in a final exhausted effort to finish the race, I decided not to look at the clock and focus on the time, but rather, close my eyes. I don't know. I just don't know why I did that because as soon as I did it I regretted the decision. My head got instantly dizzy and the earth began to spin. I stumbled backwards and realized I was about to either go down or hit the wall behind me with incredible force, so I threw my arms out to catch myself- screaming "Mommy!" out loud- and in one totally ungraceful movement, attempted to jump up on the sideboards and grab the handles. I got one foot secured okay but the other one was dragged behind me a bit and it took all my strength to lift it up and slap it on the side board to safety as it twisted and flipped and nearly kicked me in the butt. finally secure, I found myself straddled in a somewhat squatted position over the belt of the treadmill that continued to whir along beneath me while I white-knuckled the handles. I looked like an idiot of course, but trying to maintain some form of dignity I smiled like a geek at the roaming Gnome who was looking at me as if I were the weirdo of the day. None the less I stayed there like that just smiling at him for a while, then eventually I turned off the treadmill, waited for it to completely stop, gathered my things and whistled my way out of the building.
There are many important lessons to be learned from this. First, it's important that we exercise caution whenever we close our eyes while in motion, and second; whenever you see someone you think is really weird, chances are they are thinking the same thing about you.

The African with swan flu

Our oldest daughter Briti is very bright, most of the time. She works as an office manager and wants to start school in the fall and become a nurse. She will be a great nurse, once she learns a few basic terms. This is the daughter who wanted me to kill the giant spider, as you may recall from a previous post. To continue on that theme for a moment, after reading that post the other day, Briti informed me that all she really wanted me to do (rather than simply kill the giant spider) was "walk" her down the stairs. "What would walking you down the stairs have done?" I questioned her,
"I would have felt safer." She replied,
"Because I was there to hold your hand?" I asked,
"No, I didn't need you to hold my hand." She said,
"Then exactly how did you picture we would walk down the stairs together, link arms?" said I,
"No. I thought you would go first." She muttered under her breath,
"What? Go first! So I could kill the spider with my bare feet?" I asked in surprise,
"Mothers are supposed to sacrifice their lives for their children." She tells me,
" I only lay down my life for people who don't have arms and legs." I say,
"I didn't want the spider to bite me, I'd get a disease and die."
"Spiders don't spread diseases," I tell her, "They poison you."
"Well being bitten by a poisonous spider probably feels just like the swan flu." She informs me.
"The swan flu? What's the swan flu?"
"Isn't that what everybody is dying of now? Like the bird flu?"
"You mean the Swine flu?"
"What's swine? Is that pigs or a birds?" She asks
I stare at her.
"Hi." I begin, "You don't know what a swine is?"
"I thought it was the swan flu, like the rest of those birds with the flu." she explains.
"What?" by now I'm laughing,
"Aren't swans birds?" she asks,
"Yes daughter, they are of the bird family."
"Then what's a swine? Is it swan or swine when there's more than one? Do you say 'A family of swan' ? Like Moose, do you say meese or moose or moose's? Or mice?''
I can't answer her because I am laughing so hard.
"Mom! I'm serious! You don't want me to look dumb do you? You want me to know the right way to pronounce things don't you?"
"Oh, Briti." I sigh,
" And by the way, " she begins another question, " What's an apparition?"
"An apparition?"
"Yea, you said on your blog that I stand over you like an apparition." She says,
"Oh, it's a ghost, a spirit." I explain to her.
" Oh, okay. I thought it was some type of native, like an African."

Kathy Lee Gifford, please stay off the space shuttle

My husband Doug is mostly deaf in one ear, the result of a damaged ear drum when he was a kid. Despite this hearing loss, he refuses to do anything about it and insists that he can hear everything perfectly with the exception of the high-pitched female voice when she is in "nag-mode" as he calls it. I have dealt with Doug's handicap as best I can, however, it does create somewhat of a communication barrier at times. For example; Several months ago my mother called to tell me she had purchased some new drawer pulls and had several left over she was willing to give me if I needed them. I told her I didn't need them and we hung up."Who was that?" Asks Doug, who was sitting next to me,
"My Mom" I say,
"What did she need?" asks Doug,
"She wanted to know if I wanted any drawer pulls" I tell him,
"Mayo?" Doug asks, confused, "was she planning to make you a sandwich?"
This is when I usually just stare at him for a long time and then say something like; "How did you get 'mayo' out of that? DRAWER PULLS. Sheesh. You are so deaf..."
"What?" he responds, and gives me a sly grin.
These episodes are not uncommon. In fact, one morning as the family was eating breakfast, I had flipped on the T.V. and turned to the 'today' show. Kathy Lee Gifford was just being introduced as a new hostess for the show when Doug came into the kitchen,
"Hey," he says, "It's Kathy Lee Gifford, what's she doing these days?"
Me: "She's now on the Today show."
Doug: "She fell!? How'd she fall?"
Me: (louder this time) "She's now on the Today show."
Doug: "She fell off the space shuttle? What's she doing on the space shuttle?"
Six year old Suzannah: "I have pooh in my undies."
Me:"pooh in your undies?"
Suzannah:"Not the kind that eats honey, the kind that is brown and comes out of your b-"
Me interrupting:"Okay-"
Ten year old Brooks: "HAhhhaaahaaahaa!"
Teenage Dallas: "What?"
Doug: "What?"
Me: staring at Doug
Doug: Turning up the T.V. to find out how Kathy Lee fell off the space shuttle.

If not a creature is stirring, call 911

My teenage girls are mostly nocturnal creatures and therefore have the idea that if they are awake, I should be willing to be awake also, in order to cater to their every question or need, no matter how ridiculous. According to them, I don't need sleep or food. Throw my husband, our ten year old son and six year old daughter in the mix, and we have ourselves a family full of people who think I am a robot.
A typical summer night at our house goes something like this: sleep on the roof for all I care, but I'm going to bed. The end. After years of wrangling kids into bed at a certain time and place, I have mostly given up. The teenagers will have none of that and as a result, the six and ten year old don't ever want to go to bed either. I still insist on getting the youngest into pajamas and such, but what comes next depends entirely upon how tired I am. If I am really tired and the youngest puts up a fuss, she'll have to fall asleep on the couch and the mother has to wake up an hour or so later and carry her to bed.
The hidden joy of this interruption of my sleep is that it 's not the only interruption. I will attempt to demonstrate this:
I am so tired my eyes have fused together and I can no longer see, so I go to bed, leaving the six year old on the couch with a blanket and a movie, and the basement full of teenagers and their friends. (Mind you, it is the middle of the summer so I am much more lax about all this than I would be otherwise.)  Around midnight I wake up to the noise of the t.v. and get up to turn it off and carry the little daughter to bed. The basement is quiet so I assume everyone went home. I get back in bed and fall into a deep, deep sleep. Around 1 a.m. , I am awakened by a harsh whisper; "mmmohhhmm?"
I open my eye. (Remember, my eyes have fused together so I only have one weird eye, and it's blurry.) "who are you?" I ask, startled.
"It's me" says daughter #3 (there are four of these daughters).
"take off the mask" I tell her
"what mask?" she asks
"That Lion mask" I say, grabbing and pulling at her face.
"mmmohhhmmm!" she tries to whisper, " I'm not wearing a mask!"
"Oh. What do you need?"
"I'm bored"
"What!? Your bored?"
"No, I mean, I'm not tired. I can't sleep."
"You woke me up to tell me that?"
"Wull, what should I do?"
"Well, I could knock you out cold, how's that idea?"
"Uh!... Just never mind then. Geez." and with that she leaves the room.
Thirty minutes later, a finger pokes at me. "Mom" Daughter #2 whispers
"Uugh." I reply
"I'm home"
"So what. I didn't know you were gone." I go back to sleep.
Fifteen minutes later Doug wakes me up, "Honey...Steph..."
"phwhaat." half my face is buried in the pillow.
"It smells like dog poop. Has the dog been in here?"
"Maybe it's your breath blowing back in your face." I tell him, and turn over.
Some time later, around 4:30 a.m., daughter #1 is standing over me like an apparition. It scares the living snot out of me. "What the blast are you doing?!!" I scold.
"There's a huge spider on the stairs!"
"So kill it!"
"Mom! No, I'm scared!"
"Oh for pete's sake!" (My mom always used to say that, too.) I throw the covers off and storm out into the hall. D-1 follows me to the stairs, explaining the gigantic nature of the beast I'm supposed to kill on her behalf. It's eye's had fangs, it's legs had fangs, it's fangs had fangs. "If it's so big," I say, not seeing it, "then where is it?"
"It was just here!"
"well It must have decided to wait for you in your bed."
"That's not funny!"
"I thought it was funny."
"You want your daughter to be eaten by a spider named Sasquatch?
"Yes."
"What?! Mom!"
"Maybe then I'd get some sleep."
"Mom, kill the spider!"
"There is no stinking spider!"
"It was right here! It's just hiding"
"Then move out. The spider can't hurt you if you live far far away."
"You are being so rude to me!"
"You are twenty-one years old! What will you do when your forty, call me to come over and kill all your spiders at all hours of the night?"
"yes."
"I'm going to bed."
"Mom! No! Please don't leave me here alone with sasquatch!"
"Sleep on the roof." I tell her. I make it back to bed before sunrise and snuggle up under the soft down comforter. Ohhh, to be in my own bed. I love my bed. My aching muscles kiss the fluffy matress, my weary head sinks into the pillow. I'm home. I close my eyes, bliss. The only sound in the house is the soft hum of the air conditioner and the obnoxious "Ehh.Ehh.Ehh" of Doug's cell phone alarm...( For more information about cell phone alarms, please refer to my last post.)

Deaf men wear plaid pajamas

It's Sunday, and since we don't have an early church meeting this morning I was enjoying a peaceful slumber. The only sound in the house was the soft hum of the air conditioning and the obnoxious "Ehh!Ehh!Ehh!" of Doug's cell phone alarm. Now, this happens every morning at around 6 a.m., and though I try to just follow Doug's lead and ignore the stinking thing, (because we really don't have to get up at 6 during the summer) after about thirty minutes it becomes impossible to ignore and I want to pop Doug on the head. I finally roll over and look at Doug for a long time with a perplexed expression. He doesn't feel the weight of my glare and just snores on as though he had not a care in the world. "Can you not hear that?" I finally ask. He doesn't respond
"Douglas" I say, louder.
"Hu?"
"Can you not hear that!?"
"Hear what?"
"Your dumb alarm!"
"Where is it?" He asks.
Now, this is what I just don't understand. He sets the alarm on his phone to go off at a time when he absolutely knows he isn't getting up, then he can't remember where he put his phone although it must be somewhere close because I can hear it. It's usually in his pants pocket, which have been left on the floor or in the closet somewhere but sometimes it's on the table right next to his side of the bed. Either way, he can't ever hear it and I always can.
"It's probably in your pants pocket again, it sounds a little muffled." I tell him.
He lays there for an eternally long time with his arm draped over his head, the alarm is still going. I think he's never gonna move. "Doug." I say. No response. "Douglas!"
"Hu?"
"For pete's sake man! Turn off your blasted alarm before I kill you!"
"Woman!" He says in his teasing voice and then slowly, slowly, so slowly you'd think he was a hundred years old,he sits up, wipes his sleepy eyeballs, pulls the blankets aside, dangles one leg over the side of the bed, waits, waits, waits,dangles the other leg over the side of the bed, waits,waits,waits, touches a big toe to the carpet...the alarm is still going off "Ehh!Ehh!Ehh!Ehh!"
"AARRGGH!" I yell as I jump out of bed. In a flash I am over on his side. I grab his pants from off the floor and cram my hand in the pocket, fish out the phone, fling it open and hit the button. Silent, I thrust the phone toward Doug who has just finished applying a second toe to the floor. He blinks at me, smiles, and gets back into bed. I stand there wide awake. "Good morning..." I say in a gruff voice.
"Goodnight my love, I love you." he says, and falls asleep.
I guess I'll take a shower.