Here we go again. Just when I thought it was safe to go to sleep and stay asleep, I was once again very rudely awakened. Last night around midnight, one of the many daughters in this house decided that she needed to wake me up in order to ask me a very important question: "Are the tortillas in the fridge still good?"
Me: "Are you kidding me?"
Daughter: "Well, I looked at the expiration date on the package, but it was blurry."
Me: " What?"
Daughter: "I couldn't tell what it said, I don't have my contacts in."
Me: "That means it's way too late to be eating tortillas."
Daughter:"Can I go to the store to buy more?"
Me: " You mean go to the store for tortillas right now?"
Daughter: " I need tortillas."
Me: "Were you planning to make pajamas out of them?"
Daughter: "Mom..."
Me: "Daughter..."
Daughter: "Mmahomm."
Me: "Dauhhhghter."
Daughter: "Mom, yes or no?"
Me: "Yes or no what?"
Daughter: "What?"
Me: "Yes or no what?!"
Daughter: "Yes or no can I go to the store?"
Doug: "NO! No, you cannot go to the store, you cannot go anywhere and you cannot wake your mother and me up to ask about tortillas!"
Daughter: "Dad, this has nothing to do with you, I was asking mom."
Me: "Yeah Doug, this has nothing to do with you. This ridiculous conversation is just for mothers and daughters. You know nothing about the condition of a tortilla."
Doug: "Thank goodness."
Daughter: "Whatever, I'll just eat something else."
Me: "Why aren't you out hunting humans with the rest of the Vampires? They're the only ones who eat this late."
Daughter: "I wanted Mexican food." She says, and leaves the room.
Me: "Holy cow! I will never sleep in this house!"
Doug: " It smells like dog poop."
Me: "Oh for Pete's sake. Why do you think everything smells like dog poop? Did you brush your teeth?"
Doug: "What!? The dog pee'd on the sheets?!"
Me: "That is not what I said."
Doug: "Who's dead?"
Me: "Douglas!Go to sleep! You are so deaf! Geeze!"
Doug: "It doesn't smell like cheese, it smells like dog poop."
Me (laughing) : "You are sooo deaf."
Doug: "What?"
The end.
Thursday
Sunday
IDGIT-ITIS is not contagious
I imagine you must be wondering if I had run out of brilliant true stories to tell you, but alas, I have more than enough stories to fill a lifetime and so, here is yet another one.
This time I am going to take you back to many moons ago, way back to 1981 when I was just 13 years old. I guess it could have been '82 now that I think about it, but the older I make myself in this story the more idiotic I look to the outside world. Hmm. Wait...I suddenly realized that during the course of the writing of this blog all I have managed to do is make myself look incredibly idiotic so I suppose it matters not one bit whether I was 13 or 14 at the time this incident took place, as there would be many more times in my future life that I would have the opportunity to be ridiculous.
I must first preface by telling you that I was prompted to write about this incident when Doug brought home two (almost) new scooters last week that he had acquired through one of our tenants who no longer had a need for them. Doug, seeing that we have several teenagers, found it highly probable that someone at our house might want to ride them around town so he bought them. After expressions of glee by all the children still living at home, Doug took the younger ones across the street to the high school parking lot for a tutorial on proper riding. I wondered over later with the intention of just watching them but found myself on the back of one of the scooters-about to relive my experience from the early eighties which was the first and last time I have ever attempted to ride a motorcycle.
As a girl growing up with a bunch of brothers, I was forced to put up with all kinds of garbage, like being forced to learn how to ride dirt bikes. Well okay, 'forced' probably isn't quite the right word. Actually, I begged my older brother to teach me how to ride because I wanted to go out and experience for myself what seemed to drive the men in my family to near drunken excitement when it came to anything loud and possessing it's own motor.
With as little enthusiasm as he could muster, my older brother reluctantly took me out to the back yard to teach me the logistics of riding such a machine. There was alot to think about. The clutch had to be let out slowly while the gas had to be given gradually at the same time. I learned about shifting gears, where the brakes were etc. Finally I climbed on and kicked that puppy to life, extremely proud of myself for doing so on the first or second try. Then came the hard part. I kept killing the motor by letting the clutch out too fast and not giving it enough gas. Over and over I had to restart the bike while my increasingly impatient brother kept reminding me that the key was to slowly let off the clutch. I was fantastic at listening, because after that I just kept giving the bike lots of gas, revving up the engine and then letting the clutch out way too fast and killing the machine.
After about the seventy-fourth try, I was sure I had the concept down. I started up the bike and held on tight to the clutch, gave it a little gas, a little more, and then let out the clutch gradually, slowly. I gassed it a bit more, one hand on the gas, one hand on the clutch, letting it out slow, feet in position, ready to shift...all at once I got brave and let the clutch out way too fast while giving it way too much gas. The bike sputtered but shot forward and took off like a rocket. I had finally done it, the bike was moving fast, the only problem this time was that I was no longer on the bike. My hands were still holding tight to the handlebars, inadvertently pulling on the gas, but the rest of my body was running wildly behind it trying to keep up, screaming frantically while my brother stood by yelling "Let go of the gas you idgit!"
Around and around the backyard I ran, holding onto the bike for all I was worth, screaming "Ah! Ah! Ah!Ah!" in short little bursts of terror, and all that time my brother just kept yelling at me to let go of the gas. A simple thing really, to let go of the gas. The bike would just stop moving then. But I just could not do this no matter how I tried. You see, after careful analyzation of this procedure, it has dawned on me that when a person is truly terrified, the tendency seems to be that they tense up, therefore causing ones hands to ball into fists. I believe this to be the phenomena that I experienced that day, so I really couldn't help it. In fact, the more frightened I became, the more my hands would tighten up and the faster the bike would go until I was screaming at a fevered pitch, unable to keep my wildly running legs up to speed. I finally let go of the bike out of sheer exhaustion. It crashed into the back of the house and fell over like a dead dog. Needless to say, my desire to ride a motorcycle never resurfaced and my brother called me an idgit (whatever that meant) for the next two months. So, the other day when I found myself on the back of one of the new scooters, I was reminded of this experience when I suddenly realized that I was headed straight for a fence. I was able to stop myself just in time but I realized with horror that I was again experiencing the same strange problem I had in my youth which I have now named "idgit-itis". Apparently I am the only person in the U.S who suffers from this dreaded disease. Lucky me.
P.S. - My brother has just informed me that I failed to spell the word 'idgit' correctly so I have gone back and edited that word, but I would also like to tell my brother that I did a spell check on that word and it was not a word that is recognized by the spell checking system, which simply tells me that people who know how to spell bad words are dumb. The end.
This time I am going to take you back to many moons ago, way back to 1981 when I was just 13 years old. I guess it could have been '82 now that I think about it, but the older I make myself in this story the more idiotic I look to the outside world. Hmm. Wait...I suddenly realized that during the course of the writing of this blog all I have managed to do is make myself look incredibly idiotic so I suppose it matters not one bit whether I was 13 or 14 at the time this incident took place, as there would be many more times in my future life that I would have the opportunity to be ridiculous.
I must first preface by telling you that I was prompted to write about this incident when Doug brought home two (almost) new scooters last week that he had acquired through one of our tenants who no longer had a need for them. Doug, seeing that we have several teenagers, found it highly probable that someone at our house might want to ride them around town so he bought them. After expressions of glee by all the children still living at home, Doug took the younger ones across the street to the high school parking lot for a tutorial on proper riding. I wondered over later with the intention of just watching them but found myself on the back of one of the scooters-about to relive my experience from the early eighties which was the first and last time I have ever attempted to ride a motorcycle.
As a girl growing up with a bunch of brothers, I was forced to put up with all kinds of garbage, like being forced to learn how to ride dirt bikes. Well okay, 'forced' probably isn't quite the right word. Actually, I begged my older brother to teach me how to ride because I wanted to go out and experience for myself what seemed to drive the men in my family to near drunken excitement when it came to anything loud and possessing it's own motor.
With as little enthusiasm as he could muster, my older brother reluctantly took me out to the back yard to teach me the logistics of riding such a machine. There was alot to think about. The clutch had to be let out slowly while the gas had to be given gradually at the same time. I learned about shifting gears, where the brakes were etc. Finally I climbed on and kicked that puppy to life, extremely proud of myself for doing so on the first or second try. Then came the hard part. I kept killing the motor by letting the clutch out too fast and not giving it enough gas. Over and over I had to restart the bike while my increasingly impatient brother kept reminding me that the key was to slowly let off the clutch. I was fantastic at listening, because after that I just kept giving the bike lots of gas, revving up the engine and then letting the clutch out way too fast and killing the machine.
After about the seventy-fourth try, I was sure I had the concept down. I started up the bike and held on tight to the clutch, gave it a little gas, a little more, and then let out the clutch gradually, slowly. I gassed it a bit more, one hand on the gas, one hand on the clutch, letting it out slow, feet in position, ready to shift...all at once I got brave and let the clutch out way too fast while giving it way too much gas. The bike sputtered but shot forward and took off like a rocket. I had finally done it, the bike was moving fast, the only problem this time was that I was no longer on the bike. My hands were still holding tight to the handlebars, inadvertently pulling on the gas, but the rest of my body was running wildly behind it trying to keep up, screaming frantically while my brother stood by yelling "Let go of the gas you idgit!"
Around and around the backyard I ran, holding onto the bike for all I was worth, screaming "Ah! Ah! Ah!Ah!" in short little bursts of terror, and all that time my brother just kept yelling at me to let go of the gas. A simple thing really, to let go of the gas. The bike would just stop moving then. But I just could not do this no matter how I tried. You see, after careful analyzation of this procedure, it has dawned on me that when a person is truly terrified, the tendency seems to be that they tense up, therefore causing ones hands to ball into fists. I believe this to be the phenomena that I experienced that day, so I really couldn't help it. In fact, the more frightened I became, the more my hands would tighten up and the faster the bike would go until I was screaming at a fevered pitch, unable to keep my wildly running legs up to speed. I finally let go of the bike out of sheer exhaustion. It crashed into the back of the house and fell over like a dead dog. Needless to say, my desire to ride a motorcycle never resurfaced and my brother called me an idgit (whatever that meant) for the next two months. So, the other day when I found myself on the back of one of the new scooters, I was reminded of this experience when I suddenly realized that I was headed straight for a fence. I was able to stop myself just in time but I realized with horror that I was again experiencing the same strange problem I had in my youth which I have now named "idgit-itis". Apparently I am the only person in the U.S who suffers from this dreaded disease. Lucky me.
P.S. - My brother has just informed me that I failed to spell the word 'idgit' correctly so I have gone back and edited that word, but I would also like to tell my brother that I did a spell check on that word and it was not a word that is recognized by the spell checking system, which simply tells me that people who know how to spell bad words are dumb. The end.
Friday
The trouble with saving people's lives is that they might return the favor.
If we are to really get acquainted, there are a few things you need to know about my husband. First, he is twelve years my senior (which does not give him the right to boss me, but that's a story for another time.) I was just 21 years old when we got married. But I saw this tall, handsome guy at the gym one day and that was it, I was done.
The next thing you should know about Doug is that he'd already had a brief encounter with marriage before we'd ever met, bless his heart. His first marriage lasted less than five years, but produced a son that made the whole thing worth while. The most unfortunate part of his first marriage, for me anyway, is that it took quite awhile for the word to get out among his peers that he was no longer married to his former wife. Despite the fact that there were six years between his divorce and the time that we met, there were still those few people who knew Doug when he was married to his first wife that had never received the news that they'd divorced. You need to understand that Doug knows almost everybody on planet Earth. This I'm quite sure, is because he is more personable and friendly than anyone I've ever known. I'm not kidding when I say that we can't enter a store, go to a movie, a restaurant or on vacation to Florida without Doug running into someone he knows well enough to keep all of us waiting while they chit-chat. It's become the family joke, even my mother teases him about it.
Sometimes Doug runs into an old friend and gets so involved in catching up that he neglects to introduce me. I hate this because it usually forces me to introduce myself, which I will do rather than stand there like some stranger who's just invited herself to listen in on someones conversation. It wasn't this way when we were first married. It took certain experiences before I realized that if Doug wasn't going to tell people who I was, then I had to do it myself.
If you have been keeping up, you'll remember that I saved Doug's life one night. Well as luck would have it, while I was pregnant with a subsequent child, Doug got to return the favor.
You see, I was probably about seven months pregnant when one day we thought it would be nice to take the kids out for pizza. Now prepare yourselves, because we are going to enter a restaurant which means Doug will be running into someone he knows and this incident will lead to something very dreadful.
We walked into the restaurant and almost immediately Doug sees a long lost friend. They get talking and Doug forgets that I'm even there. I felt extra dumb because being seven months pregnant, you automatically feel ugly and fragile. This is a time when an otherwise assertive woman finds herself very uncomfortable being assertive, so rather than introduce myself I just walked away to attend to the children. I ordered the pizza, got the kids settled and kept looking over at Doug who had slowly found his way to the table while still yapping on with his buddy- who's family was seated across from us. These two were deeply engrossed in their conversation, but every time I looked up, Doug's friend would look at me with a most perplexed expression and it finally dawned on me what this guy must be wondering. This guy had known Doug when he was married to Allison and he hadn't seen him since before their divorce years earlier. He had no idea who I was. Imagine what this must have looked like to him, Doug there with this young pregnant woman and three little girls, clearly not Allison and their son. He didn't know what to think. When there was a slight break in the conversation and Doug finally turned around, I gave him the devil about it. "Why didn't you introduce me so this guy knows that I'm your wife? He keeps looking at me funny!" I whispered. Doug looked over and Saw his friend (We'll call him Dean) involved with his own family. "Well, he's busy with his family now." Doug says, not wanting to interrupt them. The pizza comes but Dean starts talking to Doug from across the table again, so Doug turns his attention away from us and starts into another lengthy discussion, again not taking the time to introduce me or his family. I'm starting to get upset and a little embarrassed as I see that Dean is obviously looking at me with eager anticipation, waiting for Doug to at last put his curiosity at rest. This is when things really get ugly. In a huff I nudge at Doug's leg under the table, a reminder that I am there and he needs to acknowledge it out loud. He only turns long enough to glance at me, and then responds to Dean's remark with a hearty laugh. The reminiscence goes on without my involvement and by now I am fuming. I pick up a slice of pizza and take a huge bite out of it, chopping down on it in anger. It's way too big, and there is far too much cheese to swallow and it goes down my throat in a lump and stays lodged there. I try to swallow hard, but it won't go down. It only takes a minute for me to realize that I am no longer able to breathe and I begin to panic. I stretch out my neck and try to spit it out, but it's stuck good. I try to cough, nothing. No sound even comes out of my mouth. I am choking, and all the while my husband is going on and on laughing and talking to his friend, paying no attention at all to what's happening right under his nose. I grab my throat in the "universal" choking sign and slide my chair back, finally catching the attention of my children. They start calling out "Dad!" while I begin slapping my hand down on the table to get him to notice me. I get the attention of Dean, who then points out to Doug that I am turning blue. Finally catching his attention, Doug jumps up and moves quickly around the table toward me. By now tears are streaming down my face. Doug gets behind me and locks his arms around my rib cage, under my chest and just above my pregnant belly. He gives me a squeeze, but nothing comes up. Another, nothing. The third time, he really puts some effort into it and pulls his fists hard up under my chest. The air forces the soggy pizza up from my throat and hurls it onto the table in front of us with a thud. Humiliated, I gasp for air and collapse back into the chair. I reach for a napkin to wipe my mouth and when I look up, I see the stares of nearly everyone in the room which just embarrasses me even more. I just want to get my children and go home. The mushy soggy mass that had been lodged in my throat was now in the middle of the table. Doug leans over my chair, "You okay?" he asks, putting a hand on my shoulder. I'm so full of emotions and hormones I can barley speak but I manage to spit out a few raspy words under my breath; "You make me sit here like a dummy while you yammer on with your long lost boyfriend who has no idea that you are remarried and you don't even bother to introduce me. Now everyone in here is looking at me and that gross wad of pizza. I'm a complete spectacle with snot and tears running down my face but your friend still has no idea who I am!" Doug looks up and realizes that Dean is watching us and It finally occurs to him that I'm right. "By the way Dean," he says, pointing at me, "this is my wife, Stephanie."
The next thing you should know about Doug is that he'd already had a brief encounter with marriage before we'd ever met, bless his heart. His first marriage lasted less than five years, but produced a son that made the whole thing worth while. The most unfortunate part of his first marriage, for me anyway, is that it took quite awhile for the word to get out among his peers that he was no longer married to his former wife. Despite the fact that there were six years between his divorce and the time that we met, there were still those few people who knew Doug when he was married to his first wife that had never received the news that they'd divorced. You need to understand that Doug knows almost everybody on planet Earth. This I'm quite sure, is because he is more personable and friendly than anyone I've ever known. I'm not kidding when I say that we can't enter a store, go to a movie, a restaurant or on vacation to Florida without Doug running into someone he knows well enough to keep all of us waiting while they chit-chat. It's become the family joke, even my mother teases him about it.
Sometimes Doug runs into an old friend and gets so involved in catching up that he neglects to introduce me. I hate this because it usually forces me to introduce myself, which I will do rather than stand there like some stranger who's just invited herself to listen in on someones conversation. It wasn't this way when we were first married. It took certain experiences before I realized that if Doug wasn't going to tell people who I was, then I had to do it myself.
If you have been keeping up, you'll remember that I saved Doug's life one night. Well as luck would have it, while I was pregnant with a subsequent child, Doug got to return the favor.
You see, I was probably about seven months pregnant when one day we thought it would be nice to take the kids out for pizza. Now prepare yourselves, because we are going to enter a restaurant which means Doug will be running into someone he knows and this incident will lead to something very dreadful.
We walked into the restaurant and almost immediately Doug sees a long lost friend. They get talking and Doug forgets that I'm even there. I felt extra dumb because being seven months pregnant, you automatically feel ugly and fragile. This is a time when an otherwise assertive woman finds herself very uncomfortable being assertive, so rather than introduce myself I just walked away to attend to the children. I ordered the pizza, got the kids settled and kept looking over at Doug who had slowly found his way to the table while still yapping on with his buddy- who's family was seated across from us. These two were deeply engrossed in their conversation, but every time I looked up, Doug's friend would look at me with a most perplexed expression and it finally dawned on me what this guy must be wondering. This guy had known Doug when he was married to Allison and he hadn't seen him since before their divorce years earlier. He had no idea who I was. Imagine what this must have looked like to him, Doug there with this young pregnant woman and three little girls, clearly not Allison and their son. He didn't know what to think. When there was a slight break in the conversation and Doug finally turned around, I gave him the devil about it. "Why didn't you introduce me so this guy knows that I'm your wife? He keeps looking at me funny!" I whispered. Doug looked over and Saw his friend (We'll call him Dean) involved with his own family. "Well, he's busy with his family now." Doug says, not wanting to interrupt them. The pizza comes but Dean starts talking to Doug from across the table again, so Doug turns his attention away from us and starts into another lengthy discussion, again not taking the time to introduce me or his family. I'm starting to get upset and a little embarrassed as I see that Dean is obviously looking at me with eager anticipation, waiting for Doug to at last put his curiosity at rest. This is when things really get ugly. In a huff I nudge at Doug's leg under the table, a reminder that I am there and he needs to acknowledge it out loud. He only turns long enough to glance at me, and then responds to Dean's remark with a hearty laugh. The reminiscence goes on without my involvement and by now I am fuming. I pick up a slice of pizza and take a huge bite out of it, chopping down on it in anger. It's way too big, and there is far too much cheese to swallow and it goes down my throat in a lump and stays lodged there. I try to swallow hard, but it won't go down. It only takes a minute for me to realize that I am no longer able to breathe and I begin to panic. I stretch out my neck and try to spit it out, but it's stuck good. I try to cough, nothing. No sound even comes out of my mouth. I am choking, and all the while my husband is going on and on laughing and talking to his friend, paying no attention at all to what's happening right under his nose. I grab my throat in the "universal" choking sign and slide my chair back, finally catching the attention of my children. They start calling out "Dad!" while I begin slapping my hand down on the table to get him to notice me. I get the attention of Dean, who then points out to Doug that I am turning blue. Finally catching his attention, Doug jumps up and moves quickly around the table toward me. By now tears are streaming down my face. Doug gets behind me and locks his arms around my rib cage, under my chest and just above my pregnant belly. He gives me a squeeze, but nothing comes up. Another, nothing. The third time, he really puts some effort into it and pulls his fists hard up under my chest. The air forces the soggy pizza up from my throat and hurls it onto the table in front of us with a thud. Humiliated, I gasp for air and collapse back into the chair. I reach for a napkin to wipe my mouth and when I look up, I see the stares of nearly everyone in the room which just embarrasses me even more. I just want to get my children and go home. The mushy soggy mass that had been lodged in my throat was now in the middle of the table. Doug leans over my chair, "You okay?" he asks, putting a hand on my shoulder. I'm so full of emotions and hormones I can barley speak but I manage to spit out a few raspy words under my breath; "You make me sit here like a dummy while you yammer on with your long lost boyfriend who has no idea that you are remarried and you don't even bother to introduce me. Now everyone in here is looking at me and that gross wad of pizza. I'm a complete spectacle with snot and tears running down my face but your friend still has no idea who I am!" Doug looks up and realizes that Dean is watching us and It finally occurs to him that I'm right. "By the way Dean," he says, pointing at me, "this is my wife, Stephanie."
Monday
Superman couldn't fly either, if he was pregnant.
Just over 15 years ago I was very pregnant with daughter #3, and due to the fact that I'm virtually hip-less, my babies never had any choice but to stick way out front. This caused an array of problems for me, some obvious one's (like wearing two completely different shoes without knowing it) and some not so obvious, like finding it more difficult to save peoples lives.
I say this because if you have ever had the opportunity to save someones life, you will understand the complexities of performing such a task. First of all, when the opportunity to "save" someone arises, most of the time you are totally unprepared for it. Secondly, once you have had the chance to gather you're faculties and have become fully aware of the situation, you find yourself already right in the middle of it and realize that you have been working on auto-pilot without really thinking. This is what happened when I had to save Doug's life one night.
As you recall, I was super pregnant, like due in five minutes or something like that. It was late and we were getting ready to go to bed when Doug asked; "What was that joke your dad was telling you yesterday?"
"Just the one about the guy with a wooden eye who goes to a dance and see's a girl with a club foot, so he asks her if she wants to dance and she says 'would I! would I!' and he gets offended and calls her 'hare-lip, hare-lip'. " I tell him.
"What does a hare-lip have to do with it if she has a club foot?" Doug asks. "I don't know, maybe she was born with a cleft pallet." I say. "Huh. Why didn't he call her club foot?" Doug asks. "I don't know. It's dumb. Goodnight..." and with that we fell asleep.
Now, if you have read my other posts you are aware that nothing ever happens at our house unless it's the middle of the night, so much later on in the middle of the night, after I was completely asleep and not aware that Doug had gotten up for some reason, I was awakened by a thunderous crash. Anyone who knows Doug also knows he is 6 ft. 6 and not a little sissy boy. When he fell, the house almost came down. It was so loud the shock of it jolted me awake instantly. In less than a second my brain tallied up the facts: Doug was on the floor possibly having a heart attack, it was pitch black outside and my bladder was so full I had to consider running to the bathroom first. Luckily my auto-pilot kicked in and I shot like a dart from my side of the bed with super-human speed. I didn't actually get out of the bed because it seemed much more reasonable to just scamper on all fours from one side of the bed to the other. Walking is one of those things that pregnant women just become accustomed to not doing. I had gradually, over the course of nine months, found myself doing everything to avoid actually standing up, and this time was no different. I scrambled up and across the bed so fast I found myself actually gliding on my pregnant belly (which was now playing the role of a bowling ball) and as if I had no control over my limbs whatsoever, my arms flew straight out in front of me making me all the more aerodynamic, like superman, if you can believe that. It's just incredible how easy flying can be when you really put your back into it. I couldn't stop no matter what I did, and there was hardly time to come up with a good plan for a crash landing while still keeping the little passenger intact. All I really know is that I was sleeping, and then I was scampering, and then I was sliding, and then I was flying and it wasn't until I was in mid-air that I realized I was going to land (hard) on something, and that something was Doug- who's life I was supposed to be saving. All of the sudden time slowed way down and I was floating in mid-air for a moment, long enough to figure out that if I turned halfway really quick and pulled my knees up, I could at the very least save the life of my unborn child. So that's what I did. Twisting and tucking in mid-air, I landed on Doug who had simply gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom, stood up too quickly and gotten dizzy. Not but three minutes had passed from the time we were both in bed. Now we lay together in a heap on the floor, Doug's face squashed against my belly, me stretched across him sideways holding the knee I had used to break my fall. We lay there in the stillness, Doug's breathing labored simply because I was suffocating him with my baby fat. Finally, a muffled voice came from out of the darkness:
"What the H--- are you doing?!" Doug asked as pointedly as he could through squished lips, "I'm saving your life! What the H--- are you doing?" I responded. With those questions out of the way we continued to lay there, stunned into dumb silence. At last I found the strength to get up off my husband, who by now looked almost dead. "Are you gonna get up?" I asked once I was on my feet, staring down at his lifeless form. "Should I? Maybe I should just sleep on the floor." He said without moving.
"Fine. I'll throw you a pillow." My knee was beginning to swell up and turn purple. I limped over to the edge of the bed and sat down. "Do you think the neighbors heard you fall? " I asked him, examining my knee, "It sounded like a bomb hit."
"I tried to lean against the wall, but it was further away than I realized." He explained, still stretched out on the floor.
"Aren't you glad I was here to resuscitate you?" I joked.
"You should have just let me die."
"Why would I do that?"
"You could've collected the insurance and saved your knee."
"Oh, I would never just let you die, would I? " I waited for a response. "Would I?" I asked again. Doug's voice trailed up from the floor, "Club foot, club foot."
I say this because if you have ever had the opportunity to save someones life, you will understand the complexities of performing such a task. First of all, when the opportunity to "save" someone arises, most of the time you are totally unprepared for it. Secondly, once you have had the chance to gather you're faculties and have become fully aware of the situation, you find yourself already right in the middle of it and realize that you have been working on auto-pilot without really thinking. This is what happened when I had to save Doug's life one night.
As you recall, I was super pregnant, like due in five minutes or something like that. It was late and we were getting ready to go to bed when Doug asked; "What was that joke your dad was telling you yesterday?"
"Just the one about the guy with a wooden eye who goes to a dance and see's a girl with a club foot, so he asks her if she wants to dance and she says 'would I! would I!' and he gets offended and calls her 'hare-lip, hare-lip'. " I tell him.
"What does a hare-lip have to do with it if she has a club foot?" Doug asks. "I don't know, maybe she was born with a cleft pallet." I say. "Huh. Why didn't he call her club foot?" Doug asks. "I don't know. It's dumb. Goodnight..." and with that we fell asleep.
Now, if you have read my other posts you are aware that nothing ever happens at our house unless it's the middle of the night, so much later on in the middle of the night, after I was completely asleep and not aware that Doug had gotten up for some reason, I was awakened by a thunderous crash. Anyone who knows Doug also knows he is 6 ft. 6 and not a little sissy boy. When he fell, the house almost came down. It was so loud the shock of it jolted me awake instantly. In less than a second my brain tallied up the facts: Doug was on the floor possibly having a heart attack, it was pitch black outside and my bladder was so full I had to consider running to the bathroom first. Luckily my auto-pilot kicked in and I shot like a dart from my side of the bed with super-human speed. I didn't actually get out of the bed because it seemed much more reasonable to just scamper on all fours from one side of the bed to the other. Walking is one of those things that pregnant women just become accustomed to not doing. I had gradually, over the course of nine months, found myself doing everything to avoid actually standing up, and this time was no different. I scrambled up and across the bed so fast I found myself actually gliding on my pregnant belly (which was now playing the role of a bowling ball) and as if I had no control over my limbs whatsoever, my arms flew straight out in front of me making me all the more aerodynamic, like superman, if you can believe that. It's just incredible how easy flying can be when you really put your back into it. I couldn't stop no matter what I did, and there was hardly time to come up with a good plan for a crash landing while still keeping the little passenger intact. All I really know is that I was sleeping, and then I was scampering, and then I was sliding, and then I was flying and it wasn't until I was in mid-air that I realized I was going to land (hard) on something, and that something was Doug- who's life I was supposed to be saving. All of the sudden time slowed way down and I was floating in mid-air for a moment, long enough to figure out that if I turned halfway really quick and pulled my knees up, I could at the very least save the life of my unborn child. So that's what I did. Twisting and tucking in mid-air, I landed on Doug who had simply gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom, stood up too quickly and gotten dizzy. Not but three minutes had passed from the time we were both in bed. Now we lay together in a heap on the floor, Doug's face squashed against my belly, me stretched across him sideways holding the knee I had used to break my fall. We lay there in the stillness, Doug's breathing labored simply because I was suffocating him with my baby fat. Finally, a muffled voice came from out of the darkness:
"What the H--- are you doing?!" Doug asked as pointedly as he could through squished lips, "I'm saving your life! What the H--- are you doing?" I responded. With those questions out of the way we continued to lay there, stunned into dumb silence. At last I found the strength to get up off my husband, who by now looked almost dead. "Are you gonna get up?" I asked once I was on my feet, staring down at his lifeless form. "Should I? Maybe I should just sleep on the floor." He said without moving.
"Fine. I'll throw you a pillow." My knee was beginning to swell up and turn purple. I limped over to the edge of the bed and sat down. "Do you think the neighbors heard you fall? " I asked him, examining my knee, "It sounded like a bomb hit."
"I tried to lean against the wall, but it was further away than I realized." He explained, still stretched out on the floor.
"Aren't you glad I was here to resuscitate you?" I joked.
"You should have just let me die."
"Why would I do that?"
"You could've collected the insurance and saved your knee."
"Oh, I would never just let you die, would I? " I waited for a response. "Would I?" I asked again. Doug's voice trailed up from the floor, "Club foot, club foot."
Thursday
Beauty is in the eye of those who need glasses
Any woman who believes that beauty requires pain has never experienced the joy of just staying ugly. A few days ago, in an effort to keep up with the times in which we now live, I decided I should stop using regular razors and just go buy one of those new and improved techno-razors that everyone has been using forever. (Everyone except me, that is.) So, armed with the sharpest razor in the world, a can of tropical flavored shave gel and a guarantee that I would get the closest shave possible (according to the manufacturer) , I went into the bathroom and shaved my legs. Now, the promise that was made to me when I purchased this particular razor was that I would get the "closest" shave any razor has ever given to womankind, which is of course true, if your desire is to remove all the skin from your legs and yet still retain a fine layer of stubble. This razor did everything it promised; it shaved my legs and came very "close" to removing the hair also. But to make matters worse, I decided to be stupid and (thinking it would hide all the damage caused by the new razor) sprayed fake tan all over my legs which stung so bad it caused me to invent several new swear words that no one has ever heard before.
What is it with body hair that makes it attractive or unattractive? Leg hair is considered unattractive on women but not on men who, if they were to shave their legs, would be considered gay. Facial hair is like this also, women can't grow full beards and get away with it. Most people consider this ugly. Men who are capable of growing full beards are accepted among society as normal people and mostly not ugly unless they were ugly before they grew the beard, in which case facial hair doesn't really help.
My sister(who is married to the Secret Service as you will recall from a previous post) happens to think the Secret Service is more attractive (not that he wasn't before) with a beard. Apparently when the Secret Service grows a beard, he loses his boyish good looks and is instantly upgraded to "Hot". Put him in his classic black suit and tie, put a wire in his ear and throw on the government issued sunglasses and allegedly my sister melts like butter on a warm skillet.
Of course, all good things can become bad if they are overdone. ZZ-top's beards are not attractive unless you consider ZZ-top attractive, which I don't. Although, my Mother-in-law always maintained that there is a lid for every pot and this must be true as I have never known ZZ-top to have produced a music video that didn't feature women with long (neatly shaven) legs who seem to find those bearded dudes attractive. And, according to their song titled "Legs", ZZ-top ( ugly or not) suggest that they like women who have legs and know how to use them. This could only mean that people like me who shave with an ice pick still have a few things to learn about the proper care and function of legs.
The same idea that there is a lid for every pot holds especially true in cases like Abraham Boxwood (not his real name) , a man we were once acquainted with through business who had the biggest case of buck teeth I ever saw. One guy in the office mentioned that Abraham could've eaten corn through a fence with those teeth. They should have had their own zip code. His teeth would often arrive at business meetings five or ten minutes before Abraham and even begin taking notes for him. Abraham had a wife that we never had the opportunity to meet, but she must have found something about the poor guy attractive, though I'm not sure what it was. None the less, the saying "There's a lid for every pot" seems to hold true. A comforting thought to anyone out there who feels like a lid-less pot, or a pot-less lid for that matter. But there is another saying that I find to be the most comforting of all: Beauty is in the eye of those who need glasses.
What is it with body hair that makes it attractive or unattractive? Leg hair is considered unattractive on women but not on men who, if they were to shave their legs, would be considered gay. Facial hair is like this also, women can't grow full beards and get away with it. Most people consider this ugly. Men who are capable of growing full beards are accepted among society as normal people and mostly not ugly unless they were ugly before they grew the beard, in which case facial hair doesn't really help.
My sister(who is married to the Secret Service as you will recall from a previous post) happens to think the Secret Service is more attractive (not that he wasn't before) with a beard. Apparently when the Secret Service grows a beard, he loses his boyish good looks and is instantly upgraded to "Hot". Put him in his classic black suit and tie, put a wire in his ear and throw on the government issued sunglasses and allegedly my sister melts like butter on a warm skillet.
Of course, all good things can become bad if they are overdone. ZZ-top's beards are not attractive unless you consider ZZ-top attractive, which I don't. Although, my Mother-in-law always maintained that there is a lid for every pot and this must be true as I have never known ZZ-top to have produced a music video that didn't feature women with long (neatly shaven) legs who seem to find those bearded dudes attractive. And, according to their song titled "Legs", ZZ-top ( ugly or not) suggest that they like women who have legs and know how to use them. This could only mean that people like me who shave with an ice pick still have a few things to learn about the proper care and function of legs.
The same idea that there is a lid for every pot holds especially true in cases like Abraham Boxwood (not his real name) , a man we were once acquainted with through business who had the biggest case of buck teeth I ever saw. One guy in the office mentioned that Abraham could've eaten corn through a fence with those teeth. They should have had their own zip code. His teeth would often arrive at business meetings five or ten minutes before Abraham and even begin taking notes for him. Abraham had a wife that we never had the opportunity to meet, but she must have found something about the poor guy attractive, though I'm not sure what it was. None the less, the saying "There's a lid for every pot" seems to hold true. A comforting thought to anyone out there who feels like a lid-less pot, or a pot-less lid for that matter. But there is another saying that I find to be the most comforting of all: Beauty is in the eye of those who need glasses.
Tuesday
Attention all men named...
several weeks back, our daughter Briti got a call on her cell phone from a man with a very heavy accent. "A sphinctar?" he asked after she said hello,
"what?" she questioned back,
"A sphinctar?" he asked again, sounding cheery and upbeat.
"Excuse me?" came Briti's reply.
"As-sphinc-tar!" The man was clearly getting frustrated by then.
"A sphincter?" Briti asked, thinking this was surely a prank call.
"Es... Frrink... Der!!" The man finally enunciated much more slowly.
"Is Frank here?" Briti asked.
"Yah!" said the man with the accent, happy she finally understood. Unfortunately, he had the wrong number.
"what?" she questioned back,
"A sphinctar?" he asked again, sounding cheery and upbeat.
"Excuse me?" came Briti's reply.
"As-sphinc-tar!" The man was clearly getting frustrated by then.
"A sphincter?" Briti asked, thinking this was surely a prank call.
"Es... Frrink... Der!!" The man finally enunciated much more slowly.
"Is Frank here?" Briti asked.
"Yah!" said the man with the accent, happy she finally understood. Unfortunately, he had the wrong number.
Sunday
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.
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.
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