humor

The imaginary line

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Bunk bed kit does not include alligator pit.

My sister and I had bunk beds part of the time when we were growing up. Since my sister is older, she had first dibs on the upper bunk, but I know I slept up there at least once because I remember falling out of bed. My parents came into the room and my father picked me up to check for broken bones. I even remember dreaming that I was falling into an alligator pit.

 

My fear of alligators stemmed, I’m sure, from the fact that there was an alligator park in our downtown. City planners could have built a botanical garden, an amusement park, or a duck pond. Instead they built a pond full of alligators.

 

“Kids, get in the car and let’s go see Oscar and Sally, the alligators with the big, shiny teeth. Did you know that they can chase you down if you fall in and try to run away?”

 

Maybe you’re living in Florida where people have these as pets, or in Louisiana where people hit them over their heads for their shoes and then eat them. The alligators, not the shoes. But I’m talking El Paso, Texas out in the middle of the desert. And all that separated little you from big them was a short “protective” fence.

 

But back to sleeping arrangements.

 

My sister and I also shared a double bed at one point. Since my parents couldn’t find a bed with a built-in wall down the middle, my sister drew an imaginary line to keep me from entering her territory.

 

Honoring the line was easy in daylight, but not at night. I was petrified of the dark. After alligators, my biggest fear was that my sister would turn into a witch. Perhaps because I had bonked myself silly, I believed that if I touched her, she would remain my sister, and I would save her from witchiness. So, I would dutifully remain on my side, waiting for her to fall asleep and then would slowly slide my hand or foot across the no-fly zone to touch her. And, of course, she would always be awake and yell, “Mom, she’s touching me!”

 

The sliding, the touching, and yelling would happen several times each night until one or the other of us fell asleep. It was exhausting.

 

In private, when my sister and I share these memories, I always say, “See what happened. You should have let me touch you.”

 

But I never say that in public.

 

(The picture is from:

http://www.swingplans.com/bunkbed.html

and you can build one yourself.)

 

 

From slug to superhero

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Thank you for dinner, dear. I think I'll just crawl over to my rocking recliner if you don't mind.

At night I often try to write something for the blog, but there’s something in the food I eat at dinner that turns me into a slug. A rocking slug, who sits in her rocking recliner reading blogs and growing more and more sluggish.

 

I trust that when I awake I will be able to crawl to the coffee pot for some of that magic potion that transforms me from slug to the little known super hero called The Texan WordSlinger. That’s what all my imaginary fans call me. Armed with a dictionary and a thesaurus, I go through the day slinging words at the less fortunate. Very much like Robin Hood, except that I merely borrow words from the treasures of the OED, and I always put them back. And yes, sometimes they get mangled in the process, but I mean well.

 

And since we are on the subject of hoods, I am reminded of the unnamed girl who had a red one for riding. And since we’re on that subject, here’s a revised version, good for raising genius children or grandchildren. It has big words and a lot of awesome and almost aimless alliteration.

 

(Note to reader: My morning brain tells me what to write each day, and I always listen to it because it’s very loud. Today, it gave me a choice, this story or some of my poems. Be glad I chose this. And remember, people in China are counting on you to read it all the way through.)

 

SMALL SCARLET STEERING SHROUD

         One time before this time, there was a little lass with the nickname of Small Scarlet Steering Shroud. She domiciled with her female human parent in a habitation hard by a heavily wooded area. One out of every seven solar days, Small Scarlet Steering Shroud would traipse through the timberland to tend to the mate of her mother’s male human parent.

During a certain twenty-four hour period, Small Scarlet Steering Shroud’s primary care giver solicited her to tote some tasty treats to the moldering matriarch.  Shouldering the sweets and swaddling her own person in her scarlet steering shroud, she sallied forth.

At the selfsame second, a large predatory mammal of the genus Canis lupus was masticating the mother’s mother that Small Scarlet Steering Shroud was meaning to meet!  After digesting her, he donned her duds, placed her spectacles on his proboscis, simulated her smile, and awaited the arrival of Small Scarlet Steering Shroud.

When she appeared at the abode, she announced her advent.

“Oh, issue forth Small Scarlet Steering Shroud,” the pretending pettifogger peeped forth.

“Why, mate of my mother’s male authority figure,” she marveled, “what huge hearing organs you have!”

“Most preferable for perceiving your parlance, my pretty peach,” he proffered.

“And what whopping winkers you have!” Small Scarlet Steering Shroud spoke, as she sauntered within spitting distance.

‘An advantageous assistance in appraising your appearance,” he

announced.

Nudging near the nefarious no-good, the chary child chimed in, “What monumental molars you have!”

“The more desirable for devouring darlings like you,” he declared, diving out of bed to dine on the dainty dear.

Unexpectedly, upturned the underbrush and timber trimmer, who heeded the hollering he heard rising from the residence. Availing himself of his axe, the feller of forests proceeded through the portal and cracked the crown of the miserable miscreant. The delighted damsel arranged her upper appendages around the area of the Adam’s apple of the axe applier and asserted her affection and appreciation.

After a few rotations of the earth around the sun, Small Scarlet Steering Shroud marched through maturation into matrimony with that male mower of green growth.  And they existed endlessly enjoying each other.

THE END

The night I didn’t hear Pink Floyd’s music

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A couple of months ago, a good friend at work invited me to a concert. She had planned to go with her husband; in fact, he was the one who bought the tickets. However, he was delayed on a business trip and couldn’t get back in time. He is a huge fan of Pink Floyd, and the concert was a tribute band playing all their songs.

 

If I had a list of least liked types of music, the genre that includes Pink Floyd would be at the top, but I decided to go for three reasons. First, I like my friend, and I like spending time with her. Second, the invitation included dinner. Yes, free food. It’s amazing the things I will do for a free meal. I only put this as the second reason because I thought it would look bad as the first. And third, the city orchestra would be playing with the band. So, how bad could it be?

 

After a lovely Chinese meal, we headed over to the local performing arts center. It looked like Woodstock but for fluffy people with less hair, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. I, on the other hand, dressed up because the orchestra was playing. One wears a dress and heels to such events.

 

We had good seats in the middle of the aisle in the middle of the auditorium. We had to skooch past an older couple who were also dressed up. When I say “older,” I mean older than me. Ancient to some of you. They were probably in their eighties. I suspect they were season ticket holders and were lured in, thinking the orchestra would be doing Pink Floyd light. They sat to my left.

 

The first song was introduced by the soft sound of stringed instruments, which always makes my heart sing. So with happy heart and full belly, I settled down into my seat for an evening of delight.

 

Then wouldn’t you know it, the minute the band began to play, someone turned on a whole array of power tools. I could hear an electric drill, a jack hammer, and, oddly, a leaf blower, or maybe it was just someone banging on the furnace. And it happened every single time the band began to play! Every. Single. Time. I couldn’t hear their music because of all the noise.

 

The concert also included a light show. In other words, they showed lights. Flashing lights with grainy videos behind and around the band. Just for fun, they would suddenly turn the lights on the audience, temporarily blinding us. The people in charge of the lights were having a lot of fun because they did this repeatedly. Sometimes they’d leave the lights shining in our eyes for a long time. I kept waiting for a voice to boom out, “And where were you on the night of August 15th?” But, of course, that didn’t happen, or if it did, we couldn’t hear it because of the power tools.

 

I felt sorry for all the people who paid good money to hear Pink Floyd’s music and missed it because some selfish people needed to do repairs in and around the concert hall that very night. Everyone put on a happy face (this is the Midwest), and I didn’t hear any complaints. The dear couple to my left spent a lot of time looking at the concert brochure and whispering to each other.

 

I had a really good time that night because I was with my friend. Also, we had a good meal together and got to hear the orchestra play bits of music. And I absolutely loved the ending. The repairs were apparently done and they turned the power tools off. I stood up and clapped for that like everybody else.

Floyd's pink power toolkit

 

What? You know I can’t hear you

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What? You know I can't hear you

In the last few years of my mother’s life, it became clear that she needed a hearing aid. No matter what you said to her, she responded with “what?”

 

“Hi, mom. Your hair looks nice.” “What?”

 

“I lost my job, and I live under the freeway now.” “What?”

 

“The house is on fire!” “What?”

 

“I think Congress is doing a great job.” “What?”

 

It didn’t matter if you told the truth or lied and said you thought Congress was more than a group of self-serving bootlickers, mother’s response was always the same. She knew she wasn’t hearing well, yet she resisted getting a hearing aid. The people around her had to repeat everything several times. The echo made people want to pull out their hair.

 

After months of reasoning and piles of hair all over the house (others, not hers), she agreed to see an audiologist and get fitted for a hearing aid. She wore the device for several days, and then began leaving it in the dresser drawer. The dresser began to hear everything that was said and eavesdropped on several conversations that were none of its business, and mother again started punctuating every statement and question with “what?”

 

I was visiting my brother and her when this happened. He was at work, so it fell to me to take mother back to the audiologist. Mother explained that the device didn’t fit properly, so the doctor fiddled and adjusted and asked several questions to make sure that it was comfortable. She was very patient with mother and didn’t rush her. Mother said yes to every question about how well it fit and we left.

 

On the way home, we carried on a normal conversation. And we had several days of echo-free talk. Then late one afternoon, I went into the kitchen to make dinner. Mother went to her room for a book, came back into the living room, and sat on the couch to read. The house had an open concept floor plan, so we could see one another. The first time I shut the cupboard door, she said, “What?”  I laughed and said, “I didn’t say anything.” She looked puzzled, so I repeated it. She sighed, put her book down, and said, “You know I can’t hear you.” I walked over, told her I hadn’t said a thing, and that I had just shut the cabinet door. I asked her where her hearing aid was. Of course I knew. I also knew that the dresser could now hear everything we said, so I listened patiently as she explained that the hearing aid felt uncomfortable.

 

I went back to the kitchen. A few minutes later, I shut another cabinet door and she hollered, “What?” Again, I had to walk over to her and explain that I was not speaking to her. I assured her that if I had anything to say, I would walk over  to tell her. She actually called out, “What?” one other time during that meal preparation. I have never cooked so quietly in my life.

 

At the meal, my brother and I asked her why she didn’t tell the audiologist that it still didn’t feel right.  She looked at us, incredulous that we would even ask such a question, and said, “I didn’t want to bother her.”

 

We laugh about it now. You don’t bother folks you hardly know. Bothering is for the ones you love, the ones who love you back. And now I miss all the bother that mother was.

 

 

 

Bonkers

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After exhaustive research on the web, which is to say, several hours, I have been unable to find any reference to what my mother called bonking. Yes, I know it’s a euphemism for sex and that’s not what she meant. People, including me, use it to describe colliding into another object, something my head does when it goes in search of open cupboards. It was also used during World War I to refer to shelling with artillery fire.

The manic metronome illustrates what mother meant by bonking. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

But not a single reference to how my mother used it. When I was little, my favorite method of comforting myself was to rock my body back and forth, as if every chair, couch, or car backseat were a rocking chair. I would start with a gentle rocking motion, and slowly build up speed until I reached competition-level rocking. Thud, thud, thud, back and forth, like a manic metronome, I pounded out the rhythm of whatever music was playing in my head. This is what mother called bonking. I broke the springs in one of our couches because I could not sit on the couch to watch TV without bonking the entire time.

I also bonked across state lines. We used to drive from Texas to Arizona to visit my grandma, and I remember asking my mom once when we were going to get there. She said, “If you hadn’t been bonking so hard, we’d have already been there.” I guess the force of me bonking so hard in the backseat cancelled out the force of her foot on the gas pedal. One mile forward, half a mile backward.

Rocking is fairly common in babies. It soothes them. The rhythmic movement is calming, and most stop doing it around the age of three. I obviously needed a lot of self-soothing and comfort because I bonked passionately until I was at least eight years old.

I don’t remember anyone ever talking to me about it or trying to discover what compelled me to do it. My parents just accepted that I was a weird kid and that I’d probably grow out of. I did, kind of. I still love a rocking chair better than other kind of seating arrangement. And I still do some gentle rocking at times when I’m standing and waiting. And who doesn’t rock while listening to the blues?

Caption #1: Yearstricken rocks! Caption #2: Apple rocks! Caption #3: Yearstricken is off her rocker!

If I were a child now, I’d probably  have to see a shrink once a week, be on medication, have two or three psychological labels sewn to my psyche, and attend special classes for children who bonk.

Sometimes children have behaviors that require intervention, sometimes not. Sometimes kids are just weird. That, after all, is where all the weird adults come from.

 

This post was written from a rocking recliner.

Lovesome words and politics

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Why, why, why didn't I download that dictionary app when I had the chance?

Defenestration is my new best word friend forever (BWFF) or until a smarter looking one comes along.

 

First, it has five syllables, which makes it what is known in etymological circles as a “big” word. Big words are not only a sign of intelligence but can also be used to flummox your friends. Because no one wants to admit that they don’t know the meaning of a big word. Like, really.

 

Here’s how flummoxing works:

 

You: I’m so tired!

 

Your friend: Why? What did you do on the weekend?

 

You: I was reading a book without a proper ending and I got so riled up, I defenestrated it. It felt so good that I went through the house and defenestrated things for hours. How about you? Did you do any defenestrating over the weekend?

 

Your friend: Uh…well…yeah, actually…oh, I think I have a message on my phone. Excuse me for a minute.

 

At this point, your friend will pretend to be checking his or her phone for messages but actually will be looking the word up. But only if the now former friend remembered to download the dictionary app. (Did I mention that flummox is French for “confuse and lose friends”?)

 

Flummoxing aside, I love the word for the story behind it. The Thirty Years’ War in Europe started in 1618 when some Bohemian nobles threw two government officials and their secretary out of a window to protest the violation of their religious rights. Throwing people out of windows was apparently a common pastime of Bohemians of that day, but up until then, no one knew quite the right word to express it.  The three human projectiles that set off the war landed on a pile of rubbish, and so escaped, bruised and smelling of rotten cabbage, but alive. Thankfully, video cameras had not been invented back then; otherwise, defenestration would become a meme like planking, and people who don’t know big words would be defenestrating all over the place.

Elections: windows of opportunity to practice defenestration

This pane-ful act gave birth to the word we now know as defenestration, which means “to throw out of a window.”  It combines the prefix de-, which gives the meaning of something removed or put away, with the Latin word for window, fenestra.

 

You see how lovesome the word is. Its story reminds me that there are a number of government officials that I would like to defenestrate, particularly those who have failed to compromise and do what’s right for the country, instead of licking the boots of lobbyists and big money contributors. Election time is our window of opportunity, people. Rise up and defenestrate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Misplaced cow pies

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Where is that cow pie? I've misplaced it again!

Ever since I mentioned “misplaced cow pies” in my post about stories without a resolution, I have been pondering that phrase.

 

Before we go further into this post, I’d like you to step (carefully) over here. ➨  Isn’t it interesting that I said I was pondering and that a synonym of “ponder” is “ruminate”? Which animals ruminate? Cows! And which animals make cow pies? Cows! Holy cow, you say, what’s going on here? Well, that’s why I am here; to tell you what. There is only one degree of separation between deep thinking and cow pies!  In layman’s terms, it means that when you are in a department meeting, listening intently, and pondering the meaning of all those sounds flowing out of your supervisor’s mouth, you are essentially deep in cow pies.

 

Okay, you can step back over here to the main idea of the post. If you did a lot of deep thinking, please wipe your shoes. I try to keep this a clean blog. When I wrote “misplaced cow pies,” I had no idea where it came from. I still don’t. This happens to me a lot. But somehow the phrase expressed my irritation with elements in stories that the author puts in for no good reason. Stuff like violence, sex, crude language, and abuse. There’s a time and a place for all of these, just like there is for cow pies. But sometimes it seems the storyteller or the scriptwriter can’t think of what comes next, so they go out to the meadow and haul some cow pies in to make things smell earthy. I think it smells more like bull.

 

Writer gathering cow pies to misplace in his story.

But the real reason I think that phrase extruded out of my brain was to give me fodder for another post. Brains can be nice that way sometimes.

 

 

Finish your book or people will starve in China

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Reader response to stories without a resolution

Yesterday I told you that I forced myself to read through a book of short stories even though I hated most of them. After one or two disappointing stories, a reasonable adult would have closed the book and moved on.

 

That’s my problem. You have to be a reasonable adult.

 

Somewhere on the way to adulthood, I got lost. My body has stayed doggedly on the path and looks it. The me inside the body has been lollygagging around for years, sleeping under the stars, and taking as many detours as possible. Every time I see one of those billboards on the highway to Adulthood with the sophisticated grown-ups standing in front of their shiny homes or boats or cars, I feel compelled to paint big black mustaches on their smiling faces.

 

So I fail in the adult part. That leaves the reasonable part because it’s possible to be a reasonable non-adult. I fail there too, but it’s not my fault. I blame it on my mother. First, she’s not here to defend herself; and second, she made me clean my plate.

 

Beware of beans that accuse

When I was growing up, we had strict rules at the dinner table. You had to try a little of everything. Even if it made you gag. And you had

to eat everything on your plate. You all know why it was necessary: the starving people in China. They would not have food on the table if I did not eat the food on my table that made me gag. When I was little, this made perfect sense, but as I write about it now, the logic seems a little fuzzy. (Mom, if you are reading this blog in heaven, please contact me as soon as possible and explain.)

 

From an early age, I learned that if you have a serving of mushy green beans from a can (yuck!), do not try to roll some of them over the edge of the plate to hide under the rim of the plate. When you are required to lie say, “Thank you, I enjoyed my dinner; may I be excused?” you will have to take your plate into the kitchen. Then, each of the spurned green beans will rise up and say, “J’accuse.” (They are French green beans.)  Your callous little heart will be exposed, and everyone at the table will know that you really don’t give a whit about the starving Chinese.

 

Now do you understand how important it is to finish books you start? Books are like mind food. If it’s on your plate, you eat it. Even if it makes you gag. And you do it for the Chinese because that’s the kind of person you are – kind, compassionate, always putting others first.

 

So, thank you internet reader, for reading this blog and conquering your gag reflex. Every word you read puts food on the table of someone in China.

Every story needs to end

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I recently read a collection of short stories and hated almost every minute of it. If they were so bad, you ask, why didn’t I just close the book and move on? That’s a question for a different post. So, I finished the collection with my hate in tact because most of the stories didn’t have a resolution.

 

Many things drive me wild, but lack of resolution in a story drives me wilder. What is it with these writers? They get to the next to the last paragraph or the next-to-the-next last one and stop. The reader (me) is left thinking – oops, maybe they accidentally printed the draft or ran out of ink. But no, it’s supposed to be that way – very cool and artsy. There is no end to the story.

 

Author, why do you feel compelled to leave me hanging? Do all these unanswered questions and possibilities reflect some kind of existential angst based on your philosophical underpinnings? Author, unpin thyself from this philosophy.

 

I just want an ending to the story all right already. Step by step (often through misplaced cow pies) the writer brings the reader (me again) up to what I think is the last door opening into a room where I will come face to face with the Resolution, who always looks taller in person. (Of course, I have to stop and clean off my shoes because of those cow pies.) Mr. or Ms. Author opens the door slightly, and then says, go down that hallway and pick another door. And every one of those doors says “Exit.” When I turn around, the author is gone. Wait, I call out, come back! Sometimes I call very loudly, which disturbs my husband.

 

Stories have beginnings, middles, and ends. Remember all those cartoons we watched as kids? When the action was done, two little words appeared: The end. We learned that a story – always the same one, Sylvester the Cat or Wily Coyote being creamed, diced, or sliced in any number of satisfying ways – began, something happened, and then ended satisfactorily for Tweety Bird and the Road Runner and gloriously unsatisfactorily for the bullies.

 

Haven’t any of these writers read any fairy tales? How about Shakespeare?  Good guys don’t always win, but somebody does, or it’s a draw and it’s clear. When you get to the end of the story you know it. You may not like it, or may wish it were different, but you know it is the end.

 

That’s all, folks.

 

Blog blindness and finger tics

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Is there a blog doctor in the house?

You’ve heard of snow blindness, right? Light reflected off snow burns the cornea, causing a temporary visual impairment accompanied by tears, eyelid twitching, and pain.  It usually goes away after 24 to 48 hours.

Well, I have blog blindness. Staring at the computer screen as I write posts causes both my eyes and my brain to go temporarily blind.

Yesterday I had a bad case of it. I spent several hours writing my post, re-read it, uploaded pictures, proofread it again, previewed, and posted. A few hours later I went back to the blog. That’s when the tears, eyelid twitching, and pain began.

In all my proofreading and previewing, I forgot to check the title. Instead of “One chance, one opportunity,” I wrote, “Once chance, one opportunity.” This is what happens when you let just anybody start a blog. Are you listening, WordPress?

I tried to contact WordPress support, but they were all at home polishing off the rest of the turkey and pumpkin pie. I did a little research and discovered how to change the URL. That tidied up my blog, and I thought it solved the problem. But. Yes, there’s always a big but in the story. And usually it’s mine.

Fixing the URL did not change how my post appeared over at the WordPress topics site. I checked, and there was my blog broadcasting my idiocy to all the world. It apparently had not received the message that the URL had changed, had no idea of the words written across its forehead, and was jostling among the other blogs shouting, “Hi, world, I have just once thing to say today.”

And, as if that weren’t enough sickness for one person, I’ve also been suffering from a finger tic. After I write comments and before I can re-read them to see if they make any sense, my finger presses “reply” or “post comment.” Maybe it’s OCFD — obsessive compulsive finger disorder.

Does anyone know of a good doctor for this kind of thing?