Chomp

There is a video of a guy being bitten by an alligator during a reptile show flying around the Internet and making the news circuit.
 I was at the show and saw the whole thing happen.
 It was kind of strange. 
 My best friend and I were sitting near the action watching two guys show off poisonous snakes and informing the crowd of the dangers of wild animals. Mostly, Guy #1 would talk about the animals and  the audience what to look for on snakes and how to recognize the  poisonous ones from the non-poisonous. When he had finished his lesson, Guy #2 would bring over a plastic box and pull out a living example of the reptiles. Both men used long clamp like devices to hold the snakes still while showing the crowd. The animals were out of the boxes for about 10 seconds. It was a safe display of the dangerous animals. 
 They guys also showed off baby alligators, they were cute. Their mouths were taped shut and face it, with the mouth taped up, an alligator is just a big lizard. 
 I’ve seen baby alligators before, heck I’ve held baby alligators, so I was a tiny bit board with that part of the show.
 So I started chatting with the people around me. 
 A semi drunk dude beside me pointed out a large alligator on the ground about 10 feet away from us. The man told me the alligator was not happy. I mentally put my self in the alligators shoes and thought well I wouldn't be happy with my mouth tied shut and either. 
 I asked drunk dude how he knew the alligator was upset.
 He replied “it’s too still."
 What?
  I ask him if he was an alligator whisperer or something and why he thought the beast's body language meant it was upset. 
. He told me he had been hunting in Louisiana several times for the animals and that the animal’s tail was curved and it’s arm were in a position of agitation, like it was ready to spring on prey. 
  He also told me how large an alligator it took to make boots (8 feet long) and that gator tasted good. (I’ve tried it, too chewy for me.) 
   Dude had a thick English/Scottish/Irish/ or something accent, and I couldn't decipher some of his statements so I just nodded and turned back to the show. 
 I had to step away from the show for a few minutes so i missed the reptile guys bringing the alligator out. 
 When I did return. Guy #2 was messing with the business end of the alligator. I thought Guy #2  was about to loose a hand (or at least some fingers) by swatting the beast on it's un-taped nose. So my attention was captured. (Come on, who isn't going to watch some idiot possibly loose a finger or two.)
 While Guy # 2 was tempting the alligator with finger snacks, Guy #1 began walking up behind the animal. 
 In a flash Guy #1 had an alligator hanging off his elbow then he was on the ground. 
 It was weird. 
 I heard a clap and then realized the alligator had bitten Guy #1. 
 The bite didn’t impress me. The fact the alligator pulled a full grown man from a standing position to the ground in under a second did. 
 There was a gasp and some screams when the gator got Guy #1, but I was frozen watching the scene play out.
 Guy #1 was released from the beast’s jaws and walked off for a second leaving Guy #2 to stare down the gator and continue to whop the thing on the nose. Guy #2 would tap the top of the animals nose then reach under it’s jaw and close the mouth. ( Apparently the gator didn't have a problem with Guy #2 and didn't try to chomp again.)
 Finally Guy #1 came back to the animal and both men were able to close the gaping mouth of the giant and tape it shut rendering it harmless.
 Guy #1 then was led away by a nurse in biker garb to tend his wounds. 
 This left Guy #2 to deal with getting the beast out of the area.  
 It took three men to lift the animal onto the bed of a golf cart like vehicle. Only two of the men looked like they knew what they were doing. The third guy looked like he was a bit drunk and just wanted to pick up an alligator.   
 Whoosh, the cart wheeled the gator away and things began to calm down.
 My friend and I hung out for a half hour longer a band began to play and people began to dance like nothing had happened.
 I glanced at the place the gator had bit Guy #1. 
 There was a puddle of blood on the dance floor.  
 I knew the event would end up online, I didn’t expect it to go national. 
 I just wish I had been smart enough to have recorded the event. 
 So next time I see a couple of guys tempting an alligator or some other large meat eating animal I’ll whip out my phone and hit record. Because who doesn’t want to see an idiot tempting fate, get a bite of reality.   

To see the video click this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnTFvKt_7lI

Beary Exciting

“There’s a bear in the house!” is a phrase you never want to hear in the middle of the night or anytime.
Yup, I’ve heard it.
At 2 am.
On vacation.
The trip was not the same after that.
We were staying at my family’s vacation house in Colorado when the invasion happened.
Bear sightings were a daily thing within the town limits and the animals remained outside of residences and businesses, so they were tolerated. Some townspeople celebrated the abundance of animals by forming as society called “Friends of the Bears” and selling t-shirts.
 Mostly they were a nuisance.
 The town bakery sustained damage when a large brown bear tried to rip its back door off one night in search of food. (No fresh bread for customers the next day.) The single screen movie theater had damage to its trash containers and building several nights later. Wildlife experts were warning campers to store their food inside vehicles away from tents. (The local auto glass guy had a booming business that year because bears would break car windows to get to any food they could smell. Bears have a great sense of smell.)
  It was exciting to be so enveloped in wildlife, and we enjoyed seeing the bears wander over our property from the safety of our house. We would drive around at dusk to watch bears emerge from the forest and plod down roads and into the trash of unsuspecting tourist who left the cans outside. (We were smart. Our trash cans were locked in our utility room inside our house. No way for a bear to get them there!) It was going great.
 Until the night a bear decided our house was a great place for eats.
 We left a small window open in the family room at the bottom of the stairs that night for air circulation throughout the house.  (It was hot that summer and the house had no air conditioner.) The opening wasn’t large at all, approximately four inches. The window worked like a sliding glass door and moved silently on a track. We felt safe leaving it open because none of us thought a bear would be smart enough to open it.
 Wrong.
  A small brown bear used his paw to slide the window open, crawled right into our house and made his way to our kitchen.
 My father heard the animal first as his room was closest to the kitchen.  Dad got up to investigate, thinking my nephew's fishing trip preparations were responsible for the racket. Since dad was going to berate my nephew (the only other male in our cabin) he didn’t bother putting on a robe; he just marched into the kitchen in his tighty whities.
 It wasn’t my nephew that Dad saw when he turned on the light.
 The bear was standing on our kitchen counter licking grease out of the collection container I used for bacon drippings. (I’m southern, we were on vacation, everything was cooked in  bacon grease, don’t judge!) It froze when the light came on and took one brief look at Dad, then sailed over the counter onto the dining table - promptly knocking it over.
 As soon as the table went thud my dad yelled, “There’s a bear in the house!”
 I was in the bunk room upstairs sleeping soundly until Dad’s hollerin' woke my little dog. Stinky quickly jumped into action by barking as loud as he could and bolting downstairs.
 Between Dad’s announcement and Stinky’s barking I awoke thinking, “What the heck?” So I grabbed my glasses and chased after Stinky.
  I found Stinky on the stairway landing yapping his head off at the bear. The bear was across the room and Stinky knew better than to get too close. I, however, thought across the room was still too close for my dog, so I swooped Stinky up and headed back upstairs.
 Like in every bad horror movie, I slipped halfway up the stairs and face planted into the carpet. I could hear some ruckus behind me over Stinky’s barking but I wasn’t about to stop and look back. It was save my baby time and this mama was on a mission.
 After clamoring  up the rest of the stairs I finally made it into the bunk room and slammed the door behind me. Thinking quickly, I shoved my daughters onto the top of a bunk bed and ordered my niece to help me push the dresser against the door. (In retrospect, throwing the kids under the bed might have been a smarter move.)
 By the time the dresser was in place, downstairs was buzzing.
 While I was saving the dog, my dad was running through the house opening doors so the bear could get out. My nephew had awoken and was out of  his room brandishing his fishing knife and a stick, in case things got ugly. (He didn’t bother with pants either, just boxer briefs.) My mother was yelling at my dad, my nephew was running around trying to help Dad and the bear finally had enough of us and went out the same way he came in.
 The whole event lasted about three minutes.
 We were up till 4 am from the adrenaline rush.
 The next day the game warden came out and set up a trap. The little beast was caught and relocated far away from town. The window was kept shut and the bacon grease was thrown away from that point on.
   I couldn’t sleep well for the rest of the vacation. Not because I was scared of another invasion, but because with the window shut, it was too hot and kept having horrible flash backs. Of my dad, running around in his undies. Gack!

Smiling While Talking

 For some reason I do not know how to flirt, I also have no idea when a guy is flirting with me. 
 I am kind of broken.
 Now please don’t think I am a horrible conversationalist, I’m not. I can talk to just about anyone about just a bunch of different topics. I just can’t talk to a guy just to talk to him. 
 A long time ago it was my job to talk to people. I was a journalist and I could ask anyone anything for a story. Somewhere along the road of life though, I lost my self esteem and my confidence and well with out those two things,  flirting is just hard. 
 My niece, Lauren, tried to help me get my mojo back one night by giving me lessons on the womanly ways of flirting.
  My education was to start at the local country and western dance hall. When we got there the place was a little dead, but Lauren assured me the lack of a crowd would be good for practice. So we settled into a table and she began to instruct me. 
 “Okay, I want you to walk over to the bar, past that group of guys and smile at them. Then walk back.” She instructed. 
 “Do I order anything at the bar?” I asked.
“No.” She replied.
“Then why am I going to the bar?” I asked.
“To get their attention. Now go!” She demanded.
 So I did what she said. I pasted on a smile, did my best sashay in front of the men and went straight to the bar, turned around and returned as instructed.
 “What was that?” she asked when I got back to our table. 
 “Me following your instructions. Smile, walk, return.” 
 “That smile makes you look like like an idiot.” she said.
 “I feel like an idiot. Besides, we are in a bar, they are probably drunk” I said.
“It is 8 o’clock. They’re not drunk." She sighed. "Try again, but this time, less... crazy woman smile.”
 So I walked to the bar on the other side of the saloon, smiled at a different group of men turned around and walked back to Lauren.
“That was better. One guy looked at you.” she said.
“Which one? The one who looks like Tatum Channing?” I asked excitedly. 
“No, the one who looks like Kenny Rodgers. Remember, this is just practice.” she said. 
 Great, I had caught the eye of Methuselah’s older brother. However, being the eternal optimist, I wasn’t about to let his age get me down. Like she said, this was just practice. 
 “Okay, now you need to get him to talk to you.” Lauren said. 
“How do I do that?”
“Go say hi and ask him a question. Or tell him you like his cane, err, hat.  Say anything, just get him to speak to you.” She instructed.
 So I followed her directions. I walked straight over to his table smiled and said hi. Before I could ask him about his hat he said...
 “Hi. We'll have a couple of Bud Lights here and could you send two shots of Patron over there to that table with the sweet young things for us. Tell them they are from me and my wing-man.”
 I turned around, walked back to Lauren, grabbed her and left the club.
 Lessons were over. 
 Some time later, I was contemplating about what I was doing wrong to get a guy to talk to me. I decided I had been over thinking the whole concept and that flirting was nothing more than smiling while talking. 
 So I tried it. 
 I decided to implement my plan of “talking while smiling" in the book isle of my local grocery store. I had noticed a guy close by so I smiled at him. He smiled back and as I reached out and picked up a title, he commented it was a good read. I smiled and asked him about the book and we struck up a little conversation. 
 In my head I was flirting! I was so happy with myself for having a conversation with a stranger! He was cute, intelligent and funny. I thought maybe I could give him my email and we could go out sometime. I felt great!
 Until, a woman pushed her cart around the corner and said to the guy “Oh there you are, we need to leave and pick up the kids from your mother before seven.” 
 My self esteem fell right off the shelf I’d put it on.
 After he left I scraped up my dignity from the floor, bought the book and went home. 
 The book turned out to be a good read, but my experience turned into a great lesson.
 I gotten over a hurdle that day.
 I decided to change my definition of flirting. No longer was it about talking to a guy, just to talk to a guy. Now I view flirting in a different way. 
It is just smiling while talking.  
Two things I can do anywhere. 

The Mega Fart

I just do not understand teenage boys.
Case in point...
 On a recent  junior high school choir field trip I was a chaperon and experienced a “OMG-I-can’t-believe-that-just-happened” moment.
  The boys were allowed to sit in the auditorium while other choirs took the stage for competition. We chaperons had the idea that we could monitor the boys better if they were sitting in rows in front of us. Of course the boys all sat in the back row, so we shuffled them out of it and moved them forward. 
 The plan was for we three adults to sit on either end of the row and one in the middle to watch over our charges. 
 As the last boy exited the row, I maneuvered my way down the last row to take up my perch at the far end when I was stopped cold by the worst smell in the history of the Earth.
 A fart.
 Now, this wasn’t just any fart.
 It wasn’t just a little patch of gas. 
 No, this fart was a tsunami of nasty that had the potential to kill. It was so bad that if it could be bottled into a bio-weapon, anyone holding the cork could take over the planet.
 My eyes watered, my hands covered my face and I was getting light headed from lack of oxygen. Mercifully my feet began to move backward sending me out of the row in search of breathable air. 
 The boys began to notice the smell and stared coughing and gagging and waving their hands around to dissipate the stench. (Like that was gonna help.) The other chaperons noticed and began to retreat covering their noses. Heck, if a skunk was there it would have vacated the area.
  It was so bad, no one would claim it. I was with a group of 13 and 14 year old boys and none of them claimed it! You would think a fart of this magnitude would be something an eight grade boy would be proud of. Nope, not this time. It was so bad, ownership was abandoned.
  I looked around for the guilty party, but the boys were stoic. None of them ratted out the actual culprit. I guess the boys knew who was the owner, but they were not sharing with the chaperons.
 I know girls are capable of passing gas, but girls would hint as to who was responsible. They wouldn’t say a name, but they would stare at the person responsible and then people would know. 
 Not the boys. The boys stuck together. They protected their fellow brother with an unspoken united front of silence.  I’m sure high fives and back pats were passed out at a later time, but in that moment solidarity ruled.
 I couldn't understand it. Why not out the culprit?  I wanted to know who did it. Not because I could do anything could be done about a normal bodily function, but for self preservation.
 I wanted to avoid the line of fire in case of a secondary attack.   

Online Outsourcing of Love

Last night a Facebook friend of mine was all aghast on the site about an advertisement she found online. She is a freelance writer and was surfing to pick up a job when she came across an advertisement for an online dating ghostwriter. 
 The advertisement was searching for a “writer/texter” who could assist “successful executive" men in finding the love of their lives. The job entailed setting up dating profiles, screening potential dates, communicating with said potential dates via text or email and arranging in- person meetups. It also required the writer to write from the male perspective (specifically) and use language that would lend “mystery” to the client. 
 The idea that any man would outsource his love life did not sit well with my friend. 
 I thought WAIT! This could be my dream job. 
 I could get paid to pretend to be a toad of a toilet paper executive looking for love. I could fabricate wonderful qualities about my amphibian like client who shrunk the roll. I could bring delight to some woman’s day every time I text her. She would love me! 
 Then she would meet my client a realize what a douche he actually is. 
 Seriously, who does this?
 How big of a loser do you have to be to hire someone to make you look better on a dating web site...
 There are companies online that will do everything but the kissing, for their clients. They will pick the best dating site, create the most attractive profile, take the best pictures of their clients and Photoshop any ugly right off the screen. They will sort through the chicks' profiles so only “high-quality” women are presented to their clients. These services will make anyone look, as Brad Paisley sang “so much cooler online.”   
 All for the bargain price of around half a grand a month. 
 These sites are raking in the dough.
 They do everything except hold the hand of their client on an actual date. (Although, I bet that can be bought too.) 
 It’s not a bad idea on paper. I've tried the online thing. It is exhausting. Having someone cull the herd for me would be beneficial. However, if I ever found out a guy had a service text or email me to lay the foundation for our romance, he would be walking home with a limp.  
 Hiring someone to communicate with a potential mate sounds like a business deal. It reminds me of a job applicant being vetted by a manager before meeting the boss for the interview. Maybe that is what the client wants. He is too busy making money to take time to find a wife. He is a businessman, so his answer is to pay someone to come up with a short list of potential candidates. 
 I can just imagine what his “qualifications" are for the job. This guy is an executive, he has executive taste, so his wife should be executive quality. (I could bemoan what “executive qualities” are for a woman, but the thought of cataloging my gender is just not on my to do list right now.)  
 In my opinion, users of online dating ghostwriters should fire the service and hire someone to help with their actual work load. That way they have the time to make an actual connection, not just an outsourced one. 

Thanks clipartpanda,com for the free clip art.

Stinky and Smelly

  

Having two teen aged daughters has given me a great love for my dogs.
My dogs don’t talk back to me. They don’t cringe when I talk to their doggy friends. They love everything I cook and they never complain about anything I do or anywhere I take them.
 If only my teenagers could take a hint from the dogs.
 Stinky and Smelly are my two little dogs. One is a Rat Terrier (“the” American breed) and the other is a Dachshund-Terrier mix who looks like he had some Dalmatian swimming in his gene pool at one point (maybe warthog too, considering how much he farts.) They give me great memories every day and their antics make me laugh or want to kill them every single day.
 Kind of like my teenagers.
  One day I came home to find a white trail leading from the pantry and my two adorable bits of fur were nowhere to be seen. So I followed the trail. It wound through my kitchen, down the hall and into my office. Cringing I walked into my office to find Smelly chewing on a decimated bag of flour. He was completely white. Normally he is only partially white. (Smelly is the one with the Dalmatian in his bloodline) I looked around for Stinky. All I found were white paw prints leading out of the second door of the office. So I followed the prints. They led me down the hall, into and out of the bathroom, through the family room and into Smelly’s box.
 Smelly was in the box, covered in flour, and he would not look me in the eye.
 He knew he had done wrong.
 He also knew a bath was in his future so he slunk to the back of his crate, trying to escape the inevitable.
 It took about an hour to clean up the mess and the dogs, but I was laughing the whole time. Why they would chomp on a bag of flour was beyond me, but it was funny.
 What was not funny were the times (yes, multiple times) Stinky showed up smelling like a skunk.
 For some reason my Rat Terrier loves to chase and pester skunks.
 He doesn't find the skunks at home. He finds them at my parents' house. My parents do not live in a subdivision. They own property a few miles away from me and their place has a country-esque feel to it. It is far enough out that they get critters around their house that would not live in a neighborhood- aka skunks.
 One day before Smelly joined our family, Mom and I were outside at her house working in the garden. While outside, we noticed a gosh-awful smell wafting our way.
“Gah, what is that smell?” Mom said.
“Smells like a skunk to me,” I replied.
“Quick, get in the house so we don’t get sprayed,” she ordered.
She then yelled to my dad, who was walking from his barn with Stinky trailing behind him, that a skunk was around and for him to be careful of the critter.
 Dad is bit hard of hearing and refuses to wear his “ears” (aka hearing aids) and therefore, didn't hear a bit of her warning.
 Mom and I hurried inside the house and were commenting about the smell when dad walked in. He was laughing and telling us about how Stinky had cornered some animal in the barn when my mom yelled at him...
“Get out! You smell like skunk!”
Dumbfounded, Dad turned around and headed back outside.
(That was the day we realized Dad was not only hard of hearing, but he had lost all sense of smell too.)
 Turns out the animal that Stinky had cornered was a skunk. The skunk got a direct hit on the dog and the dog brushed up against Dad, contaminating them both.
 Mom made Dad strip on the back porch. (I covered my eyes, cuz who wants to see their dad in his skivvies.) Then she told him to go get a bath.
 She then ordered me to “Bathe that animal immediately!”
This wasn't my first time to get the stench of skunk off my dog.  So I whipped up my “skunk-de-stank” recipe and went to work on Stinky.
 He smelt so bad I nearly vomited while cleaning him up.
 After bathing him 4 times with my recipe he smelled tolerable. (Or I had just gotten used to it.)
I however, smelled like skunk.
My clothes smelled like skunk.
My hair smelled like skunk.
My shoes smelled like skunk.
I wanted to kill Stinky.
 After bathing myself 4 times and borrowing some of mom’s clothes, I loaded up Stinky to go home.
 Quickly I realized it was time to pick my daughters up from school so instead of going home we went to school and got in the pick up line.
 It was a warm day so I had the windows down while I waited.
The pinched look I got from the teacher directing traffic should have clued me into the fact the smell was lingering.
 “How could you do this to me!” were the first words out of my oldest daughter’s mouth as she climbed in the suburban and immediately rolled up the window.
“I am sooooo embarrassed!!” cried the other one as she closed her window too.
Yep, I had gotten used to the smell.
“Stinky got into it with a skunk," was my reply.
“You should not have picked us up with him smelling like he does" whined the oldest.
“I washed him 4 times, bathed myself 3 times, and trashed my clothes and my shoes!” I yelled. “I had to borrow an outfit from my 72 year old mother and I am barefoot while driving! I did all this so you two wouldn't have to deal with a skunk sprayed dog!”
“You should have let Grandmother pick us up. She would never embarrass us.”
My mother? Yeah, right.
 Stinky didn't complain though. He just jumped into my lap with his tail wagging and licked my face. He appreciated me.
 Too bad my teenagers didn't.
 Because three weeks later Stinky had another direct hit from a skunk and guess who had to clean him up?
 Yep, by that point, I was used to it.

Photo copywright poecrastination 2015

Road Tripping

 Every summer of my life my family has hit the road for a vacation. We have gone east then we have gone west but rarely ever north and never south. (We live in Texas, the only place south is Mexico and we are too chicken to drive in Mexico).   

 We have been doing this my whole life, so you would think by now we would have ironed out all the kinks associated with long distance car travel.
 Not so much.
 Each trip has it’s own unique set of issue that throw a wrench into our well laid plans.
 We have experienced every possible problem to connected to road tripping. Faulty car batteries,  flat tires, crappy hotel rooms, food poisoning, leaky ice chest, sick kids, sick dogs, you name it, we have been through it. In my family we suck it all up until we arrive at our destination.
  Sometime our problems start before we ever hit the road.
  There was one year Mom had my niece, father and I plant annuals in her garden before getting on the road. We dug holes for two hours in 90 degree heat and 90% humidity before getting into the car for a 9 hour trip to Florida.
 I was furious at my mother for going to Lowe’s before a trip and buying so many plants. Her reply to my anger was “they were on sale and if they are not planted they would die and money would be wasted.”
 My niece and I swore we would never go on another trip with her if we had to do that again.
 Three weeks later we were back in the garden sweating it out, planting annuals before a 18 hour road trip to Colorado.
 Once we all get on the road things settle down into a calm routine.
 Until someone has to pee.
 Growing up my father trained my sisters and I to "hold it" for hours. Dad would make the ten hour trip from Houston, Texas to Greenville, Alabama with only one stop.
 “The more we stop, the longer the trip will take" was my dad’s mantra.
 So my sisters and I learned to avoid drinks on long trips. (Sure we were dehydrated when we got to Grandma’s but hey, we cut 30 minutes off the trip by only stopping once!)
Well, now I’m the driver and Dad is in the backseat and let me tell you, revenge is sweet.
 “Uh, Sal can we stop soon? I need to use the bathroom” says dad.
 “Sure,” I say as I breeze past the last exit with a service station. “we will stop on the other side of this bridge.”
 The bridge I am talking about crosses the Atchafalaya swamp in Louisiana. This is one of longest bridges in the United States. It is a  20 mile stretch of nothing but trees, water and alligators, plus the speed limit is 55. It takes a minimum of 30 minutes to cross provided there are no accidents, slow drivers or state troopers on the road.
 Dad knows this bridge. He has been taking the same route for 50 years. He knows how long it  will take to cross,  He also knows how often he stopped when I was growing up. He says nothing to my announcement. He just exhales, closes his Sprite and tries to get comfortable.
 Oh yeah, revenge is so, so sweet.
 My nephew has a disgusting remedy to the stop-the-car-the-kids-have-to-pee problem of road trips. His answer...the pee jar.
 Yup, my nephew packs an empty pickle jar inside his vehicle for those inconvenient times his young children have to go. His son thinks it is fun, his daughter has a different opinion.
 Where did he get this idea you ask? From my family of course!
 When my preschool aged nephew was traveling with us and had to go while we were driving Dad would say “use the pee jar.” (Now please understand, those trips were in the 1980‘s and car-seat and seat-belt usage were suggested, not mandatory.)  So my nephew would pop out of his seat, stand up aim and fire. His mother would then close the jar, tuck it away and re-belt him in his seat. (I was a teenager back then then so I was left gagging from the smell and deaf from having my Walkman turned all the way up to drown out the sound.)
 The pee jar was good enough for my nephew back then, so it is good enough for his kids now. However, he does pull off to the side of the road for his kids to use the jar. Their total break time rivals a Nascar pit stop during the Daytona 500.
 Speaking of race cars...
 Going the speed limit on road trips with my family doesn’t happen. We are a lead footed crew on the interstate and we have the traffic violations to prove it. (My brother-in-law has a special mount on his dashbord for radar and laser detectors.) You think the hefty fines would have caused us to ease off the accelerator by now. Nope, we just know where the speed traps are.
 Why do we go so fast?
  Because the real adventures begin when we arrive at our destination and we don’t like to wait... and people need to use the bathroom.


Clip art available at Cliparts.co

Operation "Housework Sucks More Than Homework"

 OR

 As a single mom I have to do things that I’d rather not do.
 Take out the trash, change patio light bulbs, fix the fence, mow the lawn etc...
 I do have two teen aged daughters who think I am nuts for complaining about these tasks, but do they volunteer to do them? No.
 “Mom, we don’t need anyone else to do those things, we can do them.” says my oldest.
 By “we,” she means “me” as in “I" her mother.
 Apparently my kids think I can do anything.
 The fence is won’t close, call mom. The dishwasher is leaking, mom will fix it. The dog puked in the bathroom, let mom clean it up.
 Rarely do they tackle the mundane difficulties of life on their own.
 Obviously it is my fault they are so out of touch. The only requirement I have for them is straight A’s on report cards. For years they have fulfilled this one requirement. But of late, the second letter in the alphabet has been showing up.
 So, it is time to launch operation “Housework Sucks More Than Homework.”
 What does this plan entail you ask?
 Upon arriving home from school a fifteen minute respite is issued for snack-age and unwinding. Then all electronic social/reading/gaming/etc... devices will be removed from teenage access.    Homework will then be started and completed at the kitchen table, where I can oversee their efforts.  Once lessons are complete a task must be performed before the return of electronic devices.
 Those task include and are not limited to;

• Bedroom cleaning: make the bed, put away clean clothes,vacuum if the room smells like feet.
• Bathroom sanitizing:  spray and wipe off every surface in room, INCLUDING the toilet.
• Living room purification: dust all surfaces, remove all cups, plates, ketchup bottles, soda cans, gum wrappers, chip bags, socks, shoes, retainers and anything else left in front of the television!
• Laundry room purging: wash, dry, fold and put away everything made of fabric. 
• Kitchen ablution: empty dishwasher of clean dishes and reload with the pile of dishes left in the sink for me to deal with.
• Outdoor decontamination: pick up and throw away the dog poo from our yard.

 Now many people would think my kids would just take forever to finish the homework to avoid these task. Not so, to my kids, their electronic devices are vital.
 Without their i-devices how could they communicate with their friends? What would they talk about at school if they couldn't access Tumblur.com?  Who would they fan-girl with about the Supernatural guys?  Where would they look to find out about the weather? When would they get up without their alarm clock app? Their lives would shatter without access to the internet.
 So, their dependency on these devices is just the ticket for me to use to get my way.
 It is my goal that my girls to grow up and be intelligent, strong, independent women who kick butt and make lots of money. So I will commence with operation "Housework Sucks More Than Homework” to get them to my goal.
  Hopefully they will continue to help around the house once their grades are back up, but I doubt it. No, I know it. I’m mom, in their eyes, I can do anything.

Robo-calls

 I was wondering what to write about today when a phone call answered my question.
Ring, ring...
“Hello,” I answered.
“Hi, this is Pam, can  I speak to the elderly person in your home?”
 Elderly person?
I did a quick head count of the inhabitants of our house and could only tag my 9 year old dog as possibly being elderly. Figuring she didn’t want to speak to the dog, I asked her to whom she was referring.
“Edgar Allen Poe” she answered.
Now don’t laugh, my ex’s grandfather was named after the famous poet with only a one letter change in the name. (Allan - for famous guy, Allen - for family member.)
“Unless you can commune with the dead, your not going to speak to him. He died in 1980.”
 Click.
 I get calls for geriatric services all the time. Somehow my phone number ended up on some master list as having an elderly person at my residence. I am 45 and the last time I checked 45 wasn’t elderly. (J-Lo is 45 and she defiantly isn’t elderly.)
 Usually, the calls are no big deal. I tell the caller there is no one here who qualifies for their services and ask them to take my phone number off their list. They say sorry and end of call.
 Occasionally however, I will get some poor sap who won’t take no for an answer. They vomit their script into the phone without giving me any chance to let them down easy.
 Ring, ring.
”Hello?”
“Hi, my name is Mara and we at, blah blah company, senior services want to let you know about the wonderful programs we have for Medicare part B applicants...”  says the caller
“But..” I say”
“This is not a sales call. You qualify for this, one time, special offer to sign up at no additional cost to you..” she rapid fires on.
“But...” I repeat.
“So Mr. Poe what do you say, do you want to sign up for our service?” she concludes.
“No. Mr. Poe does not live here. He...” I say.
“That is okay, Mrs. Poe, we can offer you the same special at no additional cost to you...” she interrupts.
“Wait!” I yell into the phone. “How old is Mr. Poe?”
“Uhh,” she stumbles “Over 65.”
“That man lied to me!” I screamed into the receiver and hung up on her.
 I did feel marginally sad for ending the call so abruptly, but golly, Mara was a talker.
 My dad has the most fun with sales calls of anyone I know.
 He is very patient with the salesperson and answers their questions very slowly letting the salesperson think they have a bite. He will ask questions relating to the service to get their hopes up. Then he will start telling them about his life growing up poor and struggling to make ends meet. He will tell them about how hard he worked to gain the financial security he has built for himself and his family. Finally, he will say he isn’t a dumb old geezer and tells the phone representative they will never get “one red cent” out of him and to have a nice day.
 Usually his approach works, but one day Dad answered the phone and the person on the other end was one of those “vomit-the-script” sales people.  Dad let the guy drone on.
“So would you like me to mail you some information on our offer?”
“No,” said dad.
“Don’t worry we have your address and I can overnight it to you for your consideration. I’ll let you review our product and call you in a few days to see what you think.”
Dad literally pulled the phone away from his face and looked at the receiver and said...
“If you just have to, but I am not interested.”
“Great, I will call you in a few days.”
Dad rolled his eyes and hung up.
The next day Fed-Ex showed up with a packet for dad. It was some kind of investment thing that required thousands of dollars to buy into. To me it looked like fraud, to dad it looked like recycling.
That afternoon the guy called.
 “Well, what did you think about our offer” he asked dad.
 “I didn’t” said dad.
 “What! If you were not serious about getting into the ground floor of this investment opportunity why did you have me overnight you the paperwork” sales guy asked.
 “I told you I wasn’t interested. You are the one who decided to overnight the papers. Don’t call me again."
 Click.
 I thought dad handled the yahoo well.
 Another ploy I use to avoid robo calls is to not say hello upon answering the phone. I will wait a few seconds and listen for the tell tale click that lets me know a computer dialed my number and an operator will be on the line shortly. So I hang up.
 This practice has led to many of my friends thinking I have a phobia about talking on my home phone.
Ring, ring.
I pick up the receiver and stay silent.
“Sally, you there?"
“Oh, hi! I’m just making sure you are not a sales call. What’s up...”
 So to avoid the silent treatment my friends call my cell.
 However, my cell phone number has recently made it onto a robo call list. The only people I give my cell number to are my friends, my doctor, my insurance and my kid’s school. So either the doc, the insurance or the district is selling my info. (My vote is on the insurance. Those money grubbing leaches will drain every last drop out of you.)
 So not only am I bombarded with irritating sales calls at home, I now get them anywhere I go.
 Sure the caller I.D. says “private caller”,  but it could be my Bestie calling from jail needing me  to bail her out from something she did that I suggested she do. So I answer.
“Hi my name is Mara, we at blah, blah, blah...”
 End call.
 I think I’ll just change my numbers.

  If you suspect you have been contacted by a person trying to defraud you contact the U.S. postal inspectors and fill out a mail fraud complaint. Here is a URL to the form.
 http://ehome.uspis.gov/fcsexternal/

Looking for Mr. Right

I have not been very lucky in love.
For awhile I was, but now, not so much.
I have been a single mom for 8 years and I’ve finally realized, I have NO clue how to get a date.
I have tried just about everything. Set ups, online dating sites, divorced dads and church groups.  I am such a looser.
Here is a what I have learned on my journey to find Mr. Right.
The first experience I had in the dating pool was a set up, it was an eye opening experience to say the least...
 My friend found this guy through work she thought would be good for me and asked if she could give him my number. I said yes, I was newly divorced and trusted my friend. He called and we talked and decided to meet in person. On the phone he was great, good conversationalist, funny and seemed normal. In person he was nice to look at, funny and still easy to talk to. It was going great, until he told me about having his laptop stolen. I thought no big deal, sure it was a financial burden, but everyone backs up their laptop so info is safe. Well this guy didn’t back up his stuff and he told me that pictures of him and his ex-girlfriend naked in “creative activities” could end up on the internet. My view of him as normal went swoosh and I ran away as fast as I could.
 I told my friend to lay off setting me up.
 Then I tried online dating.
 I thought my profile was pretty good. My pics were attractive, my interest varied and my requirements honest.
   I knew I’d have to weed through some frogs to find a prince, but I was willing to give it a go.
Little did I know the princes who filled my in-box would be holding up their latest kill or catch, sitting on their mid-life crisis vehicle or smiling into the camera with their arm draped around a cut-out female.
Ever the optimist, I thought “that’s okay, I’m not against hunting, I enjoy a day on the water fishing, driving a good vehicle can be fun and that must be his sister he cut out of the pic."
So I responded to them, “Hi, I like your profile want to message me?”
Boy, oh boy, did I get the message.
“Hey baby want to get together?” 
“You sure look good in those glasses, want to play librarian and the bad boy?” 
“I’m married, are you interested in helping me and my wife spice up our marriage?”
 Click, I deactivated my account.
 So I decided to check out the single dads in my area. (Yup, I trolled the elementary school Spring Carnival in my best outfit and tightest Spanks.) I thought, with the divorce rate now and days surely there would be a man in my area right?
 There was. He and I dated for awhile, but we were just not right for each other. So we decided to just be friends.
 So I thought I needed some advice on how to find Mr. Right. Where? Well in crap romance novels of course!
 I thought I could learn some ideas on how to find the right guy for me.  All I learned was romance novel guys are billionaries with commitment issues, eight pack stomachs,  hero complexes and more baggage than a high school marching band on a road trip. No human male could live up to a romance novel guy. That is why romance novel guys are FICTION!
 Now, I have finally, I decided to try church.
 I probably would have better luck going to a mega church with a singles’ department, but my daughters like the tiny church in our area and I like it too.
 I have always known the best man for me is in church. Well, he is with me always, but I don’t always listen to him. His name... Jesus.
Yes, I know some of you will think it is corny, but for me, He works. (Don’t judge!)
 I pray for a mate who will love me and want to share his life with me and I know one day I’ll meet him.
Until then i am going to keep walking down the road of life, stumbling and messing up along the way. I will try and make good decisions, but I know I will jack up over and over again.
 So, I am just going to wait for Mr. Right to find me.
(He can look for me in the car pool line. I’ll be the one on a laptop, with the glasses, reading a crappy romance novel!)

The Last Square

Why is it that grocery store items are shrinking?
Once upon a time products in the American grocery store were larger and less expensive. Sugar came in a five pound bag, coffee was one pound and toilet paper filled up the holder width wise.
Now and days sugar has shrunk to four pounds, coffee is around 12 ounces and toilet paper...well it just isn’t as big as it used to be.
Are Americans shrinking? Are cakes and candies smaller? Are fewer people having a cup of joe each morning?
No.
Sure the American consumer can kick the sugar and coffee habits, but what about toilet paper????
That is one product that every person needs daily. Americans are not getting smaller we are getting bigger. (If we are shrinking like the products on grocery isles why are there so many weight loss products and programs out there? ) We eat more junk and drink more calorie rich beverages, consequently we are expanding all over. With this increase in our sizes, do we go to the bathroom more often?
Hmmm...
 Growing up I never cared about the size of the roll. It was just there on the holder waiting to be put to use. Now that I am an adult with two teenagers, the size of the roll bugs me.
Nothing is worse than completing my business then looking at the holder to see only one square left on the roll. One square won’t finish the job.
 Sure, my teens could have set a new roll beside the holder for anyone with future need of the product, but that would have required consideration for others. Instead, I’m left on the throne
with one square for a job that requires more than a single sheet.
 I don’t blame my kids completely for the lack of necessary paper work to do the job. I get mad at the fact I changed the stupid roll two days ago and it is out now!
 Growing up mom would change the roll and it would last at least a week. (Yes, I see the connection.) I rarely had to swap out the empty tube for a full one because there was more product on the roll!
 Now I’m left walking like a criminal in leg shackles to the cabinet where the spares are kept to finish what I started. Imagine my surprise when I open the door and find only the plastic wrapper of the 6 pack I bought last week. (A fountain of colorful adjectives spring from my mouth and sends the dog into a barking frenzy outside the bathroom door.) Looking around for something to use as a replacement my eyes land on the box of lotion infused tissues and a container of cotton balls. I consider the cotton balls for about a second then hobble over and grab the box of tissue.
 Tissues are not made for the specific job I need them for, but they work. (Plus my bum felt softer and moisturized.) The tissue is far more expensive than toilet paper and is used far less frequently than t.p. ergo, it is more expensive.
 We are not a super fancy, uber quilted, three ply bum wipes kind of family. We use plain old two ply from the grocery store. I buy that product because my mom bought plain old two ply growing up. It worked then, it should work now.
 Not so much.
 Looking at a roll of toilet paper on the roll holder in my mom’s 30 year old home made me realize the product of today isn’t the same as as it used to be. Back in the day the roll nearly took up all the space on the holder. Today, you could almost fit two rolls side by side on the spring loaded thing.
 What has happened people????
 I would love to see the person responsible for the shrinking of the roll get stuck in the bathroom with only one square, a case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome and a piece of sandpaper. Maybe then they would regret shrinking the sheet!
 It is doubtful any corporate head will read this rant and decide to change back to the size toilet paper roll of my youth. (Sigh.) Or that products on grocery store shelves will stop shrinking in efforts to boost profits.(Double sigh.)
 However, one thing that will change is me.
 I will check the roll before sitting down.