Meme and the Opossum

I have told you all about my daddy but I have not told you much about my mother, who was a very unique individual. My mother was raised until she was ten years old by her maternal grandmother who was a Native American medicine woman. My mother learned many home remedies and common sense practices for every day living from her grandmother. When my mother was in her late twenties she went back to college and got her degree in nursing and that was her profession for the next 45 years.

This story is a side of my mother that while we all found it hysterically funny she thought nothing of it. Let me give you a little history so it will make sense to you and you can decide if it’s funny or not.

My mother, Meme, had a beautiful yard and flower garden. She worked long hours at the hospital and her stress relief was to come home and dig in the dirt and pull weeds or those dreaded briars that have roots 10 million miles long. So her garden was her pride and joy. Along with working 80 hours a week at the hospital and gardening like a mad woman she at the age of 58 also had enrolled in college to advance her degree. She and several other women would car pool to the closest college offering the courses needed several evenings a week.

Meme had noticed that something had been eating her plants and digging in her garden big ugly deep holes. She also had noticed some “scat” around the swimming pool. Now being the voodoo woman that my mother was she deduced from just these things that her intruder was an opossum. The only thing I have ever known my mother to be afraid of was scorpions so an opossum wasn’t a big threat to her. She knew she just had to bide her time and she would catch it.

Meme and her car pool buddies went off to school one late summer evening not giving one thought to the intruder. They stopped off at the Sonic on the way home from class for a milkshake and a burger so it was after dark when they pulled into my mother’s driveway. There caught in the gleam of the headlights were a set of red glowing eyes. Meme calmly asked her friend Pam to hold her milkshake and she jumped out of the car ran towards the red glowing eyes and grabbed the opossum by the tail. She then lifted it above her head and started whirling it around like you would a toy until she felt it was good and dizzy. Then as quickly as she had grabbed the poor unsuspecting animal she let him go. The opossum stumbled around in a drunken stupor for a few minutes then regained its ground legs and scrambled away. Meme then calmly ambled over to the water spigot washed her hands and walked towards the car where the other women sat mouths agape in shock and confusion. Meme then took her milkshake away from poor Pam who was frozen pretty much like the opossum before he was snatched up and whirled in the air. Meme looked at the women and said “If you do that they get discombobulated and won’t come back”. She then gathered her things bid the women goodnight and went inside without a second thought. The women in the car sat frozen for several more minutes then laughing hysterically went home.

Several days later Meme’s next door neighbor was on his tractor tugging at his shed trying to move it from where it stood. She went over to lend a hand and see why he was moving his shed. He looked at her and said “It’s the darndest thing. Seems a opossum crawled under my shed the other night and I guess it died.” Meme just looked at Jake and said “Isat so?”

Now you be the judge. I think she is a scream!

Ode to Toilet

The French call it toilette, the German is die Toilette, Greek it is τουαλέτα, Italian is bagno, the British call it the loo but the ones I’ve seen lately I just call foul!

First let me warn you this may be graphic or gross but it is something I’ve been wondering for awhile now. So if you are squeamish or easily offended then I suggest you step back on the platform because this train is leaving the station.

Men pee standing up (yeah I know I’m Captain Obvious) and you expect them to pee on the floor now and then. I mean they are standing there holding their prize possession in their hand and they get a little creative. Hummm let see if I can make my initials in the blue water…ooops or I’ve had a few to many Bud’s and I’m seeing two bowls. You expect that it doesn’t mean you don’t make them clean it up but hey they are guys they think with that thing in their hands.

Women sit when they pee (Again I know I’m being C.O. but I’m going somewhere with this). Then why is it women’s public restrooms have pee all over the seats, the floor and the walls? It is gross! It is disgusting and confusing. What do these women do? Prop themselves up on the seat then aim? How? Oh…but it gets worse. It seems like a disturbing number of public restrooms, I mean in nice restaurants and nice shops have excrement on the walls of the stalls. Yes I’m talking shit on the walls of the women’s restrooms. I told you to step off the train if you didn’t want to be grossed out.

WHO DOES THIS? I can’t imagine why or who would do such an abominable thing? How does one spew fetid feces out the anal orifice of one’s body and have it splatter on the wall in a pattern that makes the beholder not quite sure what it is. Then it boggles my mind that it is a woman. I don’t imagine women being so crass or crude to spray feces and urine all over a public restroom facility. Do they sit around and plan this? What do they say “Hey, Gertrude, how bout we go down to the Panache’ Grill and spray some sheit on the wall. Buuuurrrrrrpppp, plthtttthhhh, hehe, that was a good-un wudn’t it?” I just don’t see it. It offends my feminine sensibilities. Heck it offends my masculine sensibilities. Oh wait is there such a thing? Hum I’ll have to study on that one.
This phenomenon may explain why women go to the bathroom in multiples. Maybe they have to go two by twos so they can hold each other up and aim like a poospewing machine gun. Ok Hazel it’s my turn now. I want to shoot that wall over there. YeeHaw this is more fun than tipping cows!

It’s not that these restrooms aren’t cleaned on a regular basis so it means this happens more than any of us want to think about. They do clean their restrooms don’t they? What? You think the workers do this? No! “Hey Hazel, I know a way to get back at the dickhead boss Billy Joe Bob, we’ll just saunter into the ladies and spray our sheit on the walls. That’ll show him for scheduling me on double Bud night at the bowling alley”. See that makes no sense because Hazel and Gertrude would be the ones having to scrub it up. Because Billy Joe Bob isn’t going to clean the ladies room, heck he doesn’t clean the Men’s room, that there is wimmin’s work.

I can’t speak for the men’s rooms, since I try not to visit them on purpose, but I’m thoroughly disgusted with women’s use and abuse of the restroom. I try not to use public restrooms but like they say, when you have to go, well, you know the rest. So when I do visit the powder room (not that women use much powder anymore) I am scrutinizing everyone in there to see if they might be the spewing culprit.

That is my pet peeve and my rant for the day. I’m going to go get a skinny vanilla extra hot double cupped latte but I will not be using the loo.

The Dating Game

I have a niece who is just nearing dating age. You know this is happening because all of a sudden they stop looking like little girls or tomboys with torn jeans, oversized tee-shirts, messy hair and dirty faces and d and start looking like movie stars. They have the perfect hair, their nails are painted and long, their clothes start coming from Abercrombie and Fitch instead of Dad’s side of the closet. Yes, it is time for the phone to start ringing incessantly or the appearance of a growth looking exactly like a cell phone becomes attached to their ear. They start throwing in names like Hunter or Ryan into their conversation as in “Ryan is so cool; his dad gave him a vintage 1980’s mustang.” Your first thought is when did 1980 become vintage and second is “you’re not getting in the car with him”. You try not to vocalize these thoughts but sometimes you loose your filter and it spills out. Yes, welcome to the world of teenage dating.

I wasn’t allowed to date until I was sixteen. I was a junior in high school when I finally turned sixteen and really didn’t embark on the dating scene until late in my junior year. I was introduced to a boy from our rival high school across town at a party one night. He seemed nice and my friend who introduced us vouched for him. He seemed to be interested in me and me in him. When he asked me out for the following Friday I was thrilled, elated, heck I all but floated out of the party. I mean this guy was cool. He dressed differently than the cowboys I was used to dating. He didn’t have a dip of snuff under his lip and he quoted poetry! Be still my beating heart.

My parents were still quite strict even though they had been through this dating thing twice before. They had gone through this with my rebellious sister and the other with my elusive brother. I am sure that is why my mother set my curfews so early and my daddy insisted each boy come up to the house and meet one of my family before I could leave. I had rules. Rule number one, no boys in the house when my parents weren’t home which meant never since my parents were rarely home. Rule number two, home before 9:00 pm on school nights and 10:30 pm on weekends, because we all know that you won’t get into any trouble or have s-e-x before 10:30. Rule number three, no drive-in movies, because that was where kids had s-e-x. Rule number four, the boys had to come to the house and meet someone from my family before they could cart their daughter out on a date.

I spoke to let’s call him Craig, because that was his name, on the phone several times during the week before our date. Each time getting a more of a sense of the Rebel Without a Cause vibe from him. He was funny and intense and sort of moody. He was everything a teenage girl finds attractive; thank God we finally out grow that. He agreed to pick me up Friday evening at six because the movie started around seven that would give us time to grab a burger before the show. He got directions to my house and I told him my “house rules”. He just chuckled and said “we’ll see”.

Friday finally arrived and I couldn’t wait for school to let out so I could go and primp and prune and polish. I tamed my frizzy hair as much as I could trying to look like Farah Fawcett but instead looked more like Rosanna Danna Danna. I put on my high waisted Faded Glory Wide legged bell bottoms, my cutest tallest platform shoes lifting me up from 4’10” to 5’1” and my cutest hippest Hang Ten tee shirt. I was a vision of 1970’s loveliness. I was dressed and ready to go by five o’clock and sat in the den with my dad waiting for Craig (le sigh) to show up. My dad was entranced by something Walter Cronkite was saying on the six o’clock news when I heard a honk from the front of the house. I got up and ran to the front door. At the end of our side walk sat the coolest, hottest trans-am. It was black and gold with the big eagle on the front, t-tops and loud pipes. My heart leapt in my chest. Craig is just the coolest! I thought. My daddy on the other hand was not impressed. He yelled from his recliner. “Young Lady, YOU are NOT going out there! You can yell at him and tell him to come in and meet me or you can just sit your little butt back down on the couch and stay home.”

I did as I was told and opened the door and asked Craig to come inside. I was mortified, but I would have been more so if I hadn’t. He got out of his car very much put out to be made to come inside but he did. My daddy gave him the third degree and asked him all but what his blood type was. Then he said “Okay, then Greg, you have my little girl back home by 10:30. You got me boy?” To which Craig replied “My name is Craig and I got you.” Daddy narrowed his eyes and looked at Craig and said “Alright then Greg we’ll see you later and you drive careful.” I literally wanted to crawl under the couch and have a tea party with the dust bunnies, well if my mother would have had dust bunnies.

Craig and I walk out to the car with me chattering on about some nonsense and I walk around to the passenger door and wait. I notice Craig has already gotten in the car. Now I was raised that it was only polite and the gentlemanly thing to do for the man to open the woman’s car door as a sign of respect. I stood there dumbly looking at the door when he said “What’s the matter don’t you know how to open a door?” Well of course now I felt stupid so I opened the door and slid into his purring machine. My teenage hormones were at full tilt and I just knew he was going to be “the one”. I would have to work on his manners but hey that was just a minor set back.

I sat back ready to enjoy the evening. Craig put his foot on the accelerator and laid rubber half way down the block in front of my house. I could feel my daddy’s eyes rolling from the end of the street. Craig took the first corner on two wheels only instead of being frightened I felt exhilarated. Like I said I lived in a very strict household. We stopped briefly at the little drive-in diner and wolfed down a hamburger and some fries and then we were speeding across town again. The next thing I know we pull into the drive-in movie theater. I looked at Craig and said “I’m not allowed to go to the drive-in.” He just smirked and replied “What your parents don’t know won’t hurt you.”

We pulled into our stall and he rolled down his window, took the speaker off the stand and hooked it on the door. The movie had not started yet and they were playing some rock and roll tune that we both sat and sang the lyrics and kept the beat to. I was trying to feign comfort but the situation just felt all wrong. I kept hearing my daddy’s words in my head and I just knew my mother with her voodoo who doo or extra sensory perception would know. I had images of an errant meteor hurdling towards earth and unfortunately striking right in the center of the theater parking lot. There I’d be on the news being interviewed about a meteor hitting the front of the car and my parents would know. I was petrified!

Nighttime snuck in and the movie trailers started. Craig put his arm over the back of my seat and leaned across the console and in a very husky almost whisper said “So would you like to get comfortable in the back seat?” I was taken aback. I was shocked. I was aghast. I looked at him with my big eyes and squeaked out a “No thank you; I’ll just stay up here with you.” His mouth snapped shut, his eyes turned black and he threw the speaker out of the window revved the engine on his car and peeled out of the theater lot. He sped 100 miles per hour across town weaving in and out of cars running red lights and sliding around corners. He skidded to a stop in front of my house reached across the car and opened my door. He then spoke the only words he had spoken since he had asked me the confusing question “GET OUT!” he said.

I begged, I pleaded, and I groveled. What had I said? What had I done to invoke his ire, his wrath, his hate? He said nothing just sat there looking at me like I was covered in rat shit. I slowly crawled out of his super cool car. The next thing I knew the door was slammed and all I could see were his red cat eye tail-lights speeding away. I was crushed and confused. I didn’t understand why he was so angry. I didn’t understand why he would turn on me. My inferiority complex just tripled in size as I drug my feet to the door and let myself in.

Daddy was still in his recliner now watching a western or Nova or something. He looked up when I entered the room and asked what I was doing home so soon. I was crushed and began to tell him what happened. The slightest curl went to my father’s lips. He suppressed a chuckle or two and very calmly said “You did good kid.”

Happy Birthday Lughead Larry

I DID not forget another Birthday I have just been thinking about this one awhile. Last Friday was my nephew’s birthday. He turned 17. It amazes me that my little nephew Lughead Larry turned 17. I mean it seems like it was yesterday that he was sporting a bowl on the head haircut running around the house with a full diaper waiting for the trash truck.

He has loved construction equipment, trucks and anything with an engine and could crush a house since was in the womb. It might be because his Dad is in construction or it could be because he was pre-destined to be “Bob the Builder”, which by the way was his favorite cartoon when he was little. This is the same kid who would spend hours in my mother’s garden driving his toy trucks through the dirt building his roads and hills and making ditches. He could name every piece of heavy machinery and tell you what it could do before he could read. He could also run any piece of machinery before he could tie his Caterpillar steel-toed construction boots.

I didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with my nieces and nephew. I was always too many miles away raising my own and there never seems to be enough money or time. They are all almost grown now, what with Lughead being 17, his younger sister not far behind and his older sister no longer in her teens. I hate that I missed those years because they are great people. I did however get regaled with stories either from my mom and dad or my sister when would partake in one of our marathon phone conversations.

The one story about my nephew that stands out most of all was when he was still a little tike. He was telling my dad that he had an accident on the job site. He had two imaginary workers, Andy and Boopy, who he constantly had to move from one job site to the other or tell them where to dig etc. Well it seems that Andy and Boopy were on a job and Boopy cut off his toe. Lughead was beside himself because he was going to have a workerman’s comp claim. (Yeah, this kid was 3 and knew all this stuff) So my dad playing along with him told him that was too bad. Larry came back with the reply that it wasn’t THAT big a deal since Andy was able to “toe-nail” Boopy’s toe back on. Pretty smart kid isn’t he?

Well he is much bigger now and he is still a smart kid. He is also one of the sweetest, kindest best natured young men I know. He takes time out of his busy days of school and working at his dad’s construction company to go by and pick up his 83 year old grandfather and take him to the doughnut shop or out to eat. He goes by and hangs out with his grandparents not because he HAS to but because he wants to. I have to say I really admire him.

Happy Birthday Lughead!