One Flew Outta the Cuckoo's Nest

So, how was your Halloween? Halloween is, as many of you know, NOT my favorite holiday. I've always considered it to the The Holiday to Punish Uncreative Parents. Maybe it all goes back to the Halloween that someone cut our cat's tail off. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that on Jill's first Halloween, when she was ten months old, we dressed her as a Damnation, then she promptly vomited all over the entire outfit after the first stop we made. I really do hate Halloween.

I don't get into the whole make-a-costume thing. The one and only time I actually made a costume was for Seth, the year he wanted to be Link, from Legend of Zelda. Link wears a tunic, a pair of Robin Hood type tights, and some elf boots. Seth's Link consisted of a felt tunic that was glued and stapled together, a pair of girls leggings from the DAV (no way I'd have gotten him into tights), and a cute pair of 80s pixie boots. He never knew that half of Link came from the girl's department. Guess he does now, but he loved that costume.

So yeah, I am not into the whole Halloween thing. This year, since Dan was going to be at church most of the evening, cleaning up after the fish fry, I debated not even getting any candy, and just hiding from the wee ones. In the end, guilt won and I bought our usual $80 of candy, cause we get a LOT of trick or treaters. I got the candy ready, and Seth, God love him, said he'd take the dogs up to his room, cause as we all know, Boo is just plain crazy, and Timmy is getting old enough that he's confused a good portion of the time. He figured that if he took them up there, maybe the trick or treaters would live.

So, my friend stops by with her kid, right about the time the neighbor says "you MUST go over on the other block and see the tree, before they close it down. It's hilarious." We'd already have 150+ kids at our house, and it finally was slowing down, so we decided to get in the car and go see. You may remember that I'm not so good at driving in reverse, but I've done pretty well lately. Still, I started backing up, felt a bump and thought it must just be a pile of leaves. That was before the headlights shown on the screen from Seth's room. Uh oh.

I stop the car, we all look up, and Boo is getting ready to bail from the second story window, and Tim's looking just confused enough to follow. Oh Sweet Baby Jesus. Seth bails out the back seat, grabs the screen, and sprints for the back door while my friend and I are frantically telling the dogs to Stay. Lest you think we overreact, Boo WILL jump off or over just about anything, so it was a relief when Seth got up there and got the window closed before they lept. Whew!

Our relief was short lived, however, because when Seth got back in the car, he mentioned that Bandit, our very fat, very long haired, very DUMB cat, had been hiding in the bushes in back when he unlocked the door. Bandit, who had, till that point, been sitting on the windowsill in Seth's room. On the second floor of the house. Bandit apparently freaked when the dogs rushed the window, and fell straight out the window with the screen. Apparently Bandit is too dumb to even get injured, because he's not even limping, and doesn't look any more confused than a normal day.

And the tree we were going to see? It was worth the ride, because they had created a tree that talked, and sprayed water at people, all while telling funny and gross stories to the trick or treaters. Up to that point, I had thought that the mom who showed up with her trick-or-treaters, telling them to "say thank you" whilst she ate a salad was the funniest thing of the night. That tree? Best thing I've seen in a while, even if it did involve Halloween.

The Twenty Year Old Mulligan

Dan has always told the kids, from a very, very young age, that if they could make it to the age of twenty with no altercations with the police, that they would receive $1000 on their twentieth birthday. Now, you might think that this is a little crazy, but case in point: Dan, by the age of twenty, had had two tickets, and two car accidents, one of which left his mother's Grand Am straddling a median on Post Road. (I think there was tequila involved). One of our friends' daughter had two wrecks in her first year of driving. Another had two speeding tickets in the same timeframe. We'd probably pay out $1000 in insurance premiums if that happened to us, or at the very least, spend the same in gas and Xanax, if they screwed up and we took the keys away and I had to drive them everywhere. What I looked at at first as a silly little bet became a huge carrot, and a big savings for us, both in our checking account as well as my nerves.

When the kids finally started driving, I'd tell them "you know, you can speed up a little bit," and would be met with "no way Mom, I'm driving the speed limit, cause I want my thousand bucks." I started realizing that this bet had MEANING. We did mention to them that it wasn't totally on their word, since we have friends who are police officers, and we'd be running a police report, so they'd better not lie to us.

I should probably mention here too, that I have always told the kids that if they ever wanted to call me and have me pick them up, I'd pick 'em up anywhere, but if they called me from jail, they'd better be telling me they were getting comfortable for the night, cause I would not pick them up. "Well Mom," they would say, "what if it wasn't our fault? What if our friends did something, and we just happened to be there?" Well guess what? Mama didn't raise no dumbies, and I told 'em that I didn't raise them to have stupid friends either, so if they had stupid friends, then they deserved to be in jail, and they'd better not call me. I did mention, however, that their father, probably remembering his youth, would give them one chance, so they could pray that he answered the phone.

Side note: Jill called the other night, at 11:15pm. Phone rang five times, less than three feet from Dan's head. He never budged. Note to children: don't call Dad.

So, Thomas hit the big day on Saturday. The big 2-0, and the boy was chomping at the bit for his moolah. We camped the weekend before, and I told him, "knowing you, you'll end up with a ticket on Friday night," to which Seth's BFF Chris said "many, you'd better walk all week." Nope. Friday night, I give Dan the information to run the police report. Saturday morning comes, and Dan leaves me his checkbook, telling me to make the boy out a check. I think Dan was sweating a little bit. So off he goes to work, ready to meet us at lunch. I decided that it wouldn't be prudent for the boy to walk around with cash or check all weekend, and being a procrastinator, probably until next Thursday, when he would finally go to the bank, so I just went to the bank and transferred the money. Called Dan to verify where the money was transferring from, then called the boy and told him he was $1000 richer. He was pretty happy.

So, I picked up Thomas, grabbed Seth from the house, and drove to meet Dan for lunch (Jill was working and couldn't go). Dan sits down, looks the boy in the eye and says "can you look me in the eye as a man and tell me that you've made it till the age of twenty with no interactions with the police?"

The kid caved.

Turns out that he had a seatbelt violation in April that he neglected to tell us about, to the tune of $25 bucks. He said he came home and told Jill, who promptly told him not to tell us, lest he lose his 1000 bucks. This kid, who always said that he wouldn't lie if we asked him a direct question, caved under pressure and told the truth. Good for him, but dammit, that money was already in his account, so he made off like a bandit, thanks to a forgiving father who gave him a mulligan in the form of a seatbelt violation.

What a guy.

Excuses, excuses

I've been a nurse for 26 years. I've been a triage nurse for ten years. In that time, I have heard just about every excuse there is for losing a prescription for "the good stuff." But today, I heard what will probably go down as my favorite. More on that later.

Here are ones that we hear so often, you shouldn't bother with them:

• "I dropped it in the toilet." Please.
• "I left it at the hotel, and the maids stole it."
  
• Someone cleaned out my car and it got thrown away.
• It got stolen when I went in to pay for my gas at the gas station.
  
• It got stolen. Now, I did get a bit of extra credit to the guy who called one Saturday and said his house had been broken into, and all they stole was his prescription. Hmmmm.... Well, toddle off to the ER with a police report, and maybe, just maybe, they will give you a script. Next day, the same guy calls back, saying "you aren't gonna believe it, but my house got broken into and they stole my police report." You're right. I don't believe you.

Up till today, the best one I'd heard was someone who said "my Xanax got stolen at a baby shower." Now that must've been quite some baby shower, and maybe she didn't get a new prescription, but I did give her points for creativity.

Today, I had the penultimate reason given to me: "The South Korean government confiscated it." And the funny thing is, it was true. Without going into details, let's just say that the Koreans don't like anyone bringing medicine out of the country, so somewhere there's a South Korean guard standing at attention, with a goofy blank look.

Make that guy pee in a cup.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Jillie Scorned

Disclaimer: I know what my parents will say when they read this.

Last week, Dan and I were messing about in the yard. He of the paintbrush was doing as painters do, and I was just hanging out. Had the Big Butt dog out there, and the Whirling Dervish as well. Just a nice relaxing evening. On a Tuesday. (Make note of day.)

Dan decided that he would go up front and bring back the trashcans, since trash day was long gone. The Whirling Dervish followed him and, since that monster only listens to male voices, he wouldn't come back to the back. I warned Dan to send him to the back yard, and Dan assured me he would keep an eye on him, and he was fine. And yeah, he should've been, because he only listens to men. No joke. I can talk till my heart's content, and he won't budge till he hears a male voice, even if it's a block away.

Three hours later, I was vacuuming in the living room, and suddenly realized that I wasn't being chased by that squirrely puppy. Asked Dan where he was, and got the typical mumble from a husband who's not really 100% invested in the conversation. I asked him again, with The Tone, and he suddenly looked at me with a look that told the whole story. He hadn't let him in. We had no idea where he was. It was just starting to get dark, so we got in the car and went out looking for him, figuring maybe he'd be running in circles around someone who was out walking their dog. There were TONS of people out walking that night. Walking is the key word here, because there was no dog tripping them by running in frantic orbs around them.

We looked at each other with a "you tell Jill look." Nobody really wanted to say a thing, cause she was upstairs doing her teenaged angst thing in her room. So, I waited till she came down the Pattern Central, and casually mentioned that "oh, by the way, you realize we have no idea where Rocky is, right?" Unhappiness reigned, then sadness when the reality hit that he was likely gone. We went out looking for him every day since -- except Thursday, when Jill left for school, and we got to spend several hours in the car with her, much of which was spent listening to Taylor Swift (that's a whole different story).

Jill swore, before she left, that she could hear him barking from far away. I believe her, because there was one time -- yes, the parents were here -- when Timmy got loose and ended up at the Humane Society. Jill walked in that back room and I swear, she recognized his bark in the caucophone of 100 dogs, and walked straight up to him with no guide to take her there. She HEARD Rocky now, as well. I have to admit, I did too. Not all the time, but sometimes. On Sunday, Seth and I jumped in the car and drove around, because I not only heard him, but when I yelled him name, he barked back to me. Of course, we didn't find him, but we did give some guy a startle when we slowed down and stared at him as he was walking his older-version-of-Rocky dog. I finally got out and told him I really wasn't a stalker, and explained what had happened.

And then, on Monday afternoon, Animal Control called Jill and said they had Rocky. Well, I'll be double dipped. So, of course, it was up to me to go get him when I got off work, so I walked into the pound and announced that I was there to get Jill's dog. The woman who shall henceforth be called Hater Bitch (HB), immediately told me that I couldn't get him, because she would have to pick him up herself. The other saintly woman, henceforth known as Terri, cause that's her name, said that "her daughter is only 17, so we can do it." Me being me, and being honest, cause I'm a preacher's kid, I said "no, she's 18, but she's 3 1/2 hours away at college."

Well then it was on like Donkey Kong. HB recognized her opening and said nope, she's going to have to fax us her ID AND a letter saying blah blah blah blah blah, to which I responded, you know, I can tell you ANYTHING about this dog. No matter, HB wanted ID and a letter, blah blah blah. So I informed her that I was gonna call Jill and SHE could tell her the whole thing, and why she wouldn't let me have her dog. "I see no reason why I should talk to her," says HB, to which I responded "You don't live with a teenaged girl. I'm not taking the blame here, and YOU can listen to what she has to say about all of this." And so it was that I handed her the phone and let Jill get her instructions. When she handed the phone back, Jill was pretty frantic because, beind new on campus, she didn't know where a fax machine was. I reminded her that she only had about ten minutes before Animal Control closed, at which point HB said "No. She has EIGHT minutes."

If looks could kill, HB would not be here today.

I sat there fuming, waiting for The Brat to call me back or fax or something, when Terri came over and said "why don't I go ahead and get your id and copy it, just to get things started?" That was when I knew it would be ok. So we're chatting whilst she does this, when my phone goes off. It's Jill, who is beside herself, because she had run all the way across campus, barefoot, nearly mowing over The Hot Guy in her dorm in the process, but the library didn't have a fax. I told her to run to the Bursar's Office, and she said she didn't have time to get there before they closed. At this point, she yelled "let me talk to that lady. I want to talk to her." At which point, I told her to be nice, because we were now dealing with someone reasonable. I handed my phone over to Terri, who listened, handed the phone back, and said "I'll be right back," and headed right to the manager's office.

"Oh God, girl, what did you say to her," I asked, to which Jill replied "I yelled at her. I want my damn dog back." That's the point at which I realized that my darling Bratty Girl has turned into her mama, cause she ain't taking no crap offa anyone. Good thing Terri has teenagers in her house, cause she was feeling my pain, I'm sure. She came wandering back over, looked at me with a purposeful look and said "OK, is the dog's name Rocky?" "Yes." "Is he neutered?" "Yes." "Is he microchipped?" "Yes." "Ok then, I guess he's your dog," she said, with a wink.

So that was how, after a week of being gone, driving probably fifty miles through a neighborhood that's only a few blocks square, hanging up flyers all over, and putting up with a lot of guff from The Brat, that Rocky returned home, after a week of being gone. And also, I might add, how the microchip information got changed to my name.

It's the end of the world as we know it

Well folks, believe it or not, the fast has been broken. Jill ate meat. Well, not exactly meat, but after nine years of not eating anything with a face, the girl ate a bite of chicken.

I made a thrown-together dinner tonight --- chicken breasts, lightly browned, cut into pieces and thrown into the pot with some tomatoes, beans, corn, herbs, garlic, and whatever else I thought fit. Threw in some cheese and sour cream and call it a dinner, cause that's what I did. In typical Dan fashion, he added some broken up chips (he can't have a dinner without a lotta carbs), and there we were.

There we were, fixing up nice bowls of this mix, and in walked Jill. Uh oh. Normally when I cook something like this, I mix it all up and add the meat last. That gives me a chance to fix the vegetarian girl the same meal as us, without me thinking too awful much. Tonight, I totally forgot to do that, which meant I had one big pot 'o Mexican stuff, and no pots of vegetarian stuff. Sometimes that is still ok with The Brat, cause she'll just pick out the meat if it's in chunks, so that's what I suggested. She started staring it down, and thought that the chicken wasn't so chunky, and it was gonna be hard to pick out. I begged to differ, but after a long day working in the barn, she gave up the ghost and fixed a bowl anyway.

We were sitting there chatting away, when she came upon a big chunk 'o chicken in her bowl. She held it up and perused it, turning it all around on her fork, staring at it the whole time, before she announced, "I think I'm gonna eat this piece of chicken." Now, I've heard this before. She said a year ago, maybe two years ago, at Thanksgiving, that she thought she was maybe going to have some turkey. I told her she could eat what she wanted, and no one really cared, because it was up to her. Chickened out at the last minute (pun intended, maybe, I don't know). Ate no meat until tonight, when she sat there staring down the chicken. She looked a little apprehensive, then asked, "who thinks I should eat this chicken. We're gonna vote." Dan's hand went up in the air immediately. Seth's hand went up too. I waited, vetting the possibilities: vote no, and I'm telling her what to do. Vote yes, and if she ends up mad later, it'll be my fault. In the end, I made it a unanimous vote, at which point that chicken disappeared quicker than a Dairy Queen Blizzard, and history was made. Jill promptly announced that she's going to eat turkey at Thanksgiving, too.

It's the end of an era. Chickens all around the world cried.

A potpourri of information for the no-longer-homeschooled

Seth started high school last month. This child, who had never graced the halls of higher education, who was fascinated with the inner workings of a non-electric pencil sharpener on the one occasion he visited a school office, is now a publicly educated young man. By his choice.

So here are a few snippets of information, after three weeks of school:

• As a freshman, stay far, far away from the upperclassmen. They are not kind to the underlings. Find a table of freshman at lunch, and plant it.
• If the band instruments have not yet arrived, do something. Anything. Do not, under any circumstances, when the principal is talking to your family during the Welcome Picnic, mention that "we finally did something in band besides sleep." It WILL raise eyebrows, even if the band instruments haven't arrived, and even if it's the truth.
• Do tell your mother, on the other hand, that "I think we're going to do something in band now, instead of sleep." When she asks how you know this, tell her, as the Spare to the Throne did, "because she told us to bring a pencil to class."
  
• And the following day, when your mom asks why said pencil was required in Band, do tell her that it's because you took notes. The irony of that statement, when talking about band, will further amuse her. Your mother needs amusement.
  
• Do not, under any circumstances, tell your sister of any altercations at school, if she has, as The Brat did, tell you that she would cut anyone who messed with her baby brother. You really can't be sure if she's kidding or not. Teenaged girls are unpredictable.
• Do, on the other hand, tell the Heir to the Throne about any seniors who are messing with you. Why only seniors? Because, as he says "I'm not going to jail for any little babies. They have to be 18." Oye AND vay.
• And lastly, when you find out that your lockermate is the principal's son, do find a way to work that to your advantage. I would think that there would be a way to work it out so that a grade is improved, or something. Even if the principal's son is as messy as you.
• Shoot for straight A's, if you want to shoot for the moon. If you want it more interesting, shoot for straight B's, as my friend's no-longer-homeschooled daughter is. Think of that -- it would take some doing to get straight B's. Shooting for straight A's just means you shoot for the best. Straight B's? You'd have to do some figuring to make that work. It's a rather creative goal, if you think about it.
• And yes, when you realize that maybe you should get up just a little earlier, set your alarm clock twenty minutes earlier. That's what Seth did. When I pointed out to him that he was still asleep when I got up this morning, I was met with a blank stare, and the he said "mom, I use that twenty minutes to sleep."

I will leave you to ponder that little Seth-ism. I'm still figuring that out myself.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

There was a time, some years ago, that we bought a car from our neighbors. He was over 80, and she was close to it, and they were moving to an assisted living, so we bought their 14 year old Grand Marquis. It had something like 40, 000 miles on it, and had literally been driven only to church on Sundays and to get Inez' hair done on Mondays. A beautiful piece of machinery it was, although I called it the aircraft carrier. Heck, I often said I could have fit six dead bodies in that trunk. It was huge.

One day shortly after we bought it, Dan had a flat. He didn't have time to go get it fixed, so he was riding along on the spare for a few days. For some reason, I had to drive him somewhere and drop him off, so we loaded up the kids and took off. I can't even remember why I drove him there, but there I was on the way back, on 465, going probably 70+ mph, when I heard a BAM, and then a horrible banging noise. Oh man.

I pulled over to the shoulder and got out to inspect the offending tire, and was shocked to see that the tire was still inflated, but that I could've literally peeled back about 18 inches of tread from the innertube. Weird. I've never seen anything like it, but the tire was as inflated as it was before it happened. I was faced with a strange dilemma, especially since the kids were with me. Seth was a baby, so Thomas and Jill were probably kindergarten and first grade. I wasn't near an exit and was not really in the mood to haul the kids down the shoulder, then climb a fence into a total stranger's backyard to see if I could use their phone -- and who would I call, because Dan was incommunicado? We were too broke at the time for AAA, so the options were rather limited.

I sat there and mulled over my dilemma for a few minutes while the kids offered their own suggestions through the window, then decided to go for it and just drive home. The problem was that I didn't want to drive it too fast, because every time that tread came around, it would BANG onto the wheel well really hard, making a horrible racket and, I feared, putting me at more risk of a flat, on the side of the interstate, with three kids, on a warm summer night. I decided I'd just stay in the shoulder, which was working fine till I came up on someone who was changing their tire in my lane. Had to sit there and wait till the traffic cleared, then I passed them very slowly, while they stared at the crazy lady with the banging tire.

Right about then, Thomas said "boy oh boy would Dad be mad if he was here." Pretty soon he said "this reminds me of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which resulted in all of us singing a rousing rendition at the top of our lungs, while still in the emergency lane going roughly twelve miles an hour. With the tire still banging every time it rotated. Oye and vay. This was our situation when I saw the red flashing lights. "Oh great," said Thomas. "We're getting pulled over." "I got news for you, baby," said the mother. "We ARE over."

The cop rolled up next to us, rolled down his window, and asked if we were ok. I explained what was going on, all while still rolling slowly down the road, and told the officer that I was just trying to get to the exit -- we were close now -- and then would call someone from the service station to come pick us up. He must've felt pretty good that we were ok, because he took off, and I went to the exit, drove up to the service station and, when I realized that the tire was still perfectly fine (except the huge piece of tread hanging off of it), I decided to drive the remaining couple of miles home. And yeah, I'll be darned, we made it. With the tire still inflated.

Crazy, I know, but then Dan got home. More about that tomorrow.