Month: March 2017

Afternoon Chuckle

A young man was walking through a supermarket to pick up a few things when he noticed an old lady following him around. Thinking nothing of it, he ignored her and continued on. Finally he went to the checkout line, but she got in front of him. “Pardon me,” she said, “I’m sorry if my staring at you has made you feel uncomfortable. It’s just that you look just like my son, who just died recently.” “I’m very sorry,” replied the young man, “is there anything I can do for you?” “Yes,” she said, “As I’m leaving, can you say ‘Good bye, Mother’? It would make me feel so much better.” “Sure,” answered the young man.
As the old woman was leaving, he called out, “Goodbye, Mother!” As he stepped up to the checkout counter, he saw that his total was $127.50. “How can that be?” He asked, “I only purchased a few things!” “Your mother said that you would pay for her,” said the clerk.
Seems an elderly gentleman had serious hearing problems for a number of years.
He went to the doctor and the doctor was able to have him fitted for a set of hearing aids that allowed the gentleman to hear 100%. The elderly gentleman went back in a month to the doctor and the doctor said, “Your hearing is perfect. Your family must be really pleased you can hear again.”
To which the gentleman said, “Oh, I haven’t told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to the conversations. I’ve changed my will five times!”

Sitting on the side of the highway waiting to catch speeding drivers, a State Police Officer sees a car puttering along at 22 MPH. He thinks to himself, this driver is just as dangerous as a speeder!” So he turns on his lights and pulls the driver over. Approaching the car, he notices that there are five old ladies — two in the front seat and three in the back — wide eyed and white as ghosts. The driver, obviously confused, says to him, Officer, I don’t understand, I was doing exactly the speed limit! What seems to be the problem? “Ma’am,” the officer replies, you weren’t speeding, but you should know that driving slower than the speed limit can also be a danger to other drivers. Slower than the speed limit? No sir, I was doing the speed limit exactly… Twenty-two miles an hour! “The old woman says a bit proudly. The State Police officer, trying to contain a chuckle explains to her that 22” was the route number, not the speed limit. A bit embarrassed, the woman grinned and thanked the officer for pointing out her error. But before I let you go, Ma’am, I have to ask… Is everyone in this car OK? These women seem awfully shaken and they haven’t muttered a single peep this whole time, “the officer asks. Oh, they’ll be all right in a minute officer. We just got off Route 119.”

“How was your game, dear?” asked Jack’s wife Tracy.
“Well, I was hitting pretty well, but my eyesight’s gotten so bad I couldn’t see where the ball went,” he answered.
“But you’re 75 years old, Jack!” admonished his wife, “Why don’t you take my brother Scott along?”
“But he’s 85 and doesn’t play golf anymore,” protested Jack.
“But he’s got perfect eyesight. He would watch the ball for you,” Tracy pointed out.
The next day Jack teed off with Scott looking on. Jack swung and the ball disappeared down the middle of the fairway. “Do you see it?” asked Jack.
“Yup,” Scott answered.
“Well, where is it?” yelled Jack, peering off into the distance.
“I forgot.”

Book Reviews & WHY They Matter

Wonderful post from Colleen.

Our Awful Friends Part 4

The barnyard turned out to be just a bedraggled fence enclosing a chicken house with a row of nesting boxes.  The chicken house had seen better days and leaned crazily to the left.  Someone had thoughtfully propped it up enough so the eggs didn’t roll out of the boxes.  Jamey picked up a pencil-marked egg and slung it against the barn.  It exploded with a nauseating sulfurous smell and resounding pop, whereupon Jamey explained it had been left for the hen to “set on” and had rotted.  I was familiar with the concept of “setting hens” and knew not to touch precious eggs.  Mother had made it clear eggs were precious, not playthings.  Nonetheless, Jamey took an egg from another nest and hurled it.  It also exploded and turned the air to sulphur to the delight of the party-goers.  Kids started flinging eggs madly.  Knowing they were older and wiser, I joined in.  Before long we’d exhausted the supply and moved across the road to the pig pen.

My parents had frequently complained about the malodorous pig pen, but in a rural community, only consideration governs location of noxious livestock.   Conveniently for the Awfuls, a vacant house with an enclosed back lot stood between our place and theirs.  They had wisely appropriated the back lot for their pig pen.  It was much closer to our house than theirs, a wise decision on their part.  The small pen was home to a couple of sows, their extended families, and millions of flies. Due to their wise location of the pig lot, we undoubtedly got a lot more effect than they did.  My mother, in particular, was offended. Jamey, our fearless leader climbed on the rails.  The smaller of the sows and her babies fled, squealing.  The larger sow the size of a sofa, didn’t seem too disturbed from where she lounged in a muddy wallow across the pen.  The baby pigs were so appealing, we decided to catch one and pet it.  Jamey was a wonderful host.  He dropped into the pen in pursuit of a little pig, followed by me and a couple more kids.  My immediate attention was captured by the ripping of my dress where it caught on a fencepost, hanging me up from the top rail.  Sofa-pig didn’t take all this well.  She lunged at the kids with a guttural growl, running them back over the fence.  Fortunately, I was suspended above the action and climbed to safety, though my fancy dress was done for.  I wasn’t the only one who suffered damage to my wardrobe.  As Jamey sailed over the fence, the mama pig got one of his new birthday tennis shoes.  Mrs. Awful was not happy about that.

When we got back to the house and Mrs. Awful finished cursing about the lost birthday shoe, it was time to open the presents.  As I said, this was my first birthday party.  I was proud of the flashlight Mother had wrapped for me to bring to the party and couldn’t wait to get it back.  Mother showed up for coffee just as I learned I was expected to leave it for Jamey.  I wasn’t falling for that one.  I was wrestling with Jamey for possession of the flashlight just as she walked in the gate.  My behavior, coupled with the destroyed dress, put an end to the coffee-klatch.  Mother dragged me home bawling without the flashlight, my tattered dress tail dragging in the dirt, my first big social fail.

 

 

Our Awful Friends Part 3

Illustration by Kathleen Holdaway Swain

I entered the Land of Enchantment when I passed through that gate.  Shrubs had entangled and obliterated the tangled yard fence.  An amazement of possibilities greeted me.  Hounds and a few chickens lounged on the drooping porch.  A long-abandoned truck rested on blocks.  Old tires, stacks of lumber, pots and pans, and broken toys littered the dirt yard.  The hounds had dug dozens of holes, which the kids had expanded.  A few wild children were whooping with joy, slinging missiles of Chinaberries at each other.  I never wanted to leave.  Mrs. Awful disappeared into the house while we set about entertaining ourselves, a perfect system. 

At four, I was not concerned about social order, so I made my way to the doorless truck, shoving a hound off the battered seat so I could drive, my first opportunity to get behind a wheel.  I stood behind that wheel, turning it madly, till I was shoved over by a late-comer.  I wasn’t particularly disturbed, I knew bigger kids got the first crack at stuff, so I didn’t waste time whining, just kept shoving till they moved on.  I did hurl a broken toy car as they ambled off, but they didn’t bother to come back after me.

All around me, unsupervised kids were running wild, screaming, shoving, running over smaller kids, and just having a wonderful time in general.  Fortunately, there was a wide age-range of kids, so I was able to get in on the fun.  Eventually, Mrs. Awful made it out with birthday cake, serving it up to us on napkins.  She didn’t linger long, quickly returning to her soap opera.  We heard the organ music pouring out the window.  For some reason, she left her toddler, Becky, among us as she returned to her soaps. 

Unlike a couple of the little girls, I had no interest in playing Mama, particularly since Becky’s diaper appeared fully loaded.  I had a baby brother and grasped the significance of that drooping diaper.  Within minutes, Becky’s secret was out.  Kids ran screaming as she approached, like she was “It” in a mad game of chase.  Several tumbles in the dirt did little to clean her up.  Even though she was a baby, Becky understood and protested the shunning.  She stood bravely squalling in the midst of the melee.  Even that didn’t bring her mother to the rescue.  Jamey took mercy and turned the water hose on her, hoping to sanitize her and make her more socially acceptable as he stripped her of her diaper.  To the universal delight of the party-goers, his enterprising brother grabbed the hose sprayed the general crowd, including dogs and chickens.  Should you ever want to plan a good party, be sure to put a water hose first on your list?  We joyously ripped through the spray, fighting for control of the hose.  Our game was cut short by Mrs. Awful hurling curses at us.  If only we had not sprayed water on the television through the open window, our fun could have lasted longer.  She scooped naked Becky up and exiled us to the barnyard.  Fortunately, the barnyard was promising.

 

Our Awful Friends Part 2

I had only been out of the bathtub about 10 minutes when this picture was made.  After that birthday party, this dress was never the same.  I never saw that little purse again.I first became aware of the Awfuls on the occasion of Jamey Awful’s fifth birthday.  I was probably about four and totally ignorant of what birthday parties entailed.  I only knew that Mother ruined a perfectly good day by calling me away from my sand pile to take a bath in the middle of the day, an unheard of event.  I was disturbed especially since she insisted on washing the sand out of my hair.  I’d just spent a good portion of the morning pouring sand on the top of my head, enjoying its powdery coolness showering down on my shoulders and the back of my sundress and saw no reason for her outraged reaction.  “I told you not to get dirty.  We have to go somewhere today.”

As far as I was concerned, sand was clean.  Mud was dirty.  Axle grease was dirty.  Chicken poop was dirty.  Sand was white and dusted right off.  It was not dirty.  At any rate, Mother filled the tub with water and sprinkled in a tub with Tide Powder and plunged me in.  That was what passed for bubble bath at our house.  I would have been content to spend the afternoon there, but she washed my hair and hurried me out, ruining another good time.  Then she brushed my stick straight hair and stuffed me in a fluffy petticoat, a white fluffy dress with red and blue polka-dots, white socks, and sandals.  Worse yet, I had to submit to a photo session.  Mother was a novice with a camera making me pose forever, staring into the sun.  She’d gone to a great deal of fuss making matching dresses for me and Phyllis for Easter and was extremely proud of the effect.  Too bad the confection was wasted on me.  When she’d said Easter outfit, I’d envisioned a cowboy getup.

Then she walked us over to the Awful’s house.  I doubt Mother knew Mrs. Awful, since we’d never been to her house for coffee, even though they only lived a couple of houses over.  I guess the poor woman was scraping the bottom of the barrel to find enough kids for a party, since I was a year younger and Phyllis was a couple of years older and neither had ever laid eyes on Jamey. 

Mrs. Awful met us at the back gate.  There were a dozen or so kids running round in the yard, so once Mother made Mrs. Awful’s acquaintance, she headed home, promising to be back for us in a couple of hours.  Mrs. Awful ushered us in the back gate and the fun began.  I was in Heaven!

AM I WASTING MY TIME?

Lucinda can write. Check out her books!

Lucinda E Clarke's avatarlucinda E Clarke

I have come to the following conclusion.

Not all books that hit the charts are good.

A lot of excellent books never sell.

You can become a NYT bestseller by targeting carefully and working the system.

What is the difference?

Marketing – which equals getting your book/s out there and VISIBLE, really  VISIBLE.

Now before you read any further don’t think for a moment that I am whining. I applaud and admire those people who have the marketing skill. I may or may not write good books, depending on your point of view (you can see them below!) but I ain’t got the marketing skill, nor do I have the money to pay some person or organisation to do it for me. I cannot even railroad DH into doing any of it either. (you may say aaaah here)

I receive dozens of blogs each week telling me how only Facebook…

View original post 1,056 more words

Looky, Looky!

Welcome to today’s selection of blog posts. We kick off with one from author Mary Smith who writes for the blog Take Five Authors and her post over the weekend was on the subject of a state of mind that seems to grasp hold of us and not let go without some lengthy and protracted […]

via Smorgasbord Blogger Daily – 7th March 2017 – Mary Smith, John Fioravanti, Ana’s Lair, Fiona McVie, Linda Bethea — Smorgasbord – Variety is the spice of life

Our Awful Friends

Freedom at the Awful’s  Illustration by Kathleen Holdaway Swain

Mother was a cruel beast of a woman who rarely allowed us out of our own yard.  I felt so deprived when free-range children passed our house in pursuit of adventure.  Sometimes we were able to tempt them in with our tire swing, zip line, or huge barn, but invariably greener pastures called and we were left morosely watching them amble off to Donnie’s or Joey’s house.  Sadly, we’d pine as the motley crew and their retinue of dogs disappeared down the dusty road.  It wasn’t that we didn’t have wondrous opportunities on our own place;t we just hated being left behind.

Once we accepted our sad abandonment, we didn’t waste time whining to Mother that “We don’t have anything to do.”  I only made that mistake once and Mother set me to hanging out diapers, dusting, and washing woodwork.  In fact, she was mean enough to assign jobs to break up fights.  It’s terrible growing up with a mother who turns human nature against innocent children.

At any rate, a family neighboring us raised their fortunate children with a complete lack of supervision.  Those kids roamed long after dark, before daylight, dropped in for meals all over the neighborhood, drank out of from the neighbor’s faucets, rode the neighbor’s cows, and generally led a charmed life.  Though their name was Offut, I misunderstood it as Awful.  In her frequent dealings with these children Mother reached the conclusion Awful was an excellent name.  She was particularly offended when we came home from town and found them in the house making Kool-aid.  The Awful’s had little understanding of private property and had often had Kool-aid with us, so of course they felt free to help themselves, even if Mother had been careless enough not to leave it in the refrigerator.  Her attitude baffled our uninvited guests.  I think the syrupy floor and Jerry’s standing on the counter helping himself to a pack of Daddy’s cigarettes off the top shelf also ruffled her feathers, but she was the crabby type, after all.  The loss of cigarettes were of particular concern.  A carton cost two dollars and eighty cents, a significant portion of her fifteen dollar grocery budget.  At any rate, she took an unreasonable stance and forbade them to enter the house again when we were gone.  I don’t think they found it particularly disturbing since a couple more packs of cigarettes went missing before Daddy found a better hiding place for his stash.  

Thank you Mrs Miller – luv Sally age four ‘n’ haf – #Influencers