Wee, Wee, Wee; All the Way Home!

In a couple months my family will celebrate five years of living in our current house.  We basically moved from one side of the family land (where our first home was located) to the other (with a house or two outside the confines of the farm thrown in for good measure).  I really do enjoy living here.  I love our home and, even though I gripe about it each and every time I mow, I’m quite fond of our yard. Truthfully, there are times it feels as if we’re living in a state park.  We are surrounded by beautiful farmland which I can admire from the comfort, safety and convenience of my porches with nary a worry about foul smelling cow patties or those other offensive items of a like nature mentioned in a previous post.  

One thing I have become fond of over the years is the semi-privacy that is afforded when you live on a larger tract of land.  We have few neighbors.  People are close enough they can be of help if needed, but not so close I can’t walk out onto my front porch to water some ferns wearing a bathrobe and some Crocs (Note: wearing Crocs on wet concrete can be hazardous to your health and could lead to very humiliating poses).

Don’t get me wrong, I love the neighbors we have.  They are truly wonderful. It’s just that I am way too lazy to always be on guard, worried about the state of my appearance or that of my children should we be seen up close on a daily basis - especially in the summer.

Now speaking of neighbors, I probably don’t have to tell you that they are not all created equal.  Some are known for the awesome chicken salad they bring to get-togethers, some are known for inviting your children over to play, while others are known for being ever ready to lend a helping hand, which could include helping out with a mechanical issue or even driving your very shaky teenage daughter home after she runs off the road and nearly flips your SUV into the creek.  

However, every once in awhile you may encounter a different species of neighbor - one that you hope someday moves and takes with him/her all the reasons you’re wanting them to move in the first place.  We once shared a stretch of road with just such a person.

This man wasn’t from here originally.  I think he may have even come from up North.  Gasp!  A Yankee!  Anyway, he wasn’t much on yard work or picking up his trash each week after he would set it out and his dogs (which were kept unleashed and would visit us quite often) would tear the bags to shreds and scatter the contents of said bags to the four winds, even when one wind crossed onto our land.  And though I believe he fancied himself a farmer on some level, there was much left to be desired when it came to his farming know-how, particularly in the department of building/maintaining fences.  We probably would never have known about this deficiency if it weren’t for the horses we would routinely find grazing in our front yard and the dozens of hoofprints left behind.  Ahhhhh.  Good times.  Good times.

Well, one day “Crawl” felt the need to expand his non-farming skills and he bought him some pigs.  He even built a pen for his new pets.  It didn’t take long, though, for him to realize he may have made a mistake and that a call for help needed to be made.  Scott, another of our neighbors, was the lucky recipient of that very call.  

When he arrived, Scott found the pigs wandering about the man’s yard.  Turns out, our former neighbor’s flaw had been this...when unloading his piggies he failed to back his truck up to the pen and, instead, just pulled his truck into the drive and let them out right then and there.  I guess he thought they would react like dogs and obediently follow him into their new home.  However, pigs are not dogs.  Indeed, they are not.  Maybe it’s that they realized on some level their new pad was just a temporary stop on the way to ending up as the B in someone’s BLT, but they were not budging.  So, he sought help.

Upon assessing the situation Scott knew immediately what could be done to lure the little piggies all the way home. Corn.  

“Do you have any corn”, he asked the man.  “Corn?  You bet.  I have lots of corn.”  “Well, go get some and we’ll lead them in with that.”

Dutifully following his deliverer’s suggestion, the man returned a minute later carrying the corn...CANNED CORN!  I kid you not.  Like Green Giant or something.

Now, friends, even yours truly here would have known better than that.  I think.

 

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A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I'm feeling a bit like Alexander today.  If you're familiar with children's lit or have had small children you probably know I am referring to the character in Judith Viorst's classic.  Though I didn't wake up with gum in my hair I did wake up on the proverbial "wrong side of the bed".  I have been in what we in the South refer to as a "piss poor mood".  All.  Stinkin'.  Day.  You would think getting to sleep late and not having to attend school inservice (as I had the previous three days) would have made for a wonderful day.   Nope.  Just wasn't in the cards today.

My plan for the day was to get up, mow the yard, clean up the house, clean up myself, take the kids and secure some items needed for a Father's Day project, enjoy an evening out with the family, and settle in back at home and watch a little Big Bang Theory (Season One arrived from Amazon.  Its arrival was the only bright spot in an otherwise loathsome day). 

Instead, I woke up irritable.  I hate this yard.  I'm so sick of having nothing to do.  I wish we could get out of this town for a while.  Would you please weed-eat today?  A cell phone just doesn't disappear into thin air (lamenting left over from and continued daily since this past Tuesday)!!!  

So, I decided to mow.  I love to mow.  I love the look of my yard as I mow.  I can clear my mind when I mow.  We have a Bad Boy ZTR mower.  Bad Boy's slogan, "Mow with an Attitude", was something I felt sure I would be able to do today.

Instead, I almost blew myself up.  It's a thousand wonders I didn't wind up in a burn unit somewhere. Someone had left one of John-Heath's t-shirts and pair of shorts laying across the back of the mower and I failed to see them when I began.  One lap from the top of the yard to the road and I caught a whiff of something burning.  By the time I reached the mid-way point back up the yard I caught another whiff.  Luckily, I stopped to wait for Ren to pass by in the drive and that's when John noticed the clothes on fire on the back of the mower and came and knocked them off.  Needless to say, I had to take a little break.  And now there are two small burned spots in my yard.  Of course, better in my yard than on me.

After a day of much whining (plus my near-death experience) we went to Cheddar's for a bite to eat.  It was 6ish.  Usually they are packed at this time and the wait is long.  Tonight, however, we waited no more than 5 or 7 minutes.  Maybe this terrible day was going to end on a good note.  As we stood to be escorted to our table I heard something hit the floor.  It was John-Heath's iPod Touch...the one he received for his birthday NOT EVEN A WEEK AGO...to replace the one he received for Christmas which he lost about a month ago.  It still works but the screen is shattered and will have to be replaced.  

Dropping spinach dip down my shirt (Ren:  Um, mom, you have some spinach in your cleavage) and John-Heath dropping what seemed like the rest of the dip in his lap (on his white shorts) were just the final touches. 

So, goodnight, friends.  I think I had better turn in.  There are still a few minutes left in the day and I don't want to temp fate.

 

P.S.  As rotten as this stupid day has felt, I will still give thanks for all the blessings in my life - which far outnumber a little scare, a burned t-shirt, a broken iPod, and some spilled spinach.  Thank you, Lord. 

And Now for the Rest of the Story...

I know you will surely be amazed to find that there could be more to the riveting story I shared last night about John-Heath getting wax stuck up his nose - but there is, my friends, there is.  It’s actually quite funny and on some level demonstrates what a small world (town) mine actually is. Be prepared.  It’s just a little longer than my normal posts.

So, two days ago when John-Heath informs me of the wax up his nose my first response (after initially verifying that, indeed, there was a chunk of wax in there) was to pull out the tweezers and attempt to pull out the wax.  After a couple tries I became a little worried that we might end up back at the ER and told John-Heath to breathe through his mouth.  He did...very heavily, sounding much like an asthmatic monster.  “Just breathe normally, John-Heath.”   I tried again and realized I wasn’t going to be able to get it out on my own and became fearful that it might get pushed/sucked back even deeper.  So, I decided to call my husband, who was somewhere in town on his lunch break.

I tried the local BBQ place.  No luck.  I was left with two non-fast food eateries at which he might be. Deciding against the Mexican restaurant, I called the local “meat n three”...

Me:  Hi.  This is Tyla C...  By any chance is my husband, John C., there?
Waitress:  I don’t know. Hang on...
Waitress:  (speaking to the people in the restaurant)  Is there a John C. here?  Okay, you have a phone call.
John:  Hello.
Me:  (rather excitedly) John, you need to come home.  He’s stuck wax up his nose and I don’t think I can get it out.
John:  (even more excitedly) Okay! I’ll be right...CLICK! (and he hangs up).

Well, for some reason right after this I thought I would try one last time to dislodge the wax myself and, what do you know, it came out!  So, I immediately called the restaurant again.

Me:  Hi.  This is Tyla C. again.  Is John C. still there?
Waitress:  No, he went running out the door.
Me:  Okay, thanks.

How sweet!  It made me feel lucky to have a husband who cared so much for his family and one who works so close to home.

Not wanting to delay him from his lunch any longer than he already was, John-Heath and I hopped in the car and drove to the end of the drive to meet him and tell him the emergency was over.

We waited.  And waited.  And waited some more. Hmmm. If he was running out the door, what was taking him so long? More waiting.

Finally, I thought we might drive to the high school.  Maybe Rick (his boss) had driven to lunch and was taking John back to the school to get his own vehicle.  When we didn’t see him there we headed back home.  Then as we topped one of the last hills on our road before you get to our drive I noticed Rick’s truck approaching us.  He flashed his lights and we both stopped in the road.  I rolled the window down, held up the tweezers (still clutching the chunk of wax), and said something about a crisis being averted.  They laughed, I told John I would see him when he got home, and we went in our different directions.

That night, as John and I sat on the porch upon returning home from our church’s VBS, he struck up a conversation about the day’s events and mentioned the wax.  

John:  So, he got wax stuck up his nose?
Tyla:  Yes, I’m sorry I bothered you during lunch but I was scared it was going to be a repeat of what happened with the coffee bean.  And by the way, why did you hang up on me so fast.  I wasn’t even finished telling you something.
John:  What are you talking about?  When did you talk to me?
Tyla:  When I called you during lunch?  What do you mean "when did you talk to me"?
John:  Did you call Cathy’s today?    note:  Cathy’s is the name of the local eatery
Tyla:  Yes, and I talked to you.
John:  Ohhhh.  That explains it.

You see, what happened is that John’s cousin, Shawne C., was sitting at the next table with his father and when the waitress called out for a “John C.” it must have sounded like “Shawne C.”.  I guess because I was talking so fast he didn’t realize that it wasn’t his wife’s voice he was hearing.  

Come to find out, he lit out of there lickety-split (leaving black tire tracks on the road, or so I’ve been told) and headed home in record time.  When he arrived - with a policeman right behind him who was prepared to give him a ticket for speeding, until he realized our cousin was heading home to what he thought was a family emergency - he found a wife surprised to see him.  Eventually, they just dismissed it as a bad practical joke someone must have played.  It wasn’t until we pieced the story together on our end and gave them a call that they knew it wasn’t a prank, just an amusing coincidence.  

Oh, and how was it that I met up with John and Rick on our road since I had never actually spoke to John and he had no idea of what John-Heath had done?  Again, pure coincidence. They had a few minutes to kill before they were due back to school and were just riding around. 

How’s that for a verse of "It’s a Small, Small World"?