Come with us now for a Thrilling Tour of Paradise Along the Pinchgut!

Good weekend—lots of dirt and sweat and hollering and tools and stuff. Bear with me.

But even before we get into all of that, I was reminded yesterday at lunch by Middle Girl of something funny she said last week. Seeing as how this blog is fast becoming my substitute for memory, I figure I best write it down. (Part of the problem is being so harried in the mornings—anything that happens prior to letting the kids out at school every day seems to get washed away quickly by the sudden drop in adrenaline level.)

Anyway, we had to go get Reba’s mom and dad’s mail last week while they were on vacation and as we drove into their neighborhood, we saw that one of the homeowners had been visited by one of the first signs of autumn, a yard full of toilet paper.

(For those gentle readers who visit Possumblog from other parts of the globe, the festooning of trees and homes with rolls of toilet paper has a long and fascinating history in this country, and at least when I was a lad, signified that someone, somewhere, really hated your guts. So much so that they would strew paper all over you mom and dad’s trees, which is just asking for it, you know. It seems to pick up when school starts as old rivalries kick in again. Times seem to have changed, though—I was told recently by a young lady that having your yard rolled was a sign that you were really cool. Go figure.)

In any event—huge, towering, mature trees, full of paper. Poor homeowner guy out there with his wife and kid trying to get some of it down.

By lighting it.

That’s right. Setting it on FIRE. Little tendrils of flame wound up into the tree branches and I could barely keep from running off the road in dismay. “Look kids! That guy’s trying to set the whole NEIGHBORHOOD ON FIRE!” The kinder were quite taken by the display, and Rebecca noted quite correctly that this seemed to be a rather dangerous endeavor to undertake.

“They need a monkey!”

I don’t know if it was the bright, self-assured, way she said it, or the idea of a panicky spider monkey spreading flaming toilet paper throughout an entire heavily-wooded subdivision, but I got to laughing and couldn’t quit. I chuckled all the way from there to school, and making Daddy laugh really seemed to make her day. I’m a tough audience, you know—stern, foreboding. But, it’s like I always tell the kids, “Dying is easy—COMEDY is hard.” They need good, solid, preparation.

She seems to have learned well, though, that uncontrolled conflagration and lower primates just go great together . (She even managed to work in the hard-K sound that is the staple of all great komedy.)

Nicely played.

And then I completely forgot about it until yesterday when we were eating lunch after church and she mentioned it again. “Remember what I said? Tell Mama what I said.” Blank look from me. “You know, Dad…when we were on the way to school last week.” Still blank look from me. “And we had to go get Grandmama and Grandaddy’s mail.” Still a blank look. “And the man was lighting the toilet paper? And we said he shouldn’t be doing that?” OH, yeah, I remember that…but I don’t remember what you said. “DAAaaaaad—I said he needed a monkey!?”

Oh yeah! And I started giggling all over again. A monkey! Heh. I need a monkey too, you know. One to write stuff down for me on little scraps of toilet paper so I won’t forget.

ANYWAY, Friday night was soccer night, and Rebecca was supposed to be there at six, which is exactly the time that Reba got to the house, so I ran screaming out the door with Middle Girl’s bag and Jonathan’s bag and told them to jump into my van and we spent a nice ten minutes together in the Runaway Mine Car ride to the park. As they changed clothes. We were late, obviously, but the game had not started so she didn’t miss anything. And the ride itself was thrilling and terrifying.

Turned out to be tougher than I thought it was going to be when I wrote about it last week—this was the first time the girls had played on the regulation-size field, and the first time with eleven players—practice has always been on a sliver of a shared field and broken up into small groups. And the boys they were playing had five subs, while the girls only have one extra player. SO, I don’t suppose that it was too surprising the lads got in two quick goals right off. And then another. But, the girls kept in it, scored a goal themselves, and then dominated the second half. No scores for either during the second, but the girls managed to look very poised toward the end, while the boys were getting ragged and going for the histrionics of dramatic slides and leaps and general falling and flopping about on the ground. There are about four of the girls who have incredible footwork skills and it was fun to watch them zipping around—especially Bathmat Dad’s daughter, who even at eleven years old, has The Look when she plays. Balanced and smooth and confident—a natural athlete. She’s going to be something in a couple of years.

(Bathmat Dad gets his name from the fact that he ALWAYS wears shorts and a tee-shirt with the armholes cut out to his waist, so that we all get a nice view of his sweaty, deeply-burnt skin; which is actually only barely visible, obscured as it is by his plush covering of Brillo Pad body hair. He too, has The Look, but an entirely different one. And even though I refer to him as Bathmat Dad, I would not for a moment even THINK of touching any part of him with my feet. Eww.)

While they finished up, Jonathan’s practice started and thankfully was on an adjacent field, so I just turned my lazy self around and watched him after Rebecca’s game was over. It appears he is going to have another long season—since he’s not that great of a player, he naturally gets stuck on a team with others of equal skill. But, their skill level has much less to do with physical ability than mental. I don’t think I have ever seen a group more needing of either a) massive doses of Thorazine, b) a daily appointment time at the woodshed, or c) both. The coach seems to be a good guy, but the kids have the attention span that can be measured in microseconds. Poor Jonathan tries to listen and do what the coach says and everyone else is acting like they should be confined to straitjackets. The parents seem glad to allow someone else to try and control them for a while. ::sigh::

They got finished up after 8:30 and we stopped off at Sonic for them to get something to eat. Neither one had been able to eat supper before we went careering off to the park, and they were both hot, and doggone it, every once in a while it’s nice to have your dad give you a forbidden late-night ice cream sundae. (Especially when he wants to try some of it.)

Off home, then off with their stinky clothes and into the tub, and then to bed for everyone, and then it was time to get up. BLESSEDLY, Mom and Dad got to sleep in a bit Saturday morning—no phone calls, no weird dreams of phone calls, no mayhem in the corridors. ‘Bout time, I say!

Up then, and I got on my yard-tending clothes and ate a couple of Miss Reba’s muffins and watched a little “Crocodile Hunter” and a little news and got started. First up, more hummingbird juice, then filled the bird feeders, then got out the ol’ Oracle of Murray for some spirited laps around the yard and noisy meditation. Nothing quite like the combination of high heat, humidity, physical exertion, and carbon monoxide to really clear the mind. Or confuse you more.

As always, I spent a good deal of time arguing with myself (occasionally even doing this silently in my mind, so as not to arouse too much suspicion) about the world. My conclusion is that there sure is a lot of stupidity out there. Best to avoid it.

Yep, that’s it.

Stay away from stupid people, don’t congregate with them on street corners, avoid eye contact with them and if that’s not possible, nod politely and run away as soon as you can. And don’t try to argue with them—if you do, that makes you just as stupid. Which is probably the best advice—don’t be stupid yourself. If people are always saying you’re stupid, it’s probably a pretty good indication that you are, and that you need to change and not be so stupid. If you are around a lot of people who act stupid, and you decide to hang around for a while, you’re stupid, so you need to quit that. If you think someone has mistaken you for a stupid person, and the best you can say is, “am not, am not!”, well, you’re probably stupid.

So, there you go. Worth exactly what it cost you to get in the door.

In my many circumlocomotions, I also found a great treasure in our flower bed—a worn-out lawnmower blade, a brand new blade puller, and brand new Craftsman 12 inch adjustable wrench. Right out there in the open, left by the lawnmower repair fairies (who have names like Bud and Ed). Well, well, a nice new wrench for ME! You leave it in my yard and it’s MINE, bucko. Especially when you leave it with all your discarded cardboard and plastic bagging! Kept on cutting until my next-door neighbor’s middle-aged son came home and asked him if he had lost a wrench. Finally figured out it was his brother who had left all the junk out there. So I gave him his wrench and blade puller back. You didn’t really think I was going to keep it, did you?

Finished up, then went to Marvin’s down at the foot of the hill for some weed killing chemicals. I have given up on finding the stuff that kills nutgrass, but I figured I had better find something because everything else is about to take over what’s not already taken over by nutgrass. Got back quickly—they had a new cashier whose idea of conversation was rudimentary at best, and she was not able to fall back on being young and blonde. Hooked up the sprayer and carefully poured in the prescribed amount of liquid destruction and after taking a big swig for myself, set about to spray everything down. Finished that and then it was time to get ready to go to the store.

Reba had mentioned several times during the day that there was a wonderful sale going on at the High-Priced Purveyor of Moderate-Quality Goods, but by the time I finished all my stuff, she was worn to a frazzle by the combined effects of laundry and naughty little children. So, Wal-Mart. Of course!

But first, kids in the tub, heads scrubbed, hair dried, then Mom and Dad similarly cleansed, and it was off to shop. BUT FIRST, we got some grub at Bennigan’s. Despite my ongoing hate affair with this place, I decided to stop in anyway because it was close and I was hungry. This time, the service was good, the waitress was professional, and the food was good and hot. First time we’ve ever hit the Trifecta like that. (For Jim Smith’s benefit, I had the smothered chicken—served with onions, mushrooms, Swiss cheese, bacon, and a tiny little pillow over the bird’s head. I have never like the idea of eating anything smothered—it just sounds like a bad way to go.)

Got out of there and rolled over to Pappy Walton’s and spent the next three hours wandering around. Reba and Ashley and Rebecca stayed over in the clothes, while Jonathan and Catherine and I looked at fish, shampoo, bug killer, Japanese beetle traps, the bathroom, DVDs (I got The Great Escape with Steve McQueen. Incredible movie, although I’ve only seen it little. That Steve McQueen guy was cool—none like him today), video games, toilet paper (we need a monkey…::chuckling lightly::), various snack foods, bathroom, car stuff, books, bathroom, then back to the books again before we were finally summoned to go check out. Wow. That’s some expensive stuff, whatever it was. (But at least we were helping out the economy, according to this story.)

Home, bed, up, breakfast, church, lunch, monkey talk, home, read paper, doze fitfully while slobbering on the couch, back to church, lead singing (without coughing a single time), home, supper, bed, here, meet, scramble around trying to tie up loose ends, type, post, and then go meet some more.

Whee.
posted by Terry at 1:24:00 PM