Saturday, October 8, 2011

Have You Ever Been at the Wrong End of the Food Chain?

Have you ever been at the wrong end of the food chain? I have. I had just moved into a house in the country and I was leaving for work. It was early in the morning and it was pitch black outside. I had a flashlight so I could see to walk to my car.
When I was about halfway to the car (it was about 50 feet from the house across a ditch line) I heard a scream. It was a bloodcurdling scream like nothing you have ever heard in your life! At that exact moment several things happened instantaneously:

1. The flashlight went out (of course)

2. I felt my spine turn to ice (just like you would read about in any scary novel!)

3. My only thought was "I hope that was a deer". The thought was shriveling in my mind even as I thought it but I was trying to comfort myself.

4. I froze in my tracks. (I guess when your spine freezes this is a natural reaction)

The only thing it could have been was a wildcat and it was close. It sounded like it was at the end of the field which was only about 30 yards away. I don't really know how to describe that scream, I just knew that whatever was there was letting me know that it knew I was there and I was breakfast.

I knew I couldn't just stand there and I debated(quickly) whether to go back to the house or the car. I went for the car. I forced myself to slowly walk to the car.

Just when I got there I heard the scream again and it was closer. I tried to put the key in the lock but I couldn't find the hole my hand was shaking so bad. (just like in a scary movie when you make fun of people who aren't able to open the lock!). After what seemed like an eternity I got the door open and dove in and closed the door behind me.

SAFE!

Friday, October 7, 2011

My Granny's Last Gift to Me

After my granny died, I wanted to remember her in my own way. I put on a nice dress and stopped by my mom's house on the way to granny's house. Out of the blue my mom offered to let me have the key to granny's house so that I could go in. This was something that I did not expect to happen because my mom doesn't usually do things like that.

I let myself into the house and went from room to room reliving childhood memories. The rooms were all empty because my mom had either sold or thrown away everything in the house. I went upstairs to my aunt's old room which had been granny's favorite. I stayed in there quite awhile just looking out the window at the view and remembering.

I started to walk out of the room and I thought to myself "no I can't leave yet." I turned around and went back in and just stood looking around some more. Then I walked over to the window and went I looked down there was a cross. I had just stood there for about 20 minutes and I hadn't noticed it. Yet there it was. The only thing of value in a house that had been stripped bare of everything.

My granny was a typical Aunt Bea kind of granny. She was very religious. She liked to act like Granny Clampett for fun - that's why we called her granny. She was always full of love. Everytime we went to her house there was a special cake or pie and my Aunt Mary Ann would have our favorite Lipton Lemon Ice Tea. I have no doubt that she left that cross there for me.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

The Fruth Ghost

At work we all have had our little run-ins with the Fruth ghost. He is usually a poltergeist type ghost which moves things around and makes noises - not one that you see. There are a couple of people who claim to have seen "him". According to my friend Kim, his name is Oscar and he is a butcher. (Our store used to be a Kroger's grocery store before it was a Fruth). It was a cemetery before that.

Sometimes after we close you will hear somebody talking in the back and no one will be there or you will hear a noise that makes you wonder "how did that happen?" More than anything things mysteriously move for no reason. I have had several "encounters" with what I consider to be the ghost and I have heard the noises and the voices after closing.

I was walking down an aisle once when I first started working at Fruth. There was a whole pile of comic books in the floor. I picked them up and put them in their place and I started to walk off. After taking a few steps all the comic books fell in the floor again. I silently cussed myself for not putting them back properly and I went back and put them firmly back on the shelf in their proper place. I walked off again. When I was about halfway down the aisle I heard one of the comic books fall again.

"Well Crap!" I thought to myself as I turned to go back to the comic books. As I turned another one fell in the floor, then another and then another. They were falling one at a time as if someone was thumbing through them one by one making them fall. This happened until they were all in the floor again. I decided that I would just leave them alone and I walked off. If someone wanted them in the floor then who was I to argue about it!

Last year I was standing at my register. I watched a package with a flag pole holder in it fly off the peg and go all the way across the aisle before it dropped to the ground. These are heavy items and it didn't just fall off the shelf, it flew across the aisle and dropped straight down!

Another time Anita and I were closing. There were 2 men talking beside the door and one of them left. The other man went over to the magazines and started looking at one. I could see the corner of his head and the pages of the magazine turning. Anita had gone to the back. The alarm went off and I locked the doors and I went to my register to wait on the man to leave. I couldn't see him anymore but I knew he did not go out because he would have had to have gone right past me.

A few minutes later Anita called the front of the store and wanted to know why I wasn't back in the office yet. I told her I was waiting on the man to leave. She said it was ridiculous that he was still there and she came up front. She did not see him on the way and she asked me where he was. I told her that the last time I had seen him he was reading the magazines. She made an announcement that the store was closed and for all shoppers to come to the front to pay for their purchases. Nobody came.

She knew who I was talking about when I described him because she had seen him before she went back to the office. She walked the perimeter of the store and she didn't see anybody. We decided to call the police because it is a pharmacy afterall and there had been a rash of oxycontin thefts in the area. The policeman came immediately. He searched the entire store including the stock area. He did not find anyone.

He told me to pull my drawer and he kindly waited until we were ready to leave before he left. The only other way out was the back door in the stock area and the man would have had to pass Anita to go out that way. She reviewed the security tapes the next day. She saw no sign that the man had ever been in the store.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

I Cut Him (on purpose)

When I was in beauty school I had a man come in for a haircut and a little more!

They had warned us about men like him but I had been fortunate that I had never had one until this one. Some men will deliberately try to feel you up from under the hair cutting cape because they think no one can see their hand move or they do what this man did to me. He kept leaning his head back into my breasts and trying to rub back and forth. Now why he chose me I'll never know because I am notoriously flat chested. Anyway...

He had leaned his head back into my chest for the third or fourth time. Each time I had pushed his head forward and continued with the haircut but I was fast becoming fed up with his behaviour. I had finished the haircut except for shaving the back of his neck (with a straight razor).

I pushed his head forward and I was in the process of starting to cut with the razor when he chose this particular time to lean his head back once again...at the same time the door next to my station was slammed shut by a passing breeze...at the same time I was startled and unfortunately the razor slipped! I apologized profusely of course, explaining that the door slamming had caused me to accidentally cut his neck and he needed to keep his head forward so that he would not be cut again.

I hope he learned his lesson. If he didn't, he still never requested me for a haircut again.

Remember Those Halloween Costumes from the 70's

I have enjoyed Halloween as an adult. I have made every holiday a good one. Going all out with decorations, costumes and candy every year.

Except for the school party, I hated it when I was a kid. Back in the 60's and early 70's my mom would go to the dime store and buy those costumes in a box. We would try to get there early before all the good ones were gone. There was be a mask with an elastic band to go around your head. Most of the time the band would break before we even started trick or treating. Then there was the one piece, multipurpose, plastic sheath that covered us from shoulders to knees - it had a picture drawn on it of whatever it was that you were supposed to be. The witch would have a witches dress drawn on it, the werewolf would have a dog on it and of course the doctor would have a doctor's labcoat complete with a stethoscope on it.

Those costumes were pretty terrible and to make matters worse my mom would make us put them on over our coats because she didn't want us to catch a cold. We looked like colorful Goodyear blimps running around the neighborhood getting a bunch of second rate candy from all the neighbors. The Clark's always gave us Clark bars, the Flynn's would give out apples (every kid's dream). It was a good thing that I liked smarties (we used to use them for pills when we played doctor) because we had a plastic pumpkin full of them.

The school party was pretty cool. We would have candy and cupcakes with candy corn decorations. Usually we would even get one of those tiny little single serving ice creams that were only partly melted. Of course you got the little wooden spatula to eat it with. We would make Halloween pictures and play games. Then every class would tour all the other classes in the Halloween costume parade. There would be the vote for best costume every year and the same kids would win every year. You know the ones, their mothers would take the time to painstakingly sew a perfect costume for them and even hold them out of school in the morning so they could show up in the perfect Halloween costume for the party.

When I got a little older (5th or 6th grade) I started putting together my own costume. I had a long dress with paisley's on it. It was perfect for a gypsy dress. With a little added jewelry and a colorful scarf, it was actually a pretty good costume. I also turned it into the "Carol Burnette Cleaning Lady Costume". That one was easy. I just put on the dress. Smudged my cheeks with a little make up and grabbed a bottle of window cleaner and a rag - viola!

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Psycho Kitty

Psycho Kitty was the coolest cat I ever had!

When I lived on my hundred acres he followed me around like a dog. It didn't matter where I was he was behind me. One thing he liked to do was ride down the hill on top of my car. When I would get to the bottom of the hill, I would stop and he would jump off. One day he wouldn't jump off.

I finally got out of my car and put him down and I got back into the car and took off. When I got to the first, very sharp curve in the road, I heard a scratching noise on the roof! I knew immediately what it was. Psycho Kitty had jumped back on top of the car when I wasn't looking! I veered off the road as fast as I could and as soon as I stopped Psycho Kitty took off into the woods.

I stood there calling "Psycho Kitty, come back to momma! Psycho Kitty Please!" As soon as he heard my voice he came flying back to me and jumped into my arms. I was so relieved to see that he wasn't hurt. He was scared out of his mind though. I took him back home.

Never again did Psycho Kitty ride on top of my car.