Auntly Advise

My aunt gave her children this motherly advise:

There's givers and there's takers in this world...run with the givers!

That didn't end the way I expected it to end.

Spot Light!

"Spotlight" was another favored game that we used to play. Basically it was hide and go seek in the dark - with flashlights. The flashlights give it a "running for your life" quality. We felt like criminals running from the police after a prison break. My heart would literally pound so loudly in my chest that I thought my stalker would hear it when they walked by.

Spotlight starts off with one person being "it". Whomever they find joins in the hunt until everybody is looking for the last person. There is a "base" just like in hide and go seek. If you can make it there before the "pack" finds you then you are safe and you don't have to be "it" in the next game.

I learned early how NOT to be found. First of all I would pull my shirt up over my hair. My blonde hair stuck out like a sore thumb and I had no chance of staying hidden until I thought up that little trick. It would reflect just a hint of a light, moonlight, flashlight...whatever...

I also learned that people NEVER look "up" when they are hunting for you. I would climb a tree and watch people walk underneath me all night long. I could even listen while they discussed where they were going to look for me. All they had to do was "look up", they never did.

My niece and nephew grew up playing the same game and they enjoyed it as much as we did. It was one of the few games we showed them that we used to play that they didn't find BORING!

Keep Away!

We used to love to play "keep away". "Keep away" was our version of touch football except for the fact that we didn't have any rules. It was "every man for himself". If you had the ball then everybody else had to try to get it away from you. It was a massive pile of kids (both boys and girls) kicking, hitting, screaming, punching - you name it we did it! Basically the goal was to inflict as much pain as possible - actually the goal was to KILL each other - it had NOTHING whatsoever to do with the ball. The ball was just a formality.

I became so immmune to the pain that there was only one way to get the ball away from me - tickle me. This worked so well that we used it on everybody. The only one that it didn't work on was Rusty. So we all had to pulverize him which wasn't easy considering the fact that he weighed 300 lbs. by the time he was 12 years old!

We did develop one rule though. "NO PULLING HAIR!" My sister, Rhonda, and I had waist length hair from the time we were little. We would be running with the ball at full speed, our hair streaming behind us, when all of a sudden somebody would grab our hair and then our feet would fly up and our heads would be ripped back - effectively clotheslining our asses! There was no defense from this manuver.

At first the other kids cried foul (because we didn't have even one other rule in effect) but they quickly learned that if they wanted us to play (and we were extremely vicious and competitive players) then they had to comply.

It was one of the few times that my sister and I stood together on something. It worked.

I bought myself a birthday present

I have a brand spankin' new VCR/DVD recorder. I have wanted one for awhile so I can transfer some of my home movies from VHS to DVD. As with most people most of my movies don't need to be transfered because they aren't worth even ME watching, but I have several very good ones that I want to see and a few I will probably post. (greyhound related)

It is the first actual present I have had in 5 years. For every holiday, birthday, tax refund, extra pay that I have had for 5 years I have bought something practical. I finally bought something just for me.

I checked into paying to transfer my movies and around here it costs $35 for each hour. Just a couple of hours and the DVR will pay for itself.

Do you believe red lighters are unlucky?

I can not sell a lighter without asking what color people want. It never fails that if I don't ask or even if I do and they say "it doesn't matter, " that if I grab a red one I hear, "oh no, not red, anything but red!"

Do people actually believe that life as they know it will end if they use a red lighter?

How long does the bad luck last? Are you cursed forever if you use one just once?

Waking up from a nightmare!

It was a doozy

I woke up screaming for help. That's hard to do when you are wearing a bi-pap machine!

"I GET THE FRONT SEAT!!!"

Remember "calling" the front seat when you were a kid? We would call it but in our house that was a moot point because my mom didn't care who called it - whoever had it when we she got in the car was the winner!

My mom always took hours to get ready to go anywhere. We all knew that once she started getting ready we still had at least 2 hours to get the front seat. More than likely we had three hours!

This didn't matter to my little sister, Rhonda. As soon as momm would announce her intentions to leave, Rhonda would race outside and park her behind in the front seat. She would bake in the summer sun and freeze in the winter but she didn't car as long as she didn't have to sit in the back seat.

Billy and I learned early that it was a waste of time to go outside for a couple of hours. We also learned that we could wait and trick Rhonda out of the seat so it didn't really matter. We would do something as simple as tell her that Mommy wanted her or tell an out and out lie that there was candy or some other treat waiting in the house.

Personally I didn't really care about the front seat. My preference was to sit in the middle in the back. I didn't mind the hump. If I sat in the middle, I could lean forward between the front seat and be part of the whatever my mom and dad had going on up front! Every now and then they would make me sit back so I couldn't eaves drop on their conversations.

We also played "curves". I don't know if that was just a West Virginia game or if kids everywhere played it. There were usually 3 of us in the back seat. Every time we would round a curve we would lean as hard and as painfully into each other as we could manage. Someone always ended up in tears. We were banned from playing but we didn't care. It was too much fun!

I returned a pair of pants yesterday because they were too big!!!!

I was thrilled!!!!

I bought 3 pair of Rider's Slim Fit jeans at Gabe's for 7.99 a pair. The price was worthy of a smile on it's own. However, when I got home and tried them on they were too big for me!!! That never happens.

Instead of taking them back - I should have framed them for posterity.

Remember, to save a drowning child, throw a fat lady in the pool. I am unsinkable. The only problem is that I can't breathe through my ass and it keeps floating to the surface!

My EF Hutton Moment

I was at a family reunion one year and my 17year old niece was being particularly irritating that day. Finally I started to walk away from her and she walked behind me just blathering away. When she finally noticed that I was not paying attention to her she said, "If you don't listen to me, then you are gay!"

At this point I had all that I could take. So I turned to her and yelled, "Fine Becca Fine! I'm gay alright! I'm gay!"

When I turned around to walk back to the shelter there was complete silence. Every relative I had then turned back to each other and started talking, pretending that they had not heard the exchange. I knew there was no sense opening my mouth to explain what had just happened.

A few minutes later my cousin David, a doctor, walked over and said, "Pam, if you are gay, it's alright." I assured him that I was not and of course it was obvious that he didn't believe me.

He repeated, "I just want you to know that it's OK." I just turned and shook my head at Becca. There was nothing else that I could do.

Personal note: Becca, someday, somewhere, someway, I will get even with you for that one!

Why Do Women "Fake It"?

I never understood why women fake enjoying time in the bedroom. If you "fake it" then your man is just going to think he is doing a good job and more than likely will do the same thing all over again since you seemed to enjoy it so much the first time.

Most men want to please their women and take a great sense of satisfaction in a job well done.

Marked for Death

I would HATE to be an ANGUS cow right now! Everywhere you go they are selling Angus Beef! I guess it's supposed to taste better, but my burgers seem to taste exactly the same as they did 20 years ago when they just used the cow down the street to make em!

One time I was at a cigarette store buying cigs for my dad. There was a slaughterhouse next door. They were TRYING to unload a cow. The cow was bellowing and fighting them for dear life. The incessant mooing went on the whole time I was in the cigarette store. I have no doubt that the cow knew just what it's impending fate was to be. It was an absolutely gut wrenching thing to hear. There was no way I could ever work next door to that slaughterhouse.

The Most Mortifying Moment of My Life!

I was newly married and I was in the local drugstore looking at bottles of douche. This area of the store was right next to the prescription pick-up area and there were at least 3 very old people in line as well as the store in general being crowded that day. I came across a box of fruit flavored edible douche packets which I never imagined even existed before that moment.

I picked up the box and saw cherry, strawberry and jasmine flavors. Upon reading "jasmine" I instinctively and very loudly exclaimed "Jasmine, who in the world would want to eat Jasmine!"

I looked up. All the old people in line as well as the cashier and the pharmacist were staring at me! I turned about 16 shades of red, set down the box and promptly retreated from the store.

Utter humiliation would not be a strong enough term for what I felt that day.

Love Taps

When I first learned to drive I learned that my dad had an odd way to say hello if I was sitting at a red light. He would pull up behind me and tap my bumper with his car! It freaked me out the first time he did it but I got used to it over the years.

There is nothing like sitting at a red light, minding your own business, and getting popped from the rear all of a sudden. Nothing harsh, mind you, just a love tap.

Here are 2 of my dad's favorite jokes:

What is that slow stuff between an elephant's toenails? Slow Natives..hahahahahahhahaha

How do you keep a "butthole" in suspence? I'll tell ya tomorrow...hahahahahaha

My dad loved to eat at nice restaurants. One time the waiter brought his steak to him and it was rare instead of well done. Daddy took out his lighter and proceeded to properly flame broil a bite of steak on the spot.

When the waiter asked what he was doing, he told him that if they couldn't properly cook his steak then he would just do it himself.

There was something in the air...

I, my cousin Little Man and my Aunt Mary, all eloped on the same day, September 24, 1982.

None of us knew the other was eloping.

I used to be able to brag that my marriage was the only one that lasted. They were each divorced in the first 5 years of their marriage. However Little Man is now remarried to his first wife and My Aunt Mary may as well be still married to Doug as they are basically still together even though they are officially divorced.

My marriage dissolved after 13 years. We have no contact whatsoever now. We didn't speak at all for the first 10 years after the divorce. Last year I contacted him when I thought I was dying because I wanted to give him a few mementoes that I thought he might want because they will probably just throw my stuff away after I die.

Apparently he wasn't interested.

Why do people think online shopping is such a great thing?

It has been around for over 100 years.

We used to call it the "SEARS CATALOG"