A Salty Dog Never Gets Licked

Often times, people will tell me stories about their life. For what, I do not know; I guess they figure that one day I might write a story about the story they are telling me. And the funny thing is, sometimes I do. However, I caution each of you: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!

It was a Saturday afternoon, and Joe was celebrating the fact that it was Saturday. Of course, he usually celebrated any day that ended in the letter “Y”, but this was a special time. It seems that his wife had finally decided to mow the lawn.

Now for those of you who don’t know Joe well, he is one of the most ornery people that I know. A few weeks earlier, his wife had made mention to him that he had done a lousy job of mowing. This ticked him off and he dicided that to get even, he would let the yard grow until his wife got fed up, and mowed it herself.

So far, his plan was working.

So, armed with a lawn chair, a package of Oreos, and a 6 pack of beer, Joe sat on the porch and watched as his wife whizzed around their 3 foot high lawn. He giggled as time and again, the mower would die, due to the tall grass choking the blades. Every time, his wife would restart, go about 50 feet, and then the thing would die again.

This went on for about 2 hours, with him laughing and her cussing, until finally she had the entire yard mowed. Joe then went into the house, feeling that justice had been served, and never again would his wife accuse him of poor yard management.

About 15 minutes later, Joe got a call from his neighbor, asking him if he had seen what his wife was doing. He looked outside, to find that his wife was sitting on the porch with a book, a glass of tea, and a lighter. She had drained the gas tank on his mower, and promptly ignited the entire machine.

Joe ran like a madman for the water hose, but it was now cut into pieces. It seems that his wife had ran over it while she was mowing, because it was hidden under the grass. And though he tried bringing and throwing pitchers of water on the fire, it was too late; his prized mower slowly burned until the rubber in the tires melted to the ground.

He turned to his wife of 15 years, and yelled “What in the &^*% did you do that for?”

She slowly put down her tea glass, closed her book, and said to him “The way I figure it, you got 2 choices; you can either start mowing the lawn again, or I can do it. The choice is yours, but I will tell you that if I have to do it, we are gonna run up a heck of a bill down to the Lawn and Garden store.”

Needless to say, last time I drove by Joe’s house, he was out there on his new tractor and doing a might respectable job of mowing his lawn. And his wife was there, sitting on the porch drinking her tea and waving to folks as they drove by.

But I wondered if she had a lighter beside her, just in case.

Reasons to quit Having Reasons

Every day, it seems, that some list gets emailed to me. I am sure y’all get these types of lists too. They come from a friend who has filled it out with all sorts of information, such as their favorite color, brand of detergent they use, or how often they bathe. Now, they have sent this to me and expect me to fill this out and send it to my other friends.

This is the called the “I really don’t want to know that much about you” pyramid scheme. The object of the scheme is to get someone to reveal something that you can use to blackmail them with later.

Some of the questions I have been asked this week include: How often do you shave your legs? Do you like to snuggle when you sleep? Paper or plastic? Is real love blind? Would you do absolutely anything to make me happy (providing it's legal)? If you had to give up sex or just being held, which one could you just NOT live the rest of your life without? Is the best kind of love a) warm, nurturing, constant and enduring, or b) madly exciting, dangerous, all-consuming, and self-absorbed?

It just never stops! Every day, there seems to be a new one in my mailbox. And everyday, I learn something about a friend that I just really did not want to know!

My friend up in the frigid north? I now know all about her wild college years, her husbands chronic bout with gout, and what they like to do after it gets dark and why the kids are wearing protective eye and ear wear. Another friend further south identifies what parts of her body are the hairiest, which diseases she has had in the past, and how many times she has fooled around on her present husband.

For heavens sake, doesn’t she realize that someone is going to email that to him? Then again, maybe she does, and is trying to keep her count higher than his.

Anywho, the whole point of this is that I no longer want to know anything about anybody. I have friends, and I have enemies, and I want to like or dislike them for the reason I already have, and not for the reasons they are emailing me each day. And as for me providing information back to anyone, well, let’s just say that the chances are better of seeing two dogs dance the Tango.

After all, unless you are out Christmas shopping, do you really want to know whether I am a “boxers or briefs” kind of guy anyway?

To Trash, Or not to Trash?

I hate moving. I don’t care if it is moving furniture, moving houses, or just moving my hand to reach my tea glass, I hate moving.

Which is probably why I got stuck with doing it again.

My company decided that we must move our offices. This is because we need walls that are a different color, and to paint the walls we have would require less effort than to move to a different building. Sure, that makes no sense, but most things in the real world don’t.

Anywho, I am now in the process of packing up my office for the 6th time in the last 6 years. As my coworker have complained that my office looks more like a experimental refuse container than a place to work in, I have been forced to actually throw away stuff that I haven’t used in 2 years. Unfortunately, the throw away pile is now bigger than the keep pile.

Those old newspaper clippings of my best friends ex wife when she went to prison? Gone. I haven’t read them in years, and anyway, she’s getting out next week. By the way, does anyone know what one is supposed to wear to a “She’s Finally Free” reception?

That broken chair in the corner, and the table with 3 legs? I sent it off to a local charity. For some reason they keep sending it back though. I guess I’ll have to disguise my van the next time I drop it off.

Of course, I had to go through all of those Company books and manuals too. “How To Treat Your Coworkers” was immediately dumped. “Your Benefits for 1983” also hit the trash. However I did keep the “Policies and Procedures Manual”, as I plan to read it when I retire and see just how many rules I broke. So far, we are at 2,319 and counting.

I had various other things that also had to go: my paperclip collection, 14 used boxes of kleenex, a hardhat that looks like a cowboy hat, 4 broken computers from 1987, an autographed picture of someone I don’t know, a box of salt that is 8 years old, and 17,000 files that I started and never finished. I think it would have been easier for me to just take my phone, and let them burn the rest of my office.

Soon, the movers will come and take away what remains of my working space. They will re-assemble it in another building, and I will get to start collecting things all over again. Sadly though, I know that one day I will need something that I trashed. And on that day, I am going to tell everyone in the office how much I needed that thing, whatever it is. Then they’ll think twice about getting rid of useless things!.
I mean, after all, they keep paying me don’t they?????

Stuffed turkey, Anyone?

Sometimes, people tell you stories that are a slight bit unbelievable. They make themselves out to be the hero, and you know in your heart that what they are telling you isn’t what really happened, but you still listen because it is so entertaining. This is not one of those stories.

I ran into my friend Terri the other day. She recently moved back up here, after going through a fun filled divorce. And as all rednecks do, we sat around and swapped stories. Hence, she told me this one, and I swear it is probably all true.

It seems that her ex-husband Jimbo was just a bit on the jealous side. Every time she went somewhere, he would call her constantly, sometimes drive to where she was to spy on her, and he would throw a fit if she was a slight bit late returning from anywhere. This was apparent to anyone who knew them

Recently, Terri went to the grocery store while her Ex stayed home. She shopped a while, and since she is one of those friendly people who could talk to a stump, she gossiped with everyone in the store as usual. This extra yakking put her 30 minutes late getting home. And of course, Jimbo was in a jealous rage because of this.

She found him standing at the front door, and boy, he was mad. He started screaming and hollering. He accused her of having an affair with the butcher at the grocery store. He called her every name in the book, and then he made a critical mistake; he pushed her down the steps.

Now we all know that men are not supposed to hit women, and vice-versa. That has been instilled in me since I was a very little boy, as it has to most of y’all, I am sure. But evidently this guy’s jealousy had him in such a state that he thought he would show her who was boss and slap her around a bit

So what did Terri do? She got up and reached into her shopping bag. There she located a sizeable defensive weapon: one frozen turkey. She then proceeded to beat the living tar out of his man with a frozen turkey.

Now, I have seen lots of things in my life, but I can not imagine seeing a 6’5” man literally having the stuffing beat out of him with a frozen turkey, while listening to a woman yell “I told you to NEVER put your hands on me”.

Eventually the neighbors stopped laughing long enough to call the cops. When they arrived, they too had a good laugh. They didn’t arrest anyone, as they felt justice had been served in this foul situation.

In the end, Terri and her husband became Ex’s that day, and it’s probably for the best. She has now moved back home, and is determined to get her life back together. But to me, I can not now look at her without seeing that picture in my mind of her whacking Jimbo with that frozen turkey.
I guess I’ll never look at Thanksgiving the same way again…

Presents Round the flower Pot

Well, I am finally through with all of the Christmas shopping. It wasn’t easy, but I was able to cross off everyone on the list. Now I can just sit back and wait for the happy smiles to roll in!

I got the 6 year old the front cap from a 68 Dodge Coronet R/T. I figure if I keep this up, by the time he gets old enough to drive, he’ll have enough pieces to build his own car. True, the car will be 45 years old by then, but I will save a fortune in monthly notes and insurance.

The 9 year old wanted some playstation games, but I think he spends too much time in the house. So, I got him a tiller. He will be the envy of all of his friends as he tills up the ground for my new 2 acre garden. Heck, he might even be able to make a business out of tilling. It’s never too early for him to start saving for my retirement.

13 year old Girls are a little tougher to find things for. However, I searched all of Ebay and finally found a Pocket Fisherman. I figure she will be going out on dates in a few years, and if she carries that thing with her then the boys won’t be tempted to conveniently run out of gas up by the lake, for fear that she will catch a bigger bass then he will. Parents have to plan ahead for things like that.

For the brother and sister-in-law, I bought a used jet engine for their living room. They don’t have any kids yet, so I figured this could teach them how to get used to the noise.

For my Uncle, I bought a stuffed pony and a cane. That man would argue with a stump, and people just get tired of listening to him rant over and over again about the same thing. Now, we can all tell him to go home when he wants to beat a dead horse.

For my Aunt, there were a lot of choices, but I finally settled on a new toilet. She didn’t really need one, but she has been complaining lately that the yard needed more flowers. Now she can put the old toilet out there and grow her daisies like a good redneck.

Finally, for the rest of the family, I am re-gifting, with a twist. I took all of our re-gifting items and exchanged them with Jeanie Sue for all of her re-gifting items. Then we boxed each item and assigned names at random. I am not sure who wound up with that fuzzy blue thong, but I hope it wasn’t my neighbor. I don’t want to see him on his porch drinking coffee dressed in that thing!

With all of that out of the way, I can now sit back and relax, while thinking of all of the smiles I will be bringing to people faces. I realize that Christmas is not about receiving, it’s about giving. And now, other family member will realize that I have the perfect touch when it comes to matching their personalities to gifts.

And my mama always said that I was touched…….