Ten Commandments for My New Neighbor
Living in a duplex, I go through neighbors like a family of cats goes through a five pound bag of litter that freshens with every step, and I have some friendly advice. If you want to make a go of it in this neighborhood, you’ll listen up and not staple this list to the hood of my car like the last guy did. If you want a reference from him, he is residing peacefully at Happy Acres Memorial Gardens. Feel free to use my name.
1. Old tents and ripped cushions in lawn furniture may be acceptably repaired with duct tape. Back windows in old Fords or open wounds on small children may not. Neither is it a substitute for nails and a willingness to locate a hammer when your mailbox has been detached from its post. A mailbox trussed to a wooden spike by thirty rounds of silver adhesive looking like a tin can with a toothache causes undue stress in an already unstable housing market.
2. John Deere makes a wide selection of lawn tractors. That six month old goat you’ve got tethered to a hubcap with three feet of heavy links like he’s the anchor man on a baby goat chain gang is not an acceptable substitute. Let’s send you out on a short leash to get the morning paper and see if you affect a change of heart.
3. In the future, please Just Say No to the idea of mowing the lawn clad only in your underwear. Indulge in a roomy pair of gym shorts and you’ll find yourself zipping up the popularity poll in the neighborhood before you know it.
4. A privacy fence is for, well, privacy. Please don’t launch your youngest child over the top of the fence like a punted football to find out what we’ve got cooking outside. We are not responsible for stray grill marks.
5. If you have a taste for loud music, please play something I know or can understand the words to. Having the tune to a rap song I don’t know stuck in my head will lead to my hanging about in your bushes trying to find out what words sound like “scratch my itch.”
6. A swimming pool is commonly used for swimming. I’m sure your new bass boat will skip over the lake like a flat stone, but trying out your new motor in the above-ground will result in an appearance on Funniest Home Videos. Remember there’s nothing to impede your progress toward the slime pit across the street except that scraggly row of dandelions you call a flower garden.
7. Please don’t sneak over under cover of darkness to partake of the blueberries on my bushes. I’ll be glad to share. Just like you’ll be glad to share that mess of freshly caught trout with me next summer. Also, I don’t mind if your kids climb the tree in my back yard to purloin fruit. But keep in mind the results from a morning filled with little green apples leads to an afternoon filled with personal aerobics of a stressful kind.
8. I understand if your Uncle Earl had an evening of social entertaining that leads to a hearty headache the next morning. But if any more of his “nieces” ring my doorbell at three in the morning clad in leopard-print hip boots and a leather halter top and ask to use my litter box, I’m calling Animal Control.
9. This is the South. We surpass just about everyone in the number of per capita lawn ornaments. But those plywood cutouts of Granny bending over to show her polka dot bloomers have been done to death. At least get something classy like one of those windmills that look like the roadrunner’s legs are going in a circle. Roadrunners are like pearls. They’re always appropriate.
10. Close your curtains. The neighbors don’t need to know that it was necessary to summon the Jaws of Life to your home for the sole purpose of retrieving your wife from the Jacuzzi.
11. Here's an extra commandment, just because I'm feeling festive. If your idea of decorating for Christmas is tying a sprig of mistletoe to the beltloop in the back of your pants, walk slowly past my driveway. I have a large dog who has issues with anything sporting a bushy tail. And by the way, unless your name is Jeff Foxworthy, we don't require proof that you're a redneck.
Attached you’ll find a request for samples from your garden for quality assurance purposes, a form for proof of vaccinations, and a sterile baggie for DNA testing. Merry Christmas and welcome to the neighborhood.
Laugh
Showing posts with label DNA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DNA. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
What Child Is This?
Welcome to the Absolute Write October Blog Chain. This month's theme is Masquerade. And I can't help wondering. . .Who is this kid?
Talk about blended families. Our family tree has more ex’s than a Tic Tac Toe tournament. At 2:00 in the afternoon on holiday weekends all the children automatically rotate parents from force of habit. This weekend, I found myself seated at dinner next to an entertaining young man who was engaged in a fork joust in an effort to to keep his creamed corn from touching his potato salad.
“Well, hello.” I’m nothing if not a sparkling conversationalist.
The fork executed a remarkable thrust and parry to save yet another food item from corn domination. “Yo.”
Limited verbal motivation. Uncombed hair. Aversion to cohabitation of vegetables. I hate that nagging feeling that you’ve seen someone before and can’t remember where.
“And who do you belong to?” I really should write this stuff down.
“You. I’m your first-born male child. I inherit your kingdom, such as it is.”
“What’s your name?”
“You told me not to tell anybody that doesn’t say the code word.”
“What’s the code word?”
“Nice trick. You warned me you might try that.”
I liked him better when he was poking holes in the entrée.
I squinted critically and turned his face side to side with my palm. “You don’t look like me.”
“Yet one more thing to be thankful for.”
I paused to consider. Wit coupled with a side order of sarcasm. A single sterling family trait does not make him an heir to my fortune in frozen Girl Scout cookies and unrecycled grocery bags.
“So what’s your name?”
“Nice try, Mom.”
“If I’m your Mom, tell me something personal that only I would know.”
“You hide leftover Easter candy in your underwear drawer, you can’t reach the Tupperware bowls on the second shelf, and you cry during the end of Secondhand Lions whether you see the first half of the movie or not.”
A few lucky guesses does not equal a DNA match.
“And what happened on Friday,” I queried, conjuring up memories of Family Scrabble Night.
He swallowed the last bite of uncontaminated potato salad and guzzled a half gallon of iced tea without stopping for breath. “Friday was allowance day. You owe me five dollars.”
Anybody with that kind of money memory has my blood in his veins.
Now how can I get him to tell me the family password? Maybe I can buy a vowel.
Follow the blog chain. There is no weakest link!
Talk about blended families. Our family tree has more ex’s than a Tic Tac Toe tournament. At 2:00 in the afternoon on holiday weekends all the children automatically rotate parents from force of habit. This weekend, I found myself seated at dinner next to an entertaining young man who was engaged in a fork joust in an effort to to keep his creamed corn from touching his potato salad.
“Well, hello.” I’m nothing if not a sparkling conversationalist.
The fork executed a remarkable thrust and parry to save yet another food item from corn domination. “Yo.”
Limited verbal motivation. Uncombed hair. Aversion to cohabitation of vegetables. I hate that nagging feeling that you’ve seen someone before and can’t remember where.
“And who do you belong to?” I really should write this stuff down.
“You. I’m your first-born male child. I inherit your kingdom, such as it is.”
“What’s your name?”
“You told me not to tell anybody that doesn’t say the code word.”
“What’s the code word?”
“Nice trick. You warned me you might try that.”
I liked him better when he was poking holes in the entrée.
I squinted critically and turned his face side to side with my palm. “You don’t look like me.”
“Yet one more thing to be thankful for.”
I paused to consider. Wit coupled with a side order of sarcasm. A single sterling family trait does not make him an heir to my fortune in frozen Girl Scout cookies and unrecycled grocery bags.
“So what’s your name?”
“Nice try, Mom.”
“If I’m your Mom, tell me something personal that only I would know.”
“You hide leftover Easter candy in your underwear drawer, you can’t reach the Tupperware bowls on the second shelf, and you cry during the end of Secondhand Lions whether you see the first half of the movie or not.”
A few lucky guesses does not equal a DNA match.
“And what happened on Friday,” I queried, conjuring up memories of Family Scrabble Night.
He swallowed the last bite of uncontaminated potato salad and guzzled a half gallon of iced tea without stopping for breath. “Friday was allowance day. You owe me five dollars.”
Anybody with that kind of money memory has my blood in his veins.
Now how can I get him to tell me the family password? Maybe I can buy a vowel.
Follow the blog chain. There is no weakest link!
Auburn Assassin and direct link to her post
Hillary Jacques and direct link to her post
Aimee Laine and direct link to her post
Ralph Pines and direct link to his post
Veinglory and direct link to her post
Laffarsmith and direct link to her post
PASeaholtz and direct link to his post
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Seek and You Shall Fail
"Before beginning a hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it." -- Winnie the Pooh
I appreciate the earnest wisdom of Winnie the Pooh as much as the next bear of very little brain, but in all deference, what I could use is a little bit of insider information on the location of the thing I’m looking for. Here we are teetering right on top of the time of year when well-honed finding skills are of utmost importance and I couldn’t track down an Easter egg with an Indian scout and a dedicated Coonhound trained on pastels. What I need is for Microsoft to create a search function that works in my back yard.
Since the seek-fail gene is not the sort of genealogical wonder that skips a generation, my sons Ca$h and Wrongway have this happy talent splashed all over their DNA like egg dye.
My older son is 20 and, while he has no use for hen’s eggs died to match the purples and polka dots found in nature, he has a keen interest in plastic Easter eggs which are known to harbor money or crispy chocolaty goodies in their recesses. But since he is not able to get in touch with his inner GPS, this year he requested that the Easter Bunny hide his eggs in a row on the kitchen table, marked with his name and initialed by quality control. He’d have no problems if the Easter Bunny simply left a check.
You’d think this would take some of the spirit out of the Easter morning egg hunt, but it’s actually a lot less painful than squiring a twenty year old to and fro past the back gate squealing, “Look! What's that behind the third tulip from the left? No, the other left.” Meanwhile, woodland creatures are gathering behind the bushes to place bets on how many eggs stay in the yard for another year.
He did find a group of colored eggs one year. Our Golden Retriever, who never met a food based item he didn’t like, rolled all the dyed eggs into the middle of the yard and licked the Crisco off. I thought the Crisco was to make them shiny, not lend them dog appeal. That's like rubbing meat tenderizer on the cat. Son One got up Easter morning, collected eggs like a hayseed in a henhouse and went back to bed.
My other son is an ace with Easter eggs. He has a multi-sensored tracking device embedded in his brain that can secure the enemy egg’s location in a nanosecond. It’s our house that he can’t seem to locate without help. In his defense, he hasn’t had his driver’s license long enough for the plastic smell to wear off. On his way home from the mall one day, he discovered a new school. In a different county. My cell phone rang that evening and an eerily familiar voice said, “Mom, I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore.” "Honey," I answered, calmly twisting the telephone wire into accordian pleats, "We live in South Carolina." So I can count on him to come up with the goods on the annual egg hunt. If he can find our yard.
I don’t understand it, though. I’ve seen these guys play video games. Either one can pick out a sniper across three continents hiding in the broom closet in the basement of a fourteen story building made of concrete slab with no windows. If the sniper is crouched under an overturned mop bucket wearing an invisibility cloak, all the better. The only decision is weather to sneak across a landbridge with a simple shotgun or a fall back on a weapon with a little more finesse, say a flame thrower.
But for now, our Easter eggs are safe. Unless he drops them in an underwater volcano somewhere in the mid Pacific. Personally, I hope he hides them on a certain ship or two located off the coast of Somalia.
Those stinkin' pirates wouldn't stand a chance.
I appreciate the earnest wisdom of Winnie the Pooh as much as the next bear of very little brain, but in all deference, what I could use is a little bit of insider information on the location of the thing I’m looking for. Here we are teetering right on top of the time of year when well-honed finding skills are of utmost importance and I couldn’t track down an Easter egg with an Indian scout and a dedicated Coonhound trained on pastels. What I need is for Microsoft to create a search function that works in my back yard.
Since the seek-fail gene is not the sort of genealogical wonder that skips a generation, my sons Ca$h and Wrongway have this happy talent splashed all over their DNA like egg dye.
My older son is 20 and, while he has no use for hen’s eggs died to match the purples and polka dots found in nature, he has a keen interest in plastic Easter eggs which are known to harbor money or crispy chocolaty goodies in their recesses. But since he is not able to get in touch with his inner GPS, this year he requested that the Easter Bunny hide his eggs in a row on the kitchen table, marked with his name and initialed by quality control. He’d have no problems if the Easter Bunny simply left a check.
You’d think this would take some of the spirit out of the Easter morning egg hunt, but it’s actually a lot less painful than squiring a twenty year old to and fro past the back gate squealing, “Look! What's that behind the third tulip from the left? No, the other left.” Meanwhile, woodland creatures are gathering behind the bushes to place bets on how many eggs stay in the yard for another year.
He did find a group of colored eggs one year. Our Golden Retriever, who never met a food based item he didn’t like, rolled all the dyed eggs into the middle of the yard and licked the Crisco off. I thought the Crisco was to make them shiny, not lend them dog appeal. That's like rubbing meat tenderizer on the cat. Son One got up Easter morning, collected eggs like a hayseed in a henhouse and went back to bed.
My other son is an ace with Easter eggs. He has a multi-sensored tracking device embedded in his brain that can secure the enemy egg’s location in a nanosecond. It’s our house that he can’t seem to locate without help. In his defense, he hasn’t had his driver’s license long enough for the plastic smell to wear off. On his way home from the mall one day, he discovered a new school. In a different county. My cell phone rang that evening and an eerily familiar voice said, “Mom, I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore.” "Honey," I answered, calmly twisting the telephone wire into accordian pleats, "We live in South Carolina." So I can count on him to come up with the goods on the annual egg hunt. If he can find our yard.
I don’t understand it, though. I’ve seen these guys play video games. Either one can pick out a sniper across three continents hiding in the broom closet in the basement of a fourteen story building made of concrete slab with no windows. If the sniper is crouched under an overturned mop bucket wearing an invisibility cloak, all the better. The only decision is weather to sneak across a landbridge with a simple shotgun or a fall back on a weapon with a little more finesse, say a flame thrower.
But for now, our Easter eggs are safe. Unless he drops them in an underwater volcano somewhere in the mid Pacific. Personally, I hope he hides them on a certain ship or two located off the coast of Somalia.
Those stinkin' pirates wouldn't stand a chance.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Speed Trap
Don’t get me wrong. Some of my best friends are police officers. Well, maybe not my best friends, but I knew somebody once who was married to a police officer. And whenever a police officer calls trying to sell tickets to a circus or something, I always buy some. Well, if I have any money left after I get lottery tickets, and if my car insurance isn’t due. Also, I have fond memories of a considerate and sympathetic patrolman who let me off with a warning when I was beating a hasty path to what would be my Mom’s last Mother’s Day celebration. And that’s a fact.
But when it comes to speed traps, it’s Survivor: Blue Light. All alliances are off.
My husband and I were enjoying a Sunday afternoon drive, engaging earnestly in conversation, while I smacked bubble gum as fast as I talked. We had just left the preacher’s house and we were feeling pretty cocky about our future prospects. I favored paying the rent, while he was touting the benefits of blowing our money on groceries.
About that time we heard the one noise that’s worse than that gurgling sound that comes from your baby’s diaper during a pool party at the boss’s house. You couldn’t mistake this sound: a short blast from a police siren, close enough on our tail that it was apparent somebody in a position of authority wanted to chat with us.
We pulled over and waited, practicing our best law-abiding-citizen look. The officer, a graduate of the Rocky and Bullwinkle School of Beauty, apparently took advantage of the situation to check her hair and makeup, flip through her yearbook, and make reservations for her kindergarten reunion from military school before she approached our car.
“Hi.”
How can a person speak without separating their teeth?
“I’m officer Birddropping and I’ll be your public servant today. I couldn’t help but notice your haste to move through my jurisdiction and I have several interesting selections available for you this afternoon.”
She flipped open a well-worn notebook. “We’re offering a lovely $89 speeding ticket. It comes with a side order of four points off your license. There is also a $176 citation with a side of two points. Our special today, which you qualified for by neglecting to sign the back of your registration card like an uneducated baboon, is the $170 ticket for reckless operation of a vehicle. Had you deciphered the fine print on the back of your card and had you offered a DNA sample and cash alternative, you would not be eligible for this offer. This is your lucky day.”
We opted for the special.
“Excellent choice. May I also recommend the court date? You’ll be sorry if you don’t go for that opportunity. We’ll all meet there and make a day of it.”
Nothing says law and order like a little public humiliation.
Although the idea of spending the day in a two-bit courthouse with Officer Sunshine and Hanging Judge Judy sounded about as much fun as hand cleaning the cheese grater, we agreed to set the date. The officer presented us with our written invitation and leaned down to make eye contact.
“Slow down for me, now.” Which is legal talk for, “Take another spin through here real soon. You look like you have a bond that needs cashing.”
We thanked the officer politely and deftly chose the opposite direction as we left the parking lot. My beloved eyed me suspiciously.
“Congratulations. I remember the days when you would have hopped out of the car to go bra to badge with any chick with an attitude like hers. Today I didn’t have to bail you out of jail or pick pincurls out of your teeth.”
“I like to think I’m beyond all that.”
“Then what are you grinning about?” my husband asked, stroking his wallet consolingly.
“Officer Sunshine seemed to value the importance of DNA. So when she stomped past my window,” I said, slowly peeling the wrapper off a fresh piece of gum, “I left her a sample.”
But when it comes to speed traps, it’s Survivor: Blue Light. All alliances are off.
My husband and I were enjoying a Sunday afternoon drive, engaging earnestly in conversation, while I smacked bubble gum as fast as I talked. We had just left the preacher’s house and we were feeling pretty cocky about our future prospects. I favored paying the rent, while he was touting the benefits of blowing our money on groceries.
About that time we heard the one noise that’s worse than that gurgling sound that comes from your baby’s diaper during a pool party at the boss’s house. You couldn’t mistake this sound: a short blast from a police siren, close enough on our tail that it was apparent somebody in a position of authority wanted to chat with us.
We pulled over and waited, practicing our best law-abiding-citizen look. The officer, a graduate of the Rocky and Bullwinkle School of Beauty, apparently took advantage of the situation to check her hair and makeup, flip through her yearbook, and make reservations for her kindergarten reunion from military school before she approached our car.
“Hi.”
How can a person speak without separating their teeth?
“I’m officer Birddropping and I’ll be your public servant today. I couldn’t help but notice your haste to move through my jurisdiction and I have several interesting selections available for you this afternoon.”
She flipped open a well-worn notebook. “We’re offering a lovely $89 speeding ticket. It comes with a side order of four points off your license. There is also a $176 citation with a side of two points. Our special today, which you qualified for by neglecting to sign the back of your registration card like an uneducated baboon, is the $170 ticket for reckless operation of a vehicle. Had you deciphered the fine print on the back of your card and had you offered a DNA sample and cash alternative, you would not be eligible for this offer. This is your lucky day.”
We opted for the special.
“Excellent choice. May I also recommend the court date? You’ll be sorry if you don’t go for that opportunity. We’ll all meet there and make a day of it.”
Nothing says law and order like a little public humiliation.
Although the idea of spending the day in a two-bit courthouse with Officer Sunshine and Hanging Judge Judy sounded about as much fun as hand cleaning the cheese grater, we agreed to set the date. The officer presented us with our written invitation and leaned down to make eye contact.
“Slow down for me, now.” Which is legal talk for, “Take another spin through here real soon. You look like you have a bond that needs cashing.”
We thanked the officer politely and deftly chose the opposite direction as we left the parking lot. My beloved eyed me suspiciously.
“Congratulations. I remember the days when you would have hopped out of the car to go bra to badge with any chick with an attitude like hers. Today I didn’t have to bail you out of jail or pick pincurls out of your teeth.”
“I like to think I’m beyond all that.”
“Then what are you grinning about?” my husband asked, stroking his wallet consolingly.
“Officer Sunshine seemed to value the importance of DNA. So when she stomped past my window,” I said, slowly peeling the wrapper off a fresh piece of gum, “I left her a sample.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)