I have a lot to learn

My sister and I have been on some adventures, to say the least! When we were younger our adventures were more catastrophic because we had not mastered the art of control, but as we've aged over the years we are able to manage the collateral damage that occur in our adventures. We are truly and Lucy and Ethel team because if one gets in trouble--we both got trouble. I've rescued her and she me too many times to count.

When my sister was probably 8 or so, I would have been around 4 or 5, she went through a phase of not wanting to take a bath. If she did take a bath she certainly did not want to go through the whole ordeal of washing, combing, and drying her long hair. She devised this plan that she would hang out in the bathroom for the period of time that it would take to bath, then wet just the front of her hair and wrap it in a towel. No one, but me, knew this trick and she would get away with not having to bathe. Me I had to bathe and wash my hair and I didn't like to do it at all. That was until I hatched my perfect plan.

I devised that I would try her trick and get my hair wet, tricking my Mom and Dad into thinking I had cleaned up. "Will, bath time." "Ok, Dad..." Off I went reluctantly slumping along to the bathroom. Water on, front hair wet--set! This is where things started to unravel to me. First, I didn't stay in the bathroom long enough to bathe and wash my hair. Next, I didn't think to wrap a towel around my dry hair just exposing the wet portion. PJ's were put on and I marched right back out to the living room, it had been maybe five minutes.

I can remember my Dad slowly turning to look at me with this look of dazed confusion then slowly turn to my Mom and look at her as if to say, " what is YOUR son doing?" "William, I told you to go take a bath." "I did." "No, no you didn't." "Yes I did..." "So, you took a bath and washed your hair?" "Yes." "Then why is your hair only wet here and not all over her head." My sister was deer in the headlights bug eyed because I in the process of exposing her perfect plan of disgusting habits. "Um...I us...I" "You didn't wash your hair or take a bath, did you?" "No sir." "What in the world were you thinking?" "Well Sis does it all the time so I thought I would try it." "Oh she does...does she?" [thunk]I had just abandoned my sister and left her high and dry. On her way to bed, she pinched me and said, "Thanks a lot...idiot!" Mom and Dad were on to her game from then on.

This is pretty much how I roll, bumbling and fumbling my way through life. My sister, thankfully, still loves me and rescues me more than I deserve.

Lucy and Ethel: Close encounters of the car kind

Lucy and I have had many, many vehicular encounters where I just knew that I would lose my life. There was a point when I felt like Lucy just aimed the car and pressed on the accelerator blowing over whatever happened to be in her path. It was fast and furious to say the least. Lucy had some pre-license fiasco's where I fortunately missed that I still can't believe she was able to get out of. Both were when my parents and I went the bowling alley as my parents were on a bowling league. Lucy had my Aunt's car in the ditch because the just KNEW she could drive it and then one occasion where she broke the key off in my Dad's pick-up. She told my Dad that she wanted to listen to the Radio--HE BELIEVED HER!
My Granny came down with a bad cold and called my Dad to get her some soup for meals. Granny lived in a town about thirty minutes away from where we lived and they didn't really have a grocery store. Dad asked Lucy and I to go to the store to get some soup for Granny and take it to her. "[Lucy] I want you to drive straight to Consumers, park by the trash dumpster away from the cars, walk in buy the soup, drive straight to Granny's and straight home." Dad had learned that he needed to provide such painful detail as my sweet sis took many privileges and would say, "you never said I couldn't..." she was so smooth--Velvet pure velvet!
My Dad drove an enormous Ford Super Cab. It was an extended super cab which meant it was like driving a school bus. Lucy didn't really have enough experience driving this as she usually drove my Mom's car. Any chance to get out of the house with key's was just too good to be true for Lucy. She and I piled into the truck and started on our way. We made it to the grocery store just fine, until Lucy started to think for herself. That always gets us in trouble--Lucy thinking for her self.
"Where are you going? Dad said to park by the dumpster." "He won't know where I park, besides I can park right her by the door and be in and out before anyone sees us." "Dad said,..." "William he's not going to know just shut up!" Lucy had chosen to park the behemoth between an awkwardly parked 79 Buick, huge in it's own right, and the yellow-poled concrete cart ramp. Lucy just didn't have the whole dimension of the truck in mind as she tried to angle her way into this tight spot. I was on the passengers side looking at the huge car when I heard the first sounds of scraping. SCREEEECH! "Oh my God, Sis you just hit that car-Oh my God, Dad is going to kill you." "Crap, Crap, William just shut up and look to see how bad it is." All the while she was still pulling into the parking spot. "Stop, just stop the truck." We stopped and Lucy's mind was racing, racing, racing.
An elderly gentleman walked up and saw the precarious situation we were in. Without saying anything he just held up one index finger and motioned in a circular direction then waved his hand. Why we trusted him I'll never know. His advise caused the Buick to puncture and rip into the side of my Dad's truck. It could have been that this man was the ex-husband of the old lady driving this tiny continent and just thought he could get some sort of revenge vicariously. "Crap." "Oh my God we are going to die--You are ripping the bumper off that car!" "William I swear to God--if you don't shut up!" The elderly gentleman was still leading the crash and bang orchestra with this index finger not helping us at all. We finally waved and smiled, saying our final goodbye's to the world.
After Grandpa Jones had is fun another person came up. This was a guy who looked to be in his teens, if that old. "Looks like you are in a pickle." "Yes, my Dad's going to kill me." "OK turn your wheel this way, now give it just a little gas---there now turn this way and just take it on out." Viola! Magic. This young pup knew his stuff and we were free. The Buick was now parked in the right position and had some serious damage to the chrome bumper. Lucy pulled around to the side of the store--where we were supposed to park in the first place and got out of the truck to survey the damage.
There was about a foot and a half scrape down the side of my Dad's white truck. The chrome trim had popped off and you could make the streaks of color left by the wounded Buick. "Sis, Dad's going to kill you." "Not if he doesn't know." "How is he not going to know. Look at that." "I can pound it out. Simple" Note: When one tries to pound out a dent by approaching it form the underneath side you only cause more bumps that compliment the dent. "I don't think that is helping, it's worse. You are dead." I because mortally afraid at that point because I just knew that Dad wouldn't be over his rage after killing Lucy and might just turn his attentions to me and take me out on account.
The old lady who drove the car was not even a little bit shocked. She told us that it happened to her all the time and that she was just glad it wasn't her that had made the dent this time. We were consoled only until the Insurance agent called our agent and made arrangements for the claim to be processed. Then it became a bigger deal.
By the time we got home it was dark, really dark. Dad was in the garage tinkering with what ever men tinker with in the garage and Mom was talking to him about her day. "They are both home. Don't say a word, I'll say everything and on matter what I say that is what happened." She really didn't have to worry too much about me because true to my typical reaction I was headed for my room to hide.
To get to the garage you had to go into the dining room and step down about two or three steps. "hey guys we are home." "What took so long?" "Oh nothing , Granny has her soup." "Dad, I had a little accident in the parking lot." I remember nothing else because I was in my shelter hiding. I do recall the aluminum screen door screeching open and slamming shut with my Dad headed toward the truck with a flashlight. The I recall the sound of the door shutting back and my Dad really, really mad. He lost his religion for about two minutes and was totally hot--madder than mad.
He never fixed that dent and as the scratch rusted into a giant hole it reminded him of his deep seated hate for Lucy's antics. There would be many, many more encounters with Lucy behind the wheel--it had only just begun.

Lucy and Ethel: Chapter One

Writing about Lucy and Ethel yesterday opened a flood gate of similar stories involving our escapades. Boy, have we had some escapades. My sister hated me for the better part of the 20th century, well that isn't actually true. She just hated me until she got married and I started a regular hygiene routine which would be around 1985. During our time in school, we were in the same building when she was a sophomore and I was an eighth grader through her senior year, when we would occasionally cross paths I was on the strictest of orders to not even identify myself as related to her AT ALL--under penalty of death. As I would pass her on my way to lunch she would give me this cold, Hannibal Lechter stare daring me to acknowledge her. All I wanted was a hug, maybe even a simple, "hey bud, you gross pig." She was totally embarrassed by me--the sum total package. I think if you had asked her what she hated about me at the time it would have had to be--my birth. Although, given her hatred of me it was exclusive. No one messed with me and if they did they had my sister's wrath to deal with. It always made her mad, "that you have to be that way", when she defended me which meant some sort of physical pain on my part for just simply existing. What was there to be embarrassed about?
Looking back I was quite a mess. Since both of our parents went to work early, we were on our own to get up and get ready for school. From about third grade on, I remember being responsible for my morning routine and off to school. I wasn't really convinced that brushing my teeth, bathing, wearing clean clothes, washing or combing my hair for that matter were of any importance. So, I would wear the same set of clothes for weeks at a time only changing when I got my jeans really dirty. The joke around the house was that i would wake up, whistle and all of my clothes would stand at attention and just jump on me. What my parents didn't know is that I slept in my clothes most of the time. I had a deep fear of any night time disaster catching me in my underwear with no time to get dressed and to safety. (House fire, tornado, intruder, atomic bomb--I had to be dressed and ready. I can remember doing evacuation drills at night just so I could be READY.) All I had to do was put my shoes on, which were right by my bed at the exact location where my feet hit the floor when I rose, put on my red windbreaker and be on my way. I was revolting, disgusting, and just plain nasty! Bathing and the entire hygiene process was just not for me.
We were late for school quite a lot and missed the buss several times. We would call my Grandmother occasionally but she would rat us out to my Dad and we got in big trouble. The one thing we did not want was my Dad on our tail for anything. When we missed the bus we would call a cab. The cab driver (I think there were two cab cars in my tiny town in Southwest Missouri) was always really sweet. "Miss the bus again, kids?" "Yes sir." "Who wants to go to school first?" Was usually the conversation. One of our favorite sit-coms was Taxi and we always held out the hope that we would get hooked up with Ladka. Sis usually went to school first so she could get her social calendar in order and I always followed. I always wished I had gone first because I was a nervous wreck the whole ride to South School. It was embarassing too, that I got out of a cab while all of the other children piled out of yellow buses. At least we were all in yellow vehicels. He never charged us for the trip to both schools, just the closest destination. For our fare, we paid him half dollars that my Mom was saving. Mom still keeps half dollars, Susan B. Anthony and now Sackagowea coins. I've seen my mother reach between the legs of a person to salvage a penny off the floor of the Mall. You never wish for the power of invisibility MORE than when your Mother is hunkered down between the legs of a total stranger--AT THE MALL--for a penny! "Mom, Oh my God! I'll give you a dollar if you will just paleheeease get up!" She kept them in this hideous ceramic roster/chicken thing on top of our fridge. This rooster/chicken was really ugly--home made by some well meaning ceramic artist wannabe who had given up on macrame and gone to the wave of the future-Ceramics. There was a perfect coating of Post-it quality stickiness all over this ugly poultry bank as we didn't often wipe the top of the fridge or it's inhabitants. Lucy and I never told anyone about our secret funding until we were both grown adults and knew we didn't really have to face any repercussions. My Mom is still very irritated by the fact that we gave away all of her half dollars to fund our cab fares.
I remember one time when we were living in the Pink house that we got the curtains caught in the Kirby. Our Kirby was amazing--I think it actually sucked space dust out of the atmosphere. It was awesome. The attachments were amazing too, we had a shag rake! Sis and I were responsible for the basic cleaning jobs around the house: dusting, vacuuming, trash removal since we were home. This particular time we spend several hours getting that sheer, Olive green curtain out of the vacuum. We then switched the curtain so the very noticeable grease stain could not be seen. A backwards sheer curtain really blends into a room with no one every noticing.
Summers were when things really got stirred up. Two children home alone from 8:00 o'clock until 3:30 p.m. there was really no end to the trouble we got into. I spent most of my days outside happily in another world. I played by myself quite contentedly and enjoyed the adventures that I took myself on. Cowboys, Star Trek, Secret Agent, you name it I did it. Since we lived in the country we didn't really have to worry too much about being bothered. I would play for hours, sometimes the whole day, on this chat pile that was no more than a mound of gravel. Chat, is a very tiny, pebbly gravel used to cover country roads. My sweet wife calls is some bizarre Mexican name like kleechy or something. it's just chat-leave it at that. Most days you would find me with silver thighs and calf's because I rode our propane tank and the silver paint would always rub off. That tank took me to some great places and help me win many a battle against Klingon's or Apache's.
Once when Lucy and I were cleaning the kitchen after dinner and had just loaded the dishwasher we discovered we were out of automatic dishwasher detergent. Mom wasn't due home for another hour, Dad was at his weekly B.A.S.S. meeting and we knew that dishes had to be done. We contemplated just running it without detergent but Lucy had a better idea. Dawn, a whole soap compartment full of Dawn. The dishwasher did great until the first commercial break of Laverne and Shirley. That was when this grizzly sound came from the kitchen. A sound the likes of which we had not heard before. It was a gurgling, groaning, churning sound that did not put us at ease. After a quick fight to see who was going to get up and go see what the source of the noise was I went. "Sis...come quick!"
Suds, lots and lots of suds. Oozing from crevices of the dishwasher we really didn't know could ooze suds. They were beautiful, so white and yet at the same time caught some rainbows as the bubbles would burst. Just a point of fact: opening the dishwasher door is NOT recommended when you are trying to stop a dishwasher that is wracked with Dawn sickness. We had suds-EVERYWHERE. "Oh crap...Dad's going to kill us! William get out of your room and come help me fix this. Crap, crap, crap." We tried bailing the suds out and washing them down the sink, but suds were coming up out of the sink--did you know that dishwashers drain into the sink drain? Suds tend to rise and not fall.
Dad came home to two very exhausted children bailing out a dishwasher full of suds. These suds had held a meeting and decided that they were breaking free of their Kenmore prison and taking over the world! They would start with our house on Pineville Road and work their way through the Ozarks. After my Dad's initial blast of anger he began to work his way out of our mess. It takes about three loads of Downy in your dishwasher to fully remove the Dawn. The dishes were clean and had this amazing April fresh scent! The carpet was pretty clean too, my Dad still gets this little vein in his head to pop out when we talk about it.
One other plumbing related incident happened several years later. My parents had divorced and my Dad and I were living in a garage apartment. He had gone to Canada on a fishing excursion and I had lived in the house alone all week. I was 23 and alone--pizza, pizza, pizza, Chinese and why in the world would I want to carry a sack of trash down the stairs? It was the night before Dad returned from his Canadian experience and I was cleaning the apartment. I had managed to shovel out the living room, fumigate the kitchen and had made my way to the bathroom. Shower: Done, Mirror: done, Floor: not that bad, Toilet: in process. I didn't have a toilet brush and decided to use the rag I had used for the whole bathroom. Aren't' you relieved that I didn't start with the toilet. The toilet was clean and shiny and I was just going to rinse out my rag in the toilet water so as not to corrupt my clean sink with toilet water funk. Apparently our toilet had a very powerful flush and created a vacuum like affect in our bowl because it sucked my rag clean out of my hands. "Oh boy, that is not good." Two flushes later I came to the conclusion that I could not solve this on my own-I needed help. "Sis, sorry it's so late..I need help. No I didn't know it would flush! Are you going to help me out or not? Tomorrow, no tomorrow morning I have to fix it tonight." Lucy arrived with several strategies none of which worked. Hangers, plungers, hands, nothing was able to get this rag out of the blasted toilet. It had approached midnight and Lucy and I were at our wits end. We had to resort to our lowest form of punishment--Professional help. It's amazing how valuable a plumber considers himself at 12:30 a.m. His time was worth about $15 a minute. I broke down and bought a toilet brush the next week it only cost me $75 ($74 for the plumber and $.99 for the brush). Dad still doesn't know about that one.
My brain is spasming with all of the stories I need to share with you involving Lucy and Ethel. I'll have more chapters to come and feed you only two or three at a time since I don't think my brain can handle more.
I have the greatest Sis in the world. She means the world to me and I would do anything for her. She and I have been through so much and find ourselves closer and closer each time. I need her to be around and always on alert. Ethel, after all, is nothing without her Lucy. We are adding pages and chapters to our novel of the novel life we have led.

Love you Sis.

Of Mice and Man

I have a mouse problem at my house. Our home is new, in a newly developed "pasture" and surrounded by several empty lots and the remains of the pasture just a block away. I don't even think we can be Map Quested yet! At any rate, we've been in our house since April and love our home, our neighborhood, all things are great. In may, as I was ironing one morning I saw the first sign of "company" as a tiny little mouse scurried from our laundry room into the kitchen to hide in some minuscule place. I was going to have no part of that and set out to rid the house of the mouse.
Our mouse friend(s) love the trash can and the pantry area and seem to frequent those places more than any other. I hate my trash can, hate it with a purple passion. I bought it because it was a stainless steel step can and looked cool in the kitchen. It is horrible. When I rule the world the manufacturer and designers of said trash can will pay--handsomely for the misery this trash can has brought upon my life. This trash can has a hollow bottom, just perfect for the vermin to dine freely on whatever they please. There must be some kind of party going on because there is more "debris" under that can than New York on January 1st.
After researching proper mouse catching and hoping that out there in cyberspace would be some "i-robot" with a built in laser that could eradicate the vermin for me. Plausable, afterall if a robot could vacuum a house, why could it not then blast vermin to dust and vacuum up the remains? No such device existed. I resorted to the "fancy" trap with the cheese-like trap on it. Turns our mice like peanut butter much more than cheese--at least my mice. So I have successfully managed to hunt, trap, and murder several of those vermin--10 in all. My Dad tells me I may never get away from the little pests. I think he might be right.
Each morning as I rise and face the day I head straight to the trapping zones in hopes of catching those blasted vermin. I get some kind of joy in knowing that I have managed to protect my family from such disgusting0-all be it cute--creatures. A week or two will go buy and I will have to again launch an attack on ridding my home of the unwanted guests.
I had an episode in which I almost hung up my mouse hunting tools. This episode was just about too much for me to tolerate. I had set out two traps and hoped for the best when I rose the next morning. Much to my surprise I had murdered not one, but two pesky vermin. No doubt head strong obnoxious brothers out for a night of gluttony and partying. One brother succumbed to the trap in the trash-a fatal neck injury with no hope of survival. The other brother, not so lucky. As it would turn out I would not be so lucky that morning either.
This brother had made his way to the pantry to loot and pillage our Doritos (they really like Doritos). This brother was inescapably attracted to the peanut butter like some photophyllic bug flying into his death. What was so tragic is the type of injury sustained--not a neck injury. It was a very painful hip injury--he was still alive. I was really in a quandary over the proper way to dispose of the little marauder. I did give him a lecture about how he should not have been so bold as to come into my house and attempt to eat my Doritos--they were MINE and He was NOT invited to dine with us. Incidentally, the Doritos became the property of the mouse once we discovered the evidence of his feasting. I quickly tried to run through my options: stomping, smashing, throwing away...what would be the best? He is clearly going to die and was knocking on the door of death anyway--I just needed to make his journey to the boatman quicker. I finally decided to suffocate him. I placed him in a Ziploc baggie and sealed it up. Threw him to his brother in the trash can I hate and tried to wipe my memory of the incident. I can only imagine what was said, "I...see...he...got...you...too. Mom-God rest her soul-was right...save me a place bro."
My most recent battle with the beasts was getting rather frustrating. The mouse I was pursuing was outsmarting me at every turn. Not only were the Doritos disappearing, but he was eating all of the peanut butter and not tripping the trap. Night after night the story was the same: less Doritos, clean trap! Blast that vermin scum! I felt like Bill Murray in Caddy caddy shack chasing the illusive gopher. I would not be defeated, though--I would rise up and take control of my pantry. He was not able to outwit my spray cheese maneuver--I must have thrown him off guard to the point that the distraction cost him his life.
My current war against the vermin is not something new. I was thinking this morning about all of the encounters with mice I have had in my life. It's been quite a journey and something I didn't realize was so much a part of my life. Those pesky vermin have been driving me crazy for my entire life.
Growing up I lived in Southwest Missouri in a pink asbestos tile house on Route 1. It was a great place for me to grow up and I have the fondest memories of playing at the little pink house, spending long summer days riding my trusty steed-propane tank-to far off adventures. My earliest memory of mice is when I was three or four. My family owned a complete set of Naugahyde furniture, sofa and lounge chair, with green shag carpeting. Our living room had beautiful hard wood floors, stucco walls (hospital green), Walnut end and coffee tables, with huge lamps. The lamp shades were the size of most Korean cars and the actual lamp had a built in night light which I thought was very cool. The chair became home to a mother mouse who decided it was the place to give birth to her brood of vermin. My sister and I really were taken by the little family and thought we would take them under our wings and raise them as pets, maybe teach them a trick or two. But, my Mom and Dad both totally disagreed, we have no idea what happened to those little guys--I think I know what happened but just have a mental block and refuse to accept the cold hard facts.
One winter day when my sister and I were home alone, which we were home alone most of the time, a mouse was caught in our trap. You have to understand that my sister and I got into more predicaments than your average siblings. We refer to ourselves as, "Lucy and Ethel" because our escapades are truly something to behold. My sister was the mastermind and I was just along for the ride, an innocent victim. This particular adventure, Lucy and I discovered a mouse, caught by a trap. It was really cold outside and, like 30 feet to the front door. We decided that we would just save a few steps and throw the vermin into our wood burning stove. This brilliant strategy seemed to be just the ticket in our feeble minds. Now, if you have never experienced the stench of burning flesh I can assure you that it is a stink that sticks to you like peanut butter. A heavy, looming, fowl odor that permeates your whole life. Dense, heavy, green funk that hangs on for dear life. What were we going to do with this burning rat? Dad was going to be home any minute and we were both convinced he would not approve of our decision to cremate the mouse in our stove.
Plan B was ready for execution. Lucy dawned some hot mitts and grabbed some tongs. She opened the door to the stove and drug out the mouse with his tail burning like a fuse. We ran to the front door and threw it into the front yard. One more note of worth: if you decide to cremate a mouse in your fireplace, abort the mission and try to cover up the "smell"--Lysol is not the best choice. What you get is a toxic combination of sterile, singed mouse funk. Not a candidate for the next Yankee Candle scent.
My Dad came home to find the smoldering mouse in the front yard, followed his nose to the house and that's when it got ugly, really ugly. I was in my room by this time, which is where I always ran when Lucy got caught, and can't really attest to what happened. I just know it wasn't' pretty.
I'll never forget the time that Mildred's Maxima was an RV for a mouse. No one knew of this passenger until one day Mildred's car caught fire. She called me from a parking lot not too far away from my house to inform me that her car was on fire and that a mouse had jumped ship and was running for dear life. The Maxima survived that ordeal, the mouse is still in therapy somewhere dealing with the stress of his brush with death. I hear he converted and is now a priest in some monastery.
One other mouse incident happened at a church I worked for in Texas. Just picture grown men, bent over, yielding brooms and trash cans as their chosen weapons, running around like Keystone Cops trying to capture a mouse. A mouse, mind you, running along the wall in a straight line! It was one of most memorable and hilarious things I have ever seen. They never caught that mouse either, but were on full alert for the rest of the service.
My battle with the vermin continues. I am undaunted in my pursuit to rid my world of those nasty, germ carrying, Doritos eating vermin. There really is no happy medium here, it just me and mice in a constant struggle for superiority. As long as I have Target, peanut butter, and traps, I will win the battles--the war is still up to best man.