WFW - Under the hedges

And back by popular demand is our weekly Words for Wednesday challenge, if you want to join in simply grab the prompts and write a story, poem, song, or whatever your heart desires.

Use some of the words or all of the words this is completely up to you. Then go over to Cindi's blog Letting the Words Escape and leave either your story in her comments or a link back to where it is posted on your blog.

This week our prompts are:
bloody, confidence, ranger, Apollo, submarine, Byron
and/or
dictionary, groundhog, dancing, rain, silent, Germany

Under the hedges

BYRON and his trusty sidekick APOLLO sat underneath the hedges as the SILENT RAIN fell. Apollo is what his dad calls a German Shepard dog, even though he really wasn't from GERMANY, he was actually born on Byron's 6th birthday three years ago right there in the backyard of their home in small town America. Dad had shown Byron the definition of German Shepard in the DICTIONARY, but this still didn't make Apollo German.

With his Lone RANGER hat and mask on, Byron peered with CONFIDENCE through the hedges towards the dirt mound in his side yard, the GROUNDHOG was to meet his maker today. Byron's deadly aim with his slingshot was going to bring the groundhog's DANCING to a BLOODY end.

All of a sudden the varmints head appeared above ground, Byron stood up quietly and stretched the rubber bands of his slingshot to capacity and let the projectile fly towards it's target, just as the band snapped and the rubber ball arched upwards completely over the fence, the groundhog dropped like a SUBMARINE back into the safety of his home, only to reappear another day.

Byron and Apollo made their way back towards the house, it was probably better for mom to find him playing inside his dry room, than to be caught outside with his slingshot in the rain.

All masked up

Coming to you from both Cindy's phone and the hospital. We had to bring Ray in for an emergency procedure a couple of days ago, he is doing well now and hopefully will get a meal today and go home tomorrow.

Jimmy and Cindy all masked up at hospital ER

In the emergency room which was filled to capacity and in ICU, Miss. Cindy made sure that we wore a mask which was probably a good idea.

Do you wear a mask when you go to the hospitals or Doctors office?

Surprises in the dirt

Cindy wanted me to repot one of her plants, you know a simple little job that only requires pulling a plant out of the old pot and chunking it into the bigger pot. Well first off you need a bigger pot, and no pulling or chunking is allowed.

We made a trip to the big box warehouse hardware store, and found a pot that actually matched two others that Cindy already had, and "While you are repotting that one, it will be good if you repot one more for me", so this means two pots that match the two others she already has, this was all that I needed to pick up, and of course to fill the pots I should pick up some dirt too.

Mustang horse named Benji, one who adds some of the nutrients

Cindy wouldn't allow me to simply dig up some of the dirt from the pasture. You know right from that special spot where the horses add the necessary nutrients into the ground to make ideal growing conditions for plants, and also the ideal place for Dixie to roll and sometimes snack, and also where the chickens love to scratch. With all of this attention you know this dirt has to be good! Dirt with a little surprise in it.

But Noooo! Cindy's not going to have this, "I don't want my house smelling like horse sh*t!" so I had to pick up a couple bags of that magic dirt that continues to feed and grow your plants like a miracle, and of course since we are already here, she suggested that a new climbing arbor thingie would be good for the original plant that I was supposed to repot. Guess what they didn't have? Yes you guessed it, no climbing arbor thingies, that would work for Cindy's plant.

Since there were no climbing arbor thingies big enough for Cindy's plant I reached back into the creative recesses of my mind and drew up a plan. With a few tomato stakes, wire, and cutters, I then added in a little bit of "Southern Engineering" and Cindy got herself a new hand made climbing arbor thingie that she actually likes.

Cindy's plant with the new handmade climbing arbor thingie.

Anyways while I was cleaning up my mess I noticed something shiny in the bag of dirt.

Inside the bag of dirt I found an actual diamond, a real surprise in the dirt, a real life diamond...well it's real only if it's not fake, not fake in the sense that I imagined finding it, I suppose that I should have said, just in case it's not a genuine diamond, but this remains to be seen.

Yesterday the whole process started over again, Cindy found another plant that she wants repotted, so I headed back to the big box warehouse hardware store and bought yet another matching pot, and a bag of the diamond producing miracle dirt.

I had slipped the found diamond into my shirt pocket and stopped by our handy dandy jewelry store to get the jewelers opinion on my find.

First off I had to find the diamond in my pocket, I mean it's not like it was a huge diamond, and then I had to get my hand out of my pocket. I felt kind of like a monkey trying to pull a peanut out of a jar, I needed to open my hand to remove it but then I also wanted to complete the mission of having the valuable diamond appraised, even more so I wanted to get the diamond and my hand both out of my pocket.

Finally with my hand flat and the diamond between my index and middle finger I removed the diamond from my pocket, praying that it wouldn't go flying across the room. The jeweler had patiently waited for me to regain control of my hand, I think he was trying not to laugh as I dropped the diamond from between my fingers and into my palm.

The Genuine diamond rhinestone that I found.

He began his appraisal with "Well Jimmy what you have here is not a diamond!", "I wasn't sure so I figured you had better look at it." I said to him and added,"So what I have is a piece of plastic?", "No it's definitely not plastic, it's what you would call a rhinestone" he said, and for the final question that everyone is waiting to ask. "What's it worth?" Absolutely nothing he told me. I thanked him for his help and put the diamond back into my pocket...

 As of now I have two plants doing well in the new pots that match the old pots we already had, a new climbing arbor thingie that didn't cost me anything more than time, a surprise in the dirt that is nice and shiny but not worth anything, a new pot and a bag of dirt to play in, and of course a blog post that takes up a few minutes of your time. I wonder if there will be any surprises in my new bag of dirt?

Have you ever found anything that you weren't expecting in an unusual place, or inside something you bought?

A No Golfing Cart Ride

Even though my golf playing ability is A Golfers Nightmare, there is one thing from the golfing world that I agree is worthwhile, the Golf Cart or as I refer to the one that I own, The No Golfing Cart.

My No Golfing Cart front view

The No Golfing Cart is a very useful tool, we first bought this one a couple of years ago when Cindy's Dad first began to struggle walking, he suggested getting an electric scooter with big tires and a basket so he could get out into the yard and look around, go out into the pasture and see Flash (his horse), and use the basket to carry stuff that he may need.

To make a long story short I decided on a golf cart instead, first off the seat would be more comfortable, and the golf cart would be less likely to get stuck in a gopher hole.

Rear view of the No Golfing Cart.

I had the back seats removed and a pickup truck style bed added, I also added a cane holder and a couple of horns just for fun, one bicycle/clown horn, and an electric horn that screams Ah-Ooo-Gaa when the button is pushed, you know actual necessities for a no golfing cart.

When I first got the No Golfing Cart, Ray and I were talking in the driveway, he was sitting behind the wheel of the No Golfing Cart when Dixie (our dachshund) walked up and asked to be lifted up onto the seat with Ray. Dixie does like to ride and the next thing I knew Ray, Dixie, and the No Golfing Cart were flying down the driveway, Ray made a left hand turn and continued up the road at top No Golfing Cart speed and vanished.

Nearly half an hour later just about the time we were going to gather up a search party I heard the clown horn "Squeak-Ah-Squeak-Ah-Squeak" coming from the opposite direction from which Ray and Dixie had disappeared, and then I saw them coming down the hill.

Not a little hill either folks, a hill that cars have a hard time slowing down on, one that I have seen people standing up on their bicycles in first gear pumping as hard as they can to climb this hill, only to give up and end up pushing their bike. In other words "This is a steep hill"

At the bottom of the hill Ray hardly slowed down at all as he turned left back onto our street, I swear I thought that Cart was going to roll over, it looked like two wheels were off the ground. With both Ray and Dixie grinning from ear to ear he slid to a stop in front of our house.

"Man that was fun!" he said, "there was only one problem, I passed a guy on a bicycle and Dixie tried to jump off the seat to chase him"

Ray and Dixie coming back home a couple years ago.

Then they turned into the driveway and parked the No Golfing Cart for the day, but needless to say this was just the first in a long string of rides for Ray and Dixie. But only after another accessory was added to the No Golfing Cart.

Dixie's No Golfing Cart Seatbelt/Harness

This little incident lead to the invention of the "No Golfing Cart Seatbelt for Dixie."

Dixie wearing her No Golfing Cart Seatbelt and Harness

It is now a requirement for Dixie to wear the No Golfing Cart Seatbelt and Harness device, because she does love to chase bicycles as much as she loves to ride, and she will wear it if this is what it takes for her to go for a ride.

The No Golfing cart has been used for many things, like hauling hay and feed, I just recently hauled a load of aloe vera plants that I had thinned out and given to the neighbors, and it works really well to carry the weed sprayer when I have to spray the fence line to make mowing easier

A nice No Golfing Cart ride following the mailman

But the best thing the No Golfing Cart does is take us for a ride, sometimes we go just to get out for a minute, on this day Cindy was trying to catch the mailman before he got to our house, and yes she caught him just in the nick of time.

Dixie and Cindy cruising down the road.

Dixie goes for a ride with whoever is going at the time, Cindy takes her along when she goes around the block to pick up vegetables from a lady who sells fresh veggies out of her garden, some of the best fried green tomatoes that Cindy has made came from a No Golfing Cart ride with Dixie.

Man this is fun!

And in the end The No Golfing Cart is worth every penny that we have invested, it may not carry golf clubs and players, and it may not be the prettiest No Golfing Cart around, but it is ours and after a quick run around the block the best thing I can say is "Man that was fun!"

WFW - The correct diamond

It is again time for our weekly Words for Wednesday challenge, if you want to join in simply grab the prompts and write a story, poem, song, or whatever you choose.

Use some of the words or all of the words this is up to you. Pop over to Cindi's blog Letting the Words Escape and leave either your story in her comments or a link back to where it is posted on your blog.

This week our prompts are:
frisbee, baseball, Winston, truce, Studebaker, diamond
and/or
vanish, message, Tokyo, Wanda, twist, maim

The correct diamond

 Raising three children on her own was a responsibility that WANDA took very seriously, she tried to make everything fun and Saturdays at the BASEBALL DIAMOND was always just that. Three times a week Tommy had practice, and a game every Saturday.

Tommy loved playing the game, but his younger siblings had no interest. This left Wanda spread pretty thin, trying to watch the game while also watching little WINSTON with his bag full of action figures, including Godzilla who was currently in the process of destroying TOKYO in the sandpile, Audrey was a little harder to keep up with, she could be sitting right there and then disappear completely only to reappear on the opposite bleachers whispering a MESSAGE into a girlfriends ear, or out in the field beyond throwing a FRISBEE with a group of kids, Audrey is a social butterfly and always on the go.

Wanda had been seeing Matthew for the last year. He was a good guy and really helpful with the kids and they loved him. The only time she had ever argued with him was today! Of all the times he couldn't help her was today, Saturday, the day they always spent together but Matt found this Saturday the one day she really needed his help to up and VANISH. And for what? Some stupid STUDEBAKER or something else, at a car show on the other side of town. They called a temporary TRUCE in their little battle and went their separate ways for the day.

While she was sitting on the bottom bleacher steaming about their fight, Wanda felt someone sit down next to her, It was Matt, and over his shoulder she could see Audrey grinning from ear to ear, Tommy was standing next to her also smiling, while behind him Winston continued his quest to TWIST and MAIM all of the imaginary cities in the sand.

"What's going on here?" Wanda asked. Matt told her "I have a confession, there is no car show today, I had to go and pick this up, the kids helped me choose it" he held out a small ring box with the lid opened as he got down on one knee.

Airing our dirty laundry

My buddy Jenny_O over at Procrastinating Donkey did a post on Laundry Baskets that got me to thinking about airing our dirty laundry, she actually suggested that I do so, so to not disappoint a good friend here goes.

Cindy and I have a wicker laundry hamper with a lid that all of our dirty laundry goes into, when it gets full and the lid doesn't close anymore, this is when one of us does the laundry... usually.

(Photo Source)

Sometimes when it gets to the point that I can't close the lid, no matter how much cramming and pushing down on the dirty clothes that I do. Rather than just do the laundry I keep pushing and stuffing clothes into all of the little nooks and crannies. It is amazing how much stuff you can force into a wicker basket before it starts to balloon out, or before you begin to hear that little crackling sound that says you had better stop, or even worse when I hear Cindy yell "You better Stop that Jimmy! You are going to break something!!" When I hear this I know that it is definitely time to do laundry.

Cindy and I have different styles of washing clothes. We both separate all of the dirty clothes into their proper piles exactly the same, but this is where everything changes.

I carry the clothes in my arms to the washing machine, I then layer them evenly into the tub, close the lid and select the temperature, water level, and make sure all the switches are in the right place and then press start.

Cindy on the other hand will open the lid, press start to get the water going, and then she grabs a pile of clothes and tosses them onto the washing machine and starts stuffing them in, there is no layering going on here. She looks kind of like me at the hamper stuffing everything into whatever space she can find. I keep expecting to see her with a stick poking the clothes into the washing machine or even on top stomping them down with her feet.

When my load of clothes are running the machine goes smoothly through all of the cycles, and stops with all of the clothes still partially layered to where they are easily removed.

When Cindy's load is running you will occasionally hear a Thump-Thump-Thumping sound that shifts to a quieter thump-thump-thump, and then disappears. But other times instead of disappearing the sound grows into a SLAM-BANG-BAM-BAM-BAM as the machine begins to shake and dance around in a circle, vibrating out into the hallway as far as the hoses will allow and then backwards slamming itself into the wall. This is when I find myself dancing with the washer trying to catch hold of the lid so I can open it up and stop it from violating me right there on the spot.

As you have guessed the wad of clothing is now a wet ball stuck to one side of the tub. I usually spend a short little lengthy a lot more time than I should trying to wring out and pry that ball of clothes apart, it's kind of like attempting to neatly unroll a ball of wadded duct tape...And it's not easy to layer a wet ball of clothes into the machine so the cycle can continue but folks I'm here to tell you that it's doable.

Once the load of washing is done it is time to load them into the dryer, I literally take everything out of the washing machine one item at time, I shake the clothes out straight, and then toss them into the dryer, it really takes a while for me to load the dryer, but there are no balled up clothes, no socks with the tops rolled down, nor are there any panties in a wad going into my dryer load. I have literally had Cindy tell me "Just stuff them all in there, the dryer will straighten them out!"

Now when Cindy loads the dryer she does just that, everything that she can possibly grab goes into the dryer at one time, the dryer sheet goes in, the door slams and the clothes are Thump-Thump-Thumping until the dryer straightens them out or the cycle is complete, whichever comes first.

When it comes time to unload the dryer, we both drag everything into a big ball and carry the wad of dry clothes into our bedroom and toss them onto the bed, we usually share the task of separating the pile and folding all the stuff that needs folded, laying out the shirts and jeans that are to be hung up into their respective stacks.

Photo Source

The folded clothes are put away and then we go back and pick up what we dropped, there's always a few random socks and undies lying in a line, kind of like breadcrumbs dropped so you can find your way back to the dryer. The dropped undies are put away and the random socks are used to lessen the stack of socks with no mate, sometimes we get lucky and match up all of the socks, but most of the time there is at least one lone sock with the matching one missing in action.

Then it is up to me to hang the clothes, I usually do this because our closet is kind of like loading the washing machine, my side is all in order and Cindy's is all willy-nilly.

Cindy's side is randomly stuffed with clothing. Hangers are sticking up here and there, with some even on the floor. My side is in order, jeans, t-shirts, button up short sleeved shirts, etc. and all of the empty hangers are on the end between the jeans and the wall, I have just enough hangers for my share of the clothing and if I come up one hanger short, it's not like it is the end of the world but it's close... Seriously this is when I know Cindy stole one of my hangers because one of hers is hidden in the middle of her mismatched and stuffed closet, or either she bought herself another shirt.

There we go, this is an overview of laundry day at our house, I forgot to mention slipping on a dryer sheet on the bathroom floor, come on now you know you have done it, it's kind of like slipping on a banana peel. The bad thing is when you slip on the same one more than once and then only pick it up after your spouse slips on it too.

Cindy says that I am anal about my laundry, I say that all I want is for my clothes to be clean and where I can find them, I don't even mind doing the laundry myself. Cindy hates doing laundry and has told me over the years her solution to laundry, summed up into two simple words... Disposable Clothes.

A Golfers Nightmare

I want to start off by saying that I'm not a golf player, I never have been and I have a feeling that I never will be. I know that Putt Putt doesn't count and I also know that a lot of my friends really enjoy playing the game of golf.

I have to admit that my understanding of golf is closer to Beverly Hillbillies character Good Ole Jed Clampett's interpretation of "Shooting Golfs" as hunting a critter that he didn't know existed until he moved to California.

(Source)

Shooting golfs didn't work out for Jed and it appears that shooting golfs has never been for me either, I guess that I just don't get it.. By the way have you ever tried to break a golf egg?...

Seriously I did play golf once when I lived in Odessa, Texas. I was offered a promotion from my job as a salesman in an oilfield supply store to manager of this store. At 22 years old I was the youngest store manager the company had, and part of my job was to make sales calls on our High end executive type clients, wine and dine them, and to make sure these clients were happy with the services that our company provided, you know to basically "kiss their butts", I never was good at being a butt kisser...

One day after doing this job for several months, I got a call from the "Big Boss" at the main office in Houston, Texas. He said, "Jimmy, I just got off the phone with Mr. SoandSo over at Majorplayer Oil Company, he says that you haven't offered to take him golfing since you took over as manager!", I replied "I'm not a golfer, I don't play golf is the reason I haven't asked him to go golfing.", Big Boss then said to me, "I suggest that you learn to play golf very quickly and to get this customer on the golf course, if you want to keep this job!"

That afternoon I went and bought myself a set of golf clubs, I went to the driving range and hit balls, I asked questions of golfers I knew at work, I knocked golf balls all over the field behind my house, I worked so hard trying to teach myself how to play in time for my upcoming golf game with Mr. SoandSo that I grew to really dislike golfing right then and there.

I picked up Mr. SoandSo and took him to the Country Club where we met up with two more executives from Majorplayer Oil and our foursome hit the golf course, seriously I hit the golf course more times than I made direct contact with the ball, I learned all about fixing divots, and how large of a handicap that I would need, this was so embarrassing that I did feel handicapped, it was a golfing nightmare, absolutely nothing I did was "par for any course" I played horribly, while the other three played really well.

After the "game" was over I went back to the office and made a phone call to Houston, yes "Houston, we've got a problem", I told "Big Boss" that if part of my actual job as Store Manager was for me to play golf then he was going to have to find someone else for the job...

I kept my job and golf was never mentioned again, Mr. SoandSo stopped talking about golf with me and never suggested another round, after one game my golf clubs were sold for a reasonable price, actually way less than what I had paid for them, but the loss was worth it to me because simply put, I'm not a golfer.

My No Golfing Cart

I do however own a golf cart, or should I say a No Golfing Cart, but that will be an entirely different post...

Do you play golf? And have you had any interesting golfing experiences?

WFW - Anywhere but there

This months Words for Wednesday prompts are being hosted by Cindi over at Letting the Words Escape, and for this week Cindi has given us these prompts:


birthday, robbery, earthquake, execution, Pooh, Paris
and/or
Hepburn, ferry, murder, rolling, ledger, Tobruk


Anywhere but there

On her BIRTHDAY we decided to get out of town for a road trip to an unknown destination, you know throw a dart at a map and hope that it lands on an exciting place like PARIS, London or Australia rather than Mexico, Yemen or somewhere like TOBRUK, Libya. These options were actually out of the question since all we had was a United States map and a LEDGER showing that our budget would not allow us to travel abroad anyway.

I placed the blindfold around Julie's head covering her eyes, and handed the dart to her, I held her by the shoulders and turned my back to the map on the wall guiding her to face her target. Behind her sitting on our bed was a stuffed POOH bear watching intently as Julie prepared to throw.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was playing on the TV in our living room and I could hear Katherine HEPBURN as she said "Well... I don't think I'm going to faint, but I'll sit down anyway." I was so excited myself that her statement described exactly how I was feeling, and I probably should sit down.

I stepped to the side and watched Julie bring the dart up next to her head. "Here goes Kevin!" She said as she threw the dart towards the wall.

I closed my eyes and crossed my fingers praying for the dart to land somewhere in the mountains with a ROLLING river and lazy days in the sunshine, a ride on a FERRY to a deserted island, or anywhere to get us away from the next potential EARTHQUAKE and possible ROBBERY or MURDER.

Her EXECUTION was flawless by the sound of the Thunk as the dart buried itself into the wall. Julie ripped the blindfold off and smiled excitedly as she looked at the map, then her expression changed as she said the words "San Bernardino, California" that is only ten miles away...

We stared at each other and simultaneously shouted "Do over!"

From a different perspective

Experiences from your past are often retold differently than you remember by everyone else who was in on it with you. It seems that everybody involved has a different perspective on what actually happened.

Like the time my buddy Robby and I took my baby sister Melinda for a ride up Paris Mountain to see The Devils Mansion. Robby and I were about 16 at the time and Melinda would have been 8. Melinda heard Robby and I talking about a local rumor that claimed a group of devil worshipers lived up on the mountain, and she had maybe but most likely hadn't asked us to go and try to find this mansion.

So out of the goodness of my heart I headed up the mountain, simply to fulfill my baby sister's request to find this mansion. And after searching for a while we came upon a big iron gate that was standing open but had a "No Trespassing" sign hanging on it, there was a big circle drive in front of a large house. A quick drive around the circle driveway isn't really trespassing if you don't stop...Right?

With Melinda screaming and crying I drove past the gate, and was welcomed by a group of Doberman Pinschers who were literally jumping against my car, barking loudly and biting my tires, yes they were seriously biting the tires. As I made the circle and was heading back to the road a set of headlights appeared behind me,  there was suddenly a long haired scraggly looking guy standing at the gate holding his hand up for me to stop, I didn't.

Photo by Hamid Khaleghi on Unsplash

I made a right hand turn and headed down the mountain, with that set of headlights right on my bumper. Melinda was screaming, and with Robby sitting in the backseat I recall seeing the back of his head silhouetted in my rear-view mirror, as he was looking into the headlights of the car that was chasing us. I pushed the gas pedal to the floor, weaving in and out of the curves as fast as my car would go, I out ran and finally lost that car by the time I reached the bottom of the mountain.

To my surprise at the bottom of the hill sat the car that had been chasing me, and a group of men standing next to it with the long haired scraggly guy shaking his finger at me and pointing back up the mountain.

There are three different takes on this story:

My take is; I remember taking my little sister for a ride and while showing her a scary place that she wanted to see, someone started chasing us, I did the best driving of my life coming down that mountain, good enough to impress any NASCAR crew chief, and I safely got us out of a bad situation. But seeing long haired scraggly guy at the bottom of the hill was freaky.

My buddy Robby has said; We took Melinda up Paris Mountain to scare her, and Jimmy got us into a mess looking for the Devils Mansion, he was all over the place coming down the mountain, it's a wonder he didn't kill us all, I thought he had lost them but those guys waiting on us at the bottom about scared me to death, that was freaky.

Melinda actually said; That was freaky! I didn't even want to go there, those dogs were scary...Jimmy was mean to me.

She did finish up her comment on the original story with... Oh by the way you wasn't mean to me, you just did mean things to me but you are the best.

See she said that I am the best...but we have three different takes on the same story, the only thing we agreed on was that it was freaky.

I have noticed that every time I talk with my siblings about things we did when we were younger that no one remembers it the same, there are four of us and there are always four different interpretations on every situation, but I am the oldest so that means mine is the most accurate... Right?

Is there a story that you remember one way, but others involved remember differently?

Rogue road pooper

My new years day was spent with Cindy's brother replacing both toilets in our house. As we start aging, getting older, growing up it appears that toilets seem to get shorter and shorter. The toilet in Ray's bathroom was starting to give us some problems so we decided to install one that is a bit taller to make things easier for him, you know things like standing up.

How tall is your toilet?

And if we were going to buy one tall toilet we might as well buy two, because standing back up after you have sat down is really important to me too.

"This will only take us about 30 minutes each" Cindy's brother told me, and I knew it was going to take a lot longer than that, especially when I saw that we were already thirty minutes into our little project and only one toilet had been unloaded and carried inside the house.

We actually were really lucky because there was only one snag. You know what happens when you tighten a nut onto a bolt "just one more turn?" Yep you guessed it, something breaks. Cindy's brother gave one more turn to the nut attaching the bowl to the floor and "Snap!!" The bolt broke off at the head, I was happy that it wasn't the bowl, but to fix it we had to remove the toilet and start over...

The second toilet went in much easier because all of our mistakes were made on the first one and even though it took longer than 30 minutes each, we now have two toilets that do what toilets are supposed to do.

As soon as the toilets were replaced and flushing fine Cindy's brother made his escape, he escaped before we had disposed of the old toilets. My first thought was since he hauled the new toilets to the house he could at least haul the old ones away, and since that didn't happen my next thought was flower pots. I suggested strategically placing them into our "fine landscaped lawn", fill them with dirt and plant some posies, Cindy said no posies so I suggested maybe roses, nope no roses, I almost suggested another flower when Cindy made it clear that it wasn't the flowers she was opposed to...

Ok tomorrow is trash day so I will haul them out to the curb and see if I can get the trash company to pick them up. I grabbed my handy dandy hand truck and proceeded to move two toilets from the back of the house out to the front, proudly displaying  both toilets on the side of the road. With the toilets out of the yard and the hand truck put away Cindy's cell phone rings, it's our buddy Chris from next door.

Modern day two seater outhouse.

"Hey Cindy, I see you have a couple of toilets sitting in front of your house." "Yeah Chris, Jimmy replaced both of our toilets today." Cindy replied. "That's good, so why are the old toilets sitting on side of the road?" Chris asked. "So the trash company can pick them up, why do you ask?" This is when Chris laughed and said "I just figured you would hold onto them and have Jimmy plant you some flowers in them..."

Tuesday morning I called our trash company and asked when they could pick up the toilets. "We are in your area picking up large items every Tuesday" the representative told me, "Perfect" I said, "Today is Tuesday and the toilets are already on the curb", "Oh No", she replied "We can't do same day pickups, it will be next Tuesday before we can pick them up", "Well I guess I will have toilets sitting on the side of the road for a week then", I laughed. "No you have them out too early, you don't need to place them on the curb until next Tuesday morning!"

"It's going to be a week before the toilets will be picked up" I said to Cindy. I went on to say "I have a good idea, we have the neighbors dogs that visit, and Melissa brings her dogs to see us, so why don't I bring the toilets back into the yard, I can sit them in the backyard and fill them with water...you know a "Toilet Water Bowl!" the dogs will love it, you all know that dogs love toilets." Cindy didn't love the idea.

Toilets that I had to hide in the honeysuckles

I had to bring the toilets back in from the side of the road and "Hide them" in the honeysuckles next to the driveway, per my wife's suggestion. "You can't leave them on the side of the road for a week Jimmy!" She said, "What if somebody comes along and breaks them?",  "Yes Cindy, I don't want anyone coming along and breaking our broken toilets, or even worse I don't want anyone using them!"

"What do you mean use them? Nobody is going to use a toilet on side of the road!" Cindy said to me, which I had to reply, "Just picture this, late at night when everything is quiet, and everyone is asleep along comes a rogue road pooper who stumbles across not one but two toilets just sitting there begging to be used, you know kind of like one of those old two seater out houses, he may decide to use them both."

That is when I got my orders to hide them in the honeysuckles.

Dixie wondering why the toilets are backwards.

Dixie wasn't fooled she found them right away...See I told you dogs love toilets.

WFW - Complete Happiness

This months Words for Wednesday prompts are being hosted by Cindi over at Letting the Words Escape, this weeks prompts are:

king, avalanche, canyon, pianist, Wyatt, marriage
and/or
supreme, packers, pie, jazz, crash, farewell

Complete Happiness

The words hit him in the face like an AVALANCHE overtaking his thoughts, this was surely a joke and not a good one at that, but the CRASH came once again "I don't want to cook tonight, I want to go to McDonald's, and I don't want to be married anymore."

WYATT still couldn't comprehend how going out to a restaurant he completely hated, and saying FAREWELL to a fifteen year MARRIAGE that he thought was good compared, but this is where he was. KING of the castle one minute and being banished to a place far far away the next.

Photo by Tegan Mierle on Unsplash

Some JAZZ PIANIST like Herbie Hancock was banging out a tune from an unknown source inside the restaurant, when with a SUPREME attitude she looked him in the eyes and said, "All I really want is everything that I have right now, just without you."

He stared at the apple PIE his youngest son was munching on, and felt a crushing pain in his chest as a tear ran down the child's face. Just who in the world plays Jazz music at Mickey Dees? And why would you deliver this kind of news in front of the children...Selfish!

Would be PACKERS tossed a few of his possessions onto the lawn, and he moved out "for the sake of the children", all because she was infatuated with a shade tree mechanic from the other side of the CANYON. She got everything that she wanted back then, she kept everything and completely erased him from the picture, with the wave of her hand.

Twenty-five years later Wyatt is happily married to his best friend and has a really good life. The woman he is with now is the one he should have married in the first place; with his current marriage he wouldn't change a thing. I suppose that unbearable pain is necessary at times, if only to make you really appreciate complete happiness.

At this point in my life, I am completely happy.

Random acts of kindness...

I originally wrote this one back in August of 2010, I ran across it today and wanted to share it with you because I believe that most of you haven't read it, and for those of you who did see it before, I hope you don't mind a repeat.

Random Acts Of Kindness

All of a sudden he found out that the family would be moving at the end of the school year, just coming to the end of his first year in high school, you know how it was you were still the new kid on the block so to say and being a bit shy your friends were few and far between, hell moving to North Carolina was going to be a big shock and most people would never even know he was gone anyway, but Tempie and Rob would be the two that would.

Grade ten started in a strange new world, all the normal classes with French thrown in being taught by a young black lady named Miss Jackson who drove a Rivi aka Buick Riviera and had a strange interest in one of the young men in class who needless to say did very well, she was really hard on the rest of the class and what I learned from this lady was very little other than just enough to pass the class.

Jean Cathcart was one of my classmates who was always nice and very helpful to me, one of the reasons I remember her so well was because this teacher was so hard on her all the time, and burned into my memory is the look of fear on Jeans face when she was called in front of the class one day and asked to write the French word for foot on the chalk board, I could see the panic on her face as she hesitated the chalk broke once while she scratched for a word, I wanted to scream out the correct word “pied” as Jean wrote the word “foots” instead, she was so humiliated by this teacher for getting the word wrong and sad to say this is what I remember most about this class.

At home in the rural area outside the town of Alexis was a trailer park cut into a wooded area, the step dad had bought a trailer and moved it into this makeshift park, the ground needless to say was not level and the front door was a long way up, rather than build a nice porch there were a bunch of power poles brought in and dirt was dumped into the middle and leveled bringing the ground up to the door, this made the front nice but the back door was another issue and it was rarely used due to having to risk your life if you attempted to walk the steep and loose trailer house steps that were slid up underneath the door.

Here in the backwoods I learned that squirrel was the other white meat and a lot of weeks it was the only meat, coon hunting was no more than a night out chasing the sound of the barking hounds and spending time with some new friends from school, Randy and Lewis were their names and being that they were both seniors and the fact they lived pretty close making me the last passenger on Lewis’s school bus drive home, heck Lewis even taught me to drive one of the buses until he lost his bus driving privileges then Randy was the bus driver for the rest of the year. Coon hunting and Red Man Chew were a big part of my time with these friends.

One of the best friends I made was an older man named Tom, he was the man who owned the trailer park, when I needed money Tom would give me odd jobs cutting grass, digging out stumps or breaking rocks with a sledge hammer, when Tom had no work to be done he would make up stuff and take me for a ride through the country to help out his friends with odd projects, getting rid of a turtle invasion for one of Toms friends taught me that squirrel was not the only other white meat but turtle was too.

Tom taught me to drive the old blue pickup truck he owned and hand painted when the paint dulled, he taught me how to conserve gas by throwing that truck up into neutral and shutting off the engine while coasting down the mountains for miles and miles, when we finally got to the bottom it was as simple as putting it back into gear, releasing the clutch and we were back in business. Tom introduced me to a series of books written by Louis L’Amour called the Sacketts when I fell ill and was soon diagnosed with Type One Diabetes and he told me everything he knew about the condition and gave me a set of glass syringes and needles that belonged to someone in his family, Tom was a good man and a great teacher of many things including watch making, woodworking, hunting, fishing, reading, and general manners when it came to respecting your elders, women, and yourself.

The year in North Carolina that seemed like many finally ended with the family moving back home to South Carolina, my high school years ended right back in the same high school I began my ninth grade year in, Tempie and Rob were still there and never forgot me, heck I still communicate with them and several others I am starting to get back in touch with now.

Life moves on no matter where you are and you grow up in spite of the challenges and hardships you are faced with, people grow old and pass on Tom left us nearly fifteen years ago and his wife about seven years prior to him, but the lessons I learned from this man who was only in my life for a year will last a lifetime.

It’s funny how big a part you can be in someone’s life, so next time you feel the need to give a kid a job breaking rocks or pulling weeds because you think they may need a little cash, or next time you feel sorry for a sick kid and hand them a book to read thinking they just might like it, and reading it may take their mind off of what they are going through, next time you can’t come up with anything for that wayward kid to do but take him for a ride anyway just to do it, remember that one day because of your random acts of kindness this kid just may look back and Thank you from the bottom of his heart, whether you can hear it or not.

Just let it go

Yesterday we went to Sam's Club to get gas in Cindy's SUV, and to pick up a few items. The longer we were there the heavier the shopping cart became, it appeared that we must have been out of everything at home. I am pushing a completely overloaded shopping cart, while Cindy is still adding things onto the top, Cindy's Dad Ray is leading the way on one of the stores electric scooters with the basket getting pretty full on it also.

The last item was added and we were turning around to head for the registers, no one was behind me so I turned the cart around to follow Cindy, this put Ray behind me, and right in the middle of his u-turn on the electric scooter it evidently shut off.

"Hey Jimmy! Can you look at this!" Ray said to me, so I left the shopping cart and went back to help Ray who was sitting on a dead scooter perfectly blocking the whole aisle, I was getting ready to push when after flipping the switch off and on a few times the scooter came back to life.

I turned around and there is a man holding onto his cart with one hand while dragging my cart from one side of the aisle to the other with his other hand, rather than question why he didn't just go around the cart, I trotted up to him and took the cart. "I'm sorry, let me get that" I said to him. "Yes you are!, You inconsiderate Son of a Bitch!" he said as he walked past me.

I know, I know, in one ear and out the other, like water off a ducks back, just ignore him...but I literally felt like I had been hit in the face with a 2 x 4, I felt like all of a sudden my head was in a barrel, everything around me was echoing, I called for him to wait up a minute, and in the background I could hear Cindy's voice. "Don't do it Jimmy!, Jimmy just let it go!" I'm still standing with my hands on the handle of the shopping cart and Ray goes past me. "What did he say?" Ray asked. "He said that I was sorry and called me an inconsiderate SOB"

Me repeating it only hurt my feelings more, I was a lot more than ticked off, I was pissed...I wasn't even quick enough to come up with a good reply when he cursed me.

I am normally a pretty quiet person anyways, and I am not used to being cursed at like this, especially for no reason, so to have my wife telling me to settle down while I felt like the whole store was staring at me, only made me more angry.

Then the guy gets into line right next to us, Cindy sees him and looks me right in the eyes and says "You just need to keep your mouth shut, don't say anything!", I have a few things I'd like to say" I told her, and he turned his cart around and got out of line.

As we were leaving I spotted him in line a little further up, "Don't do it Jimmy!, don't say anything, quit looking at him Jimmy!" I turned loose of the cart and walked right towards him, he saw me coming and looked like he was ready for a fight. When I got into hearing distance I said to him "I hope that  you have a wonderful afternoon Sir!" I gave him a half hearted salute (yes with all of my fingers, not just one) and waited for him to reply. He just stood there with his mouth open like he was dumbfounded. I turned and walked back to our cart, and that was that...

No this was only the beginning. My act of aggression was uncalled for Cindy told me, Aggression? All I did was tell him to have a wonderful afternoon after the man had called me sorry and then cursed me, yes but you should have let it go.

Why do I feel like this is all my fault? Why did my good day go to bad? I'm not a fighter, I don't cause problems in public, and I don't curse people I see in the stores, but this man cursing me like this really got to me, and I suppose even though I hadn't done or said anything at the time Cindy could see what I was thinking on my face.

After a good nights sleep I will feel all better...Right? This morning I want you to know that even though I am not any more mad at my wife than I was yesterday, I was never mad at her, but I am still pissed about what that man had the nerve to say to me.

Showing your A$$ in public

Clothes usually last me a long time, I'm not sure if it is because I am easy on them or if it just takes a lot for me to throw them away, Cindy will argue that it is most likely the latter because I have a hard time throwing anything out.

I wear jeans until they actually fall apart, I have worn jeans so threadbare that you could almost see through them, and I never threw them out, although they did suddenly vanish about the same time new jeans appeared in my closet. I like to think that they finally fell apart into a pile of denim dust on the floor of my closet, but I have a feeling that Miss Cindy had more of a hand in their disappearance than just running the vacuum across the closet floor to pick up the mysterious pile of light blue dust.

Most of my jeans are getting pretty thin now, even though I do have a few new pairs that I am still "breaking in" and I also have two that still look pretty good even though they are about 10 years old, so needless to say these two old pairs have been my go-to jeans.

A few weeks ago I knelt down to help a friend who was trying to tie a tarp around his travel trailer. Never try to do anything with a tarp while the winds are howling, but he was certain that it could be done, and I was certain that I knew what that ripping sound was I heard as I grabbed for the tarp while it was whipping in the wind, the sudden breeze blowing between my legs told me that it wasn't the tarp ripping.

How in the world can you rip out the crotch of your pants simply by reaching for something while down on one knee? I guess the wind was blowing harder than I thought.

I changed pants and folded the ripped ones up and sat them on top of the hamper. Where they sat until my next incident.

About a week later Cindy's dad and I decided that we needed to go down to Harbor Freight tools, on this day I was wearing the only pair of go-to jeans that I had left, being as the other pair was still out of commission lying on top of the hamper awaiting repairs.

The trip to Harbor Freight was uneventful, I bought a few things that I just couldn't live without, Ray ran all over the store on his scooter adding items that he thought we may need to the basket on his scooter, and Cindy went through the coupons and got herself whatever freebie they were giving away on that day. We actually had a good time.

Later on that evening while I was lifting our little dog Dixie up onto the couch I heard a slight ripping sound coming from behind...

Dixie looked at me like she was saying "Don't blame that noise on me, I didn't fart!" and that ripping sound wasn't coming from me either. The rip was in the rear end of the only go-to pair of pants that I had left.

I went to Cindy and turned my backside to her and pointed at my butt. "Look at this will ya" I said. "Yes Jimmy I see that, that is your butt", "No my pants Cindy, look at my pants", "Yes Jimmy, those are your pants.", I told her "I think that I ripped them when I picked up Dixie," she laughed and said "I noticed that they were ripped earlier today..."

"What, when, where? What do you mean they were ripped earlier today?"

She had the nerve to laugh and inform me that my pants were ripped the whole time we were shopping at Harbor Freight. "Why didn't you tell me that my pants were ripped?" I asked. "I thought that since you were wearing them that you already knew." She said and then added "I figured that if you wanted to show your ass in public, it was OK with me."

Now I have two pairs of jeans lying on top of the hamper awaiting repairs, and a wife with hands on her hips telling me that she will not be repairing those old jeans, I told her that I would do it myself, but was adamantly informed that it was time to "let them go to blue jean heaven, they can't be saved, we could try but you would just be prolonging the inevitable." She actually forced me to throw them out myself.

I did have a back up go-to go-to pair of jeans that I haven't worn in quite a while. The only problem is they have suddenly shrunk, they are too small around the waist, my go-to jeans are no longer lying on top of the hamper and all of the others are in the hamper. I now have some serious decisions to make. First off is do I do the laundry in my underwear? Or should I dig a dirty pair of jeans from out of the hamper? I could wear the jeans that are too small around the waist because they fit everywhere else, or I could even go to the trash can and retrieve my ripped jeans.

An idea came to me suddenly, like a light bulb above my head, and it didn't involve the laundry.

You know those elastic ponytail holder/ hair tie thingies you ladies use, well Cindy had a small one lying on the counter, I looked at it for just a minute and then claimed it as my own, this little hair tie now has a new purpose.

With the combination of my Southern Engineering skills, a black hair tie, and an untucked t-shirt, my back up go-to pants now fit just fine.