Padiddle!

I must live under a rock. I have no idea what the hell is going on most days. And then I get laughed at for being such a dingbat. I mean, I’m fifty-five. Is that old? I don’t feel old. Well, I do moan when I bend over to pick things up. Ok, I’m old.

But, I always thought that I was with the times. My mother-in-law used the word “dungarees” for jeans until the day she died. My mom favored, “pocketbook.” I don’t think she ever used the word, “purse.”  I thought I understood contemporary slang. Nope. Not at all.

It all started with me overhearing one of my kid’s friends saying something about watching MTV Cribs.

MTV Cribs (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I think this was like when it first came out circa 2000. Well, hell, I thought they were talking about singers who had children. Seriously. I really did.

“I didn’t know that Moby had children?” I thought I was really with it because I knew who Moby was. I got laughed at. Then it was explained to me that cribs=homes.

“That’s stupid.”

“You’re stupid.” My daughter laughed at me. Well, I guess I was. It didn’t get any better. I sure as hell had no idea that “hooking up” meant having sex with someone. How casual people are speaking nowadays. I heard this on tv one night:

“So, did you guys hook up last night?”  Back in MY day that would have meant “So, did you guys meet somewhere last night and then go to the movies or something?” And yet, my daughter is the one who scoffs at me because I still use the phrase,  “Are they going together?” Well, hell, back in the 70′s that meant going steady. What the hell is wrong with that?

So, now I am getting really made fun of at the school where I teach because I didn’t understand “That’s what he said.” WTF are you talking about? Evidently, I often say things that my perverted co-workers laugh at and then insert that comment. I didn’t know why. And that made them laugh harder. I mean, why say that after I talk about the snow fall from the night before. “I only got an inch or two last night.”……that’s what she said.   It took me a while.

My biggest misunderstanding came from the History Channel show, American Pickers. Just a few months ago, after talking about heading out to go antiquing, someone asked me if I ever watched American Pickers.  I thought that was a pretty random comment, considering we were talking about antiques.

“No, to be honest, I am not a real big fan of Country music.”

Yeah, so they laughed. Hell, I didn’t know it was about guys hunting around barns and whatnot for antiques and collectibles. I thought it was about people playing fiddles and banjos. Seriously.

So, it was no surprise that I didn’t understand my two friends when we were leaving dinner last night and they were laughing and making motions with their arms like a “raise the roof” motion. I drove up to them and rolled down the window.

“Padiddle!” They both yelled and then laughed. “You’re headlight is out, Vickie.” Of course, it doesn’t pay hanging out with girls in their late twenties when I am in my mid-fifties. I realized I have no idea what the hell is going on. So, I just laughed.

So, when they read this blog post, they will laugh again because I am just so clueless about Padiddle. I had to look it up on Wikipedia:

“Padiddle is a night-time travel game with the objective of earning points by spotting vehicles with a burnt-out headlight.  You must say “Padiddle” and hit the ceiling of the car as fast as you can, while driving.”

So, Sheena and Erin were laughing because it is a game that is supposed to be played in the car while traveling. I thought they were laughing at me because I just bought this car and it already had its headlight burned out. I guess that makes me feel better…….. No, don’t feel better. I’m still a dingbat.

I don’t remember my kids ever playing “Padiddle.” I sure as hell didn’t teach them. And if they played it and I don’t remember them playing the car game, then I have bigger problems than not knowing what things mean.

I am too old for this shit. Why can’t we just keep playing  Slug Bug?

Wipe Out

When I began teaching full time, I was 51 years old. I previously stayed at home with my two children and as they began high school started as a substitute teacher.  I was excited to get the fourth grade job. But, what kind of teacher was I going to be? Well, I just had to be myself. And so my new kids had to get used to my rules. I only had several.

1. “Do not rock on your chair. You don’t want to end up like Mark Harper. (made up name.) He fell and hit his head and to this day has no idea what is name is. So, if you want to end up like Markie, rock on your chair.”

2. “Don’t even think about making fun of anyone. I got made fun of for being skinny. Sure, I would welcome it now, but getting called chicken legs is not funny.”

3. “This is the most important rule. You guys need to learn to laugh at yourself. If you fall, people will laugh, so you might as well laugh rght along with them. Don’t get mad. Don’t get embarrassed. Laugh.”

So, then I tell them the story of my embarrassment in college….

I was a freshman in college and had a crush on a guy I will call Robert P.  It was winter and the goofy campus employees hadn’t shoveled the sidewalks yet. It was snowing pretty hard and I was wanting to walk down the sidewalk to the student center, The Nickel, but the sidewalks were all covered with snow. It was pretty icy.

Ahhh, I spotted Robert P. coming out of the student center with some other football players. If I hurried I could run right into him. So, I decided to walk on the road that ran down beside the student center since the sidewalk was a mess. I thought I looked pretty. Well, until I wiped out. But, I didn’t just wipe out. No, that would be too easy. I tried to baby-step it down the hill. I was wearing the wrong kind of shoes for snow tromping. I don’t think I ever had a pair of boots while attending college. Well, do earth shoes count? Plus, there was the fact that we all wore wide legged jeans that dragged on the ground. It was the seventies, and we were into our bell bottoms.

I fell on my knees. Nothing bad about that, except for the pain, but it didn’t end like that. Not only did I fall, but I kept going…on my kneees. The roads were pretty icy, so I slid by the football players, on my knees, still holding my books in my left arm, and my purse on my right shoulders. So, I said, “Hi” to them as I slid right by them. While I was looking at him, wishing I would just die, I slid right into the back of a stupid truck that was unloading something at the book store  that was in the same building as the student center.

Oh, no, I’m not done. After my books I was carrying hit the bumper, I bounced backwards and somehow stopped, but my books kept going under the truck and right into the path of a car coming up the hill. The car was able to straddle the books and pass by them.

All I could hear was laughing. It was deafening. There were only about 5 guys outside, but it might as well been 100. I wanted to cry, but somehow managed to stand up on my poor deformed knees, turn around to them, and said, “I meant to do that.” And smiled. A couple of them clapped. I then curtsied. And damn if I didn’t slip and fall when I took my right foot back, curtsy-style. Then they really laughed. And I just had too also.

So, I tell my class that story every year. But, the whole point is to let the kids know that if you fall, people will laugh.  And that the teacher will most likely laugh the hardest.

And then she will trip and fall on her way back to the desk.

We didn’t get anything done that day.

My Lazy Boy Couch Tried to Kill Me

My cat, Whiskers, has led a charmed life. We rescued her from the animal shelter and put her under the Christmas tree as a present for my daughter 16 years ago. She was a 100% house cat. She did have a love of eating grass, which she promptly yakked back up, but for the most part, she never left the house.

After we built our house in the country, we had some field mice find a way into our home.  We knew they came from underneath the stove, but couldn’t find a hole anywhere. Whiskers would jump up on the island and sit and watch the parade of mice in and out of the house while we slept. I saw her one night when I came down for some Advil. We found a nest up on our mantle, behind the antique gingerbread clock. We found another nest in our older couch in the Hearth Room. That damn cat would just sit and watch the mice, with her paws crossed. Hell, she was fed, she didn’t need to eat scurrying little varmints.

Well, one day, Whiskers  somehow put her head through a Walmart plastic bag. The bag was dragging underneath her and she must have been scared, because she freaked out. She started running. She ran and she was stepping on the bag and it must have felt like it was strangling her. She was meowing everytime she came running by us. You can go from kitchen to Hearth Room to foyer to family room to the kitchen again. It was all open. One big circle. Well, she was running faster, and one time came by us and knocked over my floor lamp.

Alex was laughing but Whiskers sounded like she was in pain and was very frightened. We tried to catch her but then she ran behind the couch and stayed against the wall, crying. I tried to reach her, but couldn’t. We had a LazyBoy wall hugger that went right up against the wall. The couch was too heavy to move even an inch, so I decided to try to reach for her from the edge of the couch. I was able to get the bag off of her head. Shit. She peed in the bag. And probably all over the place while she was running. Cat urine house. Just great.

Well, my Lazy Boy has 2 sections that recline. It’s a wall hugger, so you can recline without it bumping into the wall. While I was sitting by the edge of the couch, reaching with my right hand as far as I could to the cat, the button somehow was pushed, and the recliner reclined….on my head. My head was thrown against the wall. I was in a couch vise.

Death by Lazy Boy.

A great couch to lie my weary head.

My head was quickly and painfully pinned against the wall. I screamed, “Alex, help me!” Get the couch off of me!”

Well, I couldn’t see her, because my head was facing Whiskers, behind the couch, but I could hear the little shit. She was laughing at me.

“Alex….Get… the… couch….off…of….me. My head is stuck!”  Alex started cackling. I know how my daughter laughs. She moves around, holding her stomach and it turns into a belly shaking, silent laugh. I don’t think she understood how badly my head was hurting.

“Alex, my head is in a vise. It is squeezing my head.”  No help from Alex. She was too busy laughing at me.

But, Whiskers decided to walk along behind the couch and came right up by me. Urine head. Her stomach was all wet with pee. Great, now she wants to be my friend.

I started crying. It felt like the couch was squeezing my head. “Alex…..please help me!!” I tried to reach for the reclining button, but couldn’t find it. It looked like my one arm was flailing, I am sure. “Alex, Please help me!!”  Well, I was going to die. It  was like in one of those movies where the hero is in a trash compactor room that slowly crushes everything and the room is getting smaller and smaller.

Star Wars perhaps? Trash compactor room

Finally, after she composed herself, Alex figured out how to get the couch off of my head. She couldn’t quit laughing, and then ran to the bathroom. I don’t know how long the whole thing lasted, but I was so mad at her afterwards. The more I yelled at her, the more she laughed at me. Damn her. She is so much like her mom.

In the end, I didn’t suffer much brain damage. My floor lamp never worked right after that. Whiskers did the same damn thing several weeks later, but this time she managed to slip under the handle of a bucket full of sidewalk chalk. That was a fun one to watch as the chalk flew out of the bucket and she ran from kitchen to Hearth Room to foyer to family room to kitchen. She looked like a bronking bull with the bucket underneath her. Poor stupid cat.

I guess it isn’t every day that your couch tries to kill you.

Wisdom Teeth Removal Removes Wisdom

My son had to have his wisdom teeth removed when he was 17 and I had no idea when I took him that I would be laughing so hard on the way out. I really would like to have an injection or ingestion of whatever he had that day.

My husband had his wisdom teeth taken out when we were dating. My God what a terrible patient he was. Mean as a pissed off snake. He called me up several hours after I had taken him home and wanted to know where I “hid” his pain pills. Seems that the goof-ball head fell asleep with the gauze in his mouth and dreamed he was eating and started biting down or chewing in his sleep. I mean, who does that?

I was a good patient when I got my wisdom teeth taken out. I asked Dr. Wrobleski if I could watch the whole thing, so he swung over the big mirror and I watched everything they did. I am sure my Adam would be just like his mom. Inquisitive.

I was sitting in the waiting room at the oral surgeon’s office, reading a magazine when I heard someone laughing from behind the front desk. I looked up and could barely make out what they were saying, but the dentist’s assistant was laughing so hard that her mascara was running and making her look like a raccoon. I was intrigued because I knew my son was back there, and since I was the only one in the waiting room, I was even more intrigued upon that realization. Oh, Dear God, what is Adam saying to them back there?

He hadn’t been back there very long, when another assistant came out in the waiting, laughing hysterically, and  told  me that Adam wanted to see me before they started to remove his wisdom teeth. Well, ok…..I mean, seriously, what the hell is going on? At least her laughing meant he didn’t keel over and die or anything.

When I went back to the room, the Dr. was sitting beside Adam, laughing hard and the two assistant raccoons must have been wearing the same mascara. When Adam saw me, he yelled out, “MOM! Come over here and give me a big, wet, kiss.”  Oh Dear God, are you kidding me? You did not just say that??  The kid was as high as a kite. 

“Hey, there’s my mom”…and he hugged me and continued..”My mom makes the best chicken…..She makes chicken….every night.”  Seems that he also proposed to one of his assistants while I was in the waiting room. “I asked her to marry me, but she said I was too young for her.”  He acted like he was pouting and then cracked up again.

The Dr. explained that they were ready to take out his teeth, but that Adam had something he wanted to tell me.

 ”Dr. Wrobleski is so cool, Mom.”  He looked at the Dr. and then asked him  to give him a high 5.  He gave Adam a high 5.  “Low five.” Gave Adam a low five. “No five.”  And with that Adam took his hand and lightly slapped Dr. Wrobleski across the face. And just burst out laughing.  Please tell me that you did not just slap the dentist across the face?

“I like you. Hey Dr. Wrobleski….I think you and I should go drink some beer together sometime. I think that would be fun. Maybe after you take out my teeth.”  He paused and then said. “I bet it would be fun to get high with you. I have never done it, but I will with you, Dr. Wrobleski.”  And then he cracked up laughing again. He then looked over at the assistant he proposed to and said, “Are you sure you don’t want to marry me?  I’m going to be rich….. Can you make chicken?”

Adam started talking about everything under the sun. Told the assistants they were too old for him. “Mom, she keeps asking me to marry her. Tell her I’m too young to get married.”  He burst out laughing again. Dr. Wrobleski finally patted him on his arm and told him that they needed to start working now. Adam replied. “People in the waiting room can wait. There’s a party going on.”  And made a little move with his arms like someone sitting in a wheelchair, making the wheels move…or a locomotive…I sure hope he didn’t dance that way.

Adam had brought his headphones and some music to listen to, and wanted to know if Dr. Wrobleski wanted to wear them. Dear God.  I couldn’t quit laughing, so I know that I wouldn’t be able to get him to quit. So I left to go back out in the waiting room.

When it was done, Adam couldn’t do much talking, so that was good. He wasn’t very good playing sherades, because we didn’t know what the hell he was trying to say. It took us about 20 minutes to get him out the door. Oh, but Adam wasn’t done, yet.

We got to the van, and I opened the door for Adam and I noticed that he had pulled one of those metal security system signs out of the yard that was right by the door and was getting into the van with it. “Adam, what are you doing? You can NOT take that sign home with you.” I started laughing again. Oh My God, this was going to be a long day. I tried to take it from him, but he got out of the car and put it in the yard right by the car. And made a gesture with his arms like “Ta Da!”…Shit..I got out of the van, and took it away from him and we walked back and put it back in the ground where it belonged. We then took off and drove home. I needed to go to Walmart for his prescription, but I didn’t want him to get arrested for shoplifting or proposing to Walmart shoppers.

Well, he was quiet in the car because he had a bunch of gauze in this mouth, thank goodness. I did have to go back to Dr. Wrobleski’s the next morning though.

Adam somehow pulled the security sign back out of the ground again and walked behind me to the van.

It was on the floor in the back seat.

MonkeyShines

Most, if not all of my adventures when I was growing up in Weirton, West Virginia, were with my best friend, Ramaine. She lived down the street from me, and we were attached at the hip.  We were in Camp Fire Girls together.  We rode the school bus together. We had a cabin in the woods together.  It seemed like we were laughing all day long.  My childhood was great because I had a best friend who was just like me. We lived outside the box, and had some very creative days.  And, boy, were we stylish… We even  bought white pants with pictures of the Monkees faces all over the pants.  We were weird, but knew how to laugh at ourselves.  We did that quite well. Sang the definition of “lima bean” into a tape recorder.  The word, “bored”, was not in our vocabulary. The only difference we had was that she was a gerbil person, and I was a hamster person.  Which lead us to the pet shop.

We used to visit the pet shop often.It was at the Weirton plaza, a little strip of stores near our homes. The guy had a lot of different animals at the pet shop.  One particular visit to the pet shop concluded in uncontrollable laughter, one that I can say  was the hardest I ever laughed in my whole life. Ramaine reminded me that we were in 8th grade when this happened. Dear God, she even remembers what she was wearing that day. Well, it was a day for the record books, that’s for sure.

The pet store was small, with a long counter with rows of animals in their little cages beneath it. The place was jammed with critters. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the snakes, though. There was even a mynah bird that cussed like you wouldn’t believe. It always amused me. But, on this particular day,  I was on my knees, looking at a mother hamster and newborns on the bottom row. Ramaine was standing, bent over a little, looking at something else, when all of a sudden she asked, “What’s on my head?”  I stood up, and my mouth dropped open.  I didn’t or couldn’t say a word. A spider monkey  had stepped off the top of the counter right onto her head. I really think I could have put my fist in my mouth.  ”What’s on my head?” she repeated. Well, hell, I couldn’t answer. I mean, there was a monkey on her head. Just sitting there. Ramaine reached up to feel what was on her head, and the monkey swatted her hand away. “What’s on my head?”  She was expecting her bestest friend to give her an answer. She was panicking a little, starting to pace, and I  was not answering, but standing there with a big smile on my face. Ramaine tried to bend over, and that’s when the little fellow grabbed her hair with both little hands to hang on. That’s when I first started laughing.

“What’s on my head????”  Everytime her hand went up to feel what kind of creature was sitting there, he would release one hand from grasping onto her hair and slap it away. I couldn’t speak. I was laughing so hard. It was one of those silent, belly laughs, where you shake, but no sound comes out of your mouth. Now, Ramaine was pacing faster and moving her head, and bringing up her one leg for some reason, and that monkey was hanging on for dear life and I just couldn’t tell her that there was a monkey on her head.  It reminded me of  a little monkey jockey, riding something. I was in awe.  I had never seen a live monkey.  I did look around to see if a little old man with an organ grinder was standing nearby.

“VICKiE,  GET IT OFF!!  WHAT IS IT?  GET IT OFF!”  That monkey must have liked the view, because he had no intention of leaving Ramaine’s head.  She looked like she was having a seizure. Her arms and legs were flailing all about,  and the monkey was leaning to the left and then to the right, and would only take his hand off of the death grip on the her hair to swat at Ramaine.

I had to sit down on the floor. I started laughing so hard, I peed my pants. This is a recurring theme for me. Laugh. Pee. Repeat. “It’s a monkey….”  I finally was able to speak. “I peed my pants.”  Ramaine didn’t care. She had a monkey on her head.   The owner finally came over and had to pry the little monkeys fingers from her hair. It wasn’t working too well..  Finally, a banana (I think I am making this part up) was waved in front of  the monkey’s face and he left her head and went to sit on the owner’s shoulder. I found out later that the monkey’s name was Ginger. Ginger, I wish I had my camera that day.

I’m glad Ramaine was able to laugh about the whole thing on the way home. But, it was a nervous laugh, I could tell. I was sitting on a towel my mom brought for me and had to explain why, once again, I peed my pants. “I’m going to have to make an appointment for you to see Dr. Harper. There must be something wrong with your kidneys.”  No, did you not hear me?  There was a MONKEY on her head. I mean, come on.  Urination justification.