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Flashback Friday #213

Lying To Dad



Welcome to all my faithful readers and the poor misguided souls that happen to stumble upon my drivel.

As I have said in many posts past, my "Dark Years" were some of the worst years of my life. I had sunken so far that I even tried to get away with lying to my dad. What was even worse was that I almost got away with it.

I had told you earlier that I would tell you more about Miss Hubbabubba. She was the new choir teacher, and she was most disagreeable. It truly was "Her way or the highway". I wasn't in choir, but i had the misfortune of being in a study hall with her as the warden, er, overseer, er, person in charge. In study halls, they encourage you to study. In her study hall you were to sit absolutely quiet. Read, study or sleep, whatever, as long as you were silent. This study hall was in the cafeteria, next to the library. There was more noise in the library, and that was no exaggeration.

We were given some math homework a few classes earlier and I decided to work on it during this time. However, there was a problem. I didn't remember the page numbers that were assigned. Bart was also in this study hall with me, but since we were all sitting alphabetically, he was across the aisle and up a table. We both sat on the end seats facing the center aisle. I tried to write big on my notebook to ask him the assignment. He couldn't read my message, so I raised my hand to ask if I could ask Bart what the assignment was. You would have thought I had ask if I could fill her car up with cow patties. She twisted her face and bleated that nobody was to talk.

Well, I came up with another way to communicate. I took the large message that I had written, crumpled it up, and rolled it across the floor to where Bart was sitting. She bellowed "I saw it fly! Head to the office Mr. Nottaguy!" First of all, it rolled, therefore it didn't fly. secondly, I thought we were supposed to do homework in study halls, what gives?

I went down to the office where I sat in the company of five others that had offended her in some way. At the end of class, she came down and gave us all detention slips. I don't know how your detentions worked, but ours meant that you had to stay after school for an hour. Hello, I ride the bus and live several miles away. How am I supposed to get home? That wasn't her concern. I shouldn't have been throwing paper wads in her class. Trying to reason with her was like trying to pick oranges off a walnut tree. It was fruitless.BTW- I got the assignment from Bart in the following class, so I had something to work on during detention.

After the end-of-school bell rang, I dutifully marched down to the detention room where I once again met the five others facing the same punishment as me. I had an hour to come up with a way to get home. The I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea. i was in so many clubs & groups that met after school, I could tell my folks that I had forgotten to tell them about one and they would come and pick me up. That's exactly what I did.

Dad picked up the phone when I called. I told him that I had forgotten about this meeting and needed a ride home. He said he'd head right out to get me. When he picked me up, he asked about the meeting. I gave him details from a media club meeting earlier in the year. I got home, did my chores, and figured that I had gotten off scot free. Seeing that this was during my "Dark Years", I didn't feel bad about it. The end justified the means.

That weekend, One of Aunt Shelly's kids, Skeeter, was spending the weekend with us. In Mom's hearing, he asked how I got home from detention. Mom wasn't pleased at all that I had gotten detention and then lied about it. i got quite the lecture from her. She gave me an ultimatum, "Either you tell your dad what you did, or I will." I confessed to him what I had done. He simply said "You disappointed me." and walked away. I think I would have rather had a beating.

Tales From Black Friday & Beyond

Those of you who know me well know that I was born with a birth defect. I am a guy that likes to shop. That's one of the reasons that I look forward to Black Friday. However, I got a jump on things this year. I went out on Gray Thursday.

While my wife was showering, I made a run over to a local general store and snagged some great deals. After we had our Thanksgiving, and were heading home, I dropped my wife off at the house and went out to K store for some items that I saw in the paper, Barbie dolls. Not just any Barbies, but Disney princess Barbies (The Girl is really into princesses right now and if I can get them at $3.99, I'm going to do it.)

When I get to the back of the store, the display that held the Barbies was empty. Nuts, I should have left earlier. I figured I'd take a look at the other Barbie princess dolls (the deluxe ones that weren't on sale) and see if there was anything in my price range. While searching the regular Barbie aisle, I spotted  what looked like one of the dolls I saw in the ad paper. I picked it up and continued searching. On another shelf, I spotted another one. After making sure there were no more, I went to the price scanner to verify that these were the dolls that were on sale. BOOP $3.99 YEEEESSS!!

After getting the dolls, I got a couple other items and headed up front to check out. I think every person in central Ohio was waiting in line. I decided to head over to electronics and check out there. Big mistake. i couldn't even get up the aisle that led to electronics. So back to the front I go. When I get there, I'm behind a wife & husband that's undecided about their purchases. She sends him back to toys to get a different doll. he sends her to get a sweater. Once he told her that he was heading to electronics to check out the DVDs. I told him that he needed to stop at hardware first to get a crowbar so he could get in to electronics.

I stood in that line for a long time with little movement while watching the next line over move at a fairly brisk pace. I told myself, "Stay where you are." Watching that line move got the best of me. I moved to the other lane. Everyone knows when you move to the other lane, it will slow down and the line you were in will move faster. That's exactly what happened. I think the guy at the head of the line I was in was buying explosives or guns and was undergoing a background check. After waiting an hour to check out, I was on my way back home. It was 11:30 PM.

The alarm went off at 5AM to do more shopping on Friday. The Ogre stopped by, dropped off the kids and away we went. The first store we hit I was hoping to score an $8 crock pot but wound up holding The ogres purchases instead because there were 2 crock pots in the store.After hitting a couple of smaller stores, we ventured back to K store. The great crowds had dispersed and we were in & out in 10 minutes with the items we were seeking.

The Ogre needed some toys for gifts so we hit a BOGO toy sale then went out for breakfast.Since the buffet closed, we went to a different restaurant (we have gone to the buffet for many years). At breakfast, everyone that ordered an entree got a free $5 gift certificate. Cool.

After breakfast, we downloaded my stuff from the car to the house and set off for Columbus.The Ogre wanted to stop at JoMungus fabric store. Once we got there, I went to get a number for the cutting table. A lady that didn't want to wait offered me hers. it was 43. I looked up at the sign and it said "Now serving 54". Did I miss something? No. We had to go all the way to 99 and start over to get to 43. The ogre said to ask for a number from the employee handing them out, so I did and got a 50. We kept the 43 and gave the 50 to a lady who came in after we did. I wandered around, picked up a gift and went back over to wait with my daughter. We waited for two hours, but she got over $100 of material for $30.

After stops for lunch & the mall (which wasn't as crowded as we anticipated) we headed home. By the time we got home, we had been out for 12 hours.

Flashback Friday #212

The Text Book


Greetings all. Yeah, I know. I'm late. Real late. This has been a crazy weekend. Nevertheless, the post needs to be written, so here it is.

In 10th grade, I had a history class. It was a normal history class, except there was one exception. This was the final year that the particular history text book was being used. Next year, new books would be purchased. Our teacher told us that as long as we turned in the cover, we could do anything we wanted to do with the book.

This created a world of possibilities for someone with an imagination. Paper airplanes would be one thing I could do with it. Toilet paper? Nah. Then Bart & I came up with the greatest challenge. We would caption each & every picture in the book and compare them to each other to see who had the funniest caption.

I know this happened during my "Dark Years" because some of the words used in the captions wouldn't make it in a "G" rated film. "PG or PG-13" perhaps, but never "G". There were also a lot of captions that wouldn't be considered "Politically Correct".

Well, by the end of the year, every picture had been captioned (some twice) and in the head-to-head competition, I had more winning captions than Bart did. We turned the text books in, captions & all. There were a couple of guys that did just as the teacher asked. They brought him the cover, and nothing else.

Flashback Friday #211

Models


Hello. Welcome back (unless you're here for the first time, then technically you're not back, but here for the first time). Today, I'm discussing what I did in my spare time. When I was in High School, there was no Internet (was that an audible gasp I just heard from the younger members of the audience?). When I had some extra cash, and it was in between baseball & football seasons, I spent it on models. Not the type that walk down a catwalk at a fashion show, the plastic kind (come to think of it, some of the models that walk down the catwalk have quite a bit of plastic in them too).

My brother, Sir Gattabout, got me started. I remember that we were at a store and he saw a model that he wanted. Mom said she'd get it for him. Well, if he was going to get something, I wanted in on the action. He bought a Pinto, since we had one in real life. I got a Gremlin (what was it with us liking cars that were bad?) Mom said he had to share his supplies until I got enough money to buy some of my own (HA!). Grumble, grumble, oh all right.

He painted his chassis yellow and the hood & hatch black. He also had a black strip along the side. I  painted mine red with a white strip running from the rear roof to the front wheel well. I thought it looked like the car on "Starsky & Hutch". When Gattabout moved out, he was working on a semi from the show "Moving On". I finished it plus about three or four dozen more.He left all his supplies, which I gleefully added to mine.

I displayed them on a shelf on my desk that once belonged to a kitchen hutch that was downstairs. It was supposed to hold plates. Our plates went into the cupboard, and I got the shelf.

I not only has car models. I had trucks, vans, tanks, airplanes and was working on a large ship untilsomeone lost or took several key pieces from it. As soon as I finished one, I'd want to start another. I know it wasn't because I was getting off on the glue fumes. At that time, they had such a difficult time with kids sniffing the glue, they made it kid friendly. It was lemon scented and had no harmful side effects.

The models found a different home after I was grown. Our house had become a glorified storage unit after the house trailer was moved onto our lot (more about that in the future). My brother was showing his son around when he spotted the models. "Cool. Who did all those?" the youngster asked. "I did", said my brother. "Can I have them?", his son asked. "Sure. Lets see if your grandma has some boxes or bags to put them in. "Mom, do you have any boxes or bags we can put my models in to take home?", my brother asked. "Your models? You didn't put those together, your brother did. Those are his.", she told him. I got a call asking if his son could have them. I let him.

Do you think he spends a lot of time in the restroom?

This sign was posted in the restroom at work. The small print says "If needed, text me". LOL

Flashback Friday #210

The Walls of MY Room



Hello. It's good to see you again. In my last post, I was describing my room. It this post, I'll describe what was on the walls of my room.

Seeing that I was a teenage boy with raging hormones, there were all the posters you would expect to see in that time period.What teenage boy didn't have the Farrah Fawcett  poster on his wall? Millions of them were sold. I got mine at the county fair by throwing darts. I got most of my large posters that way. I also had posters of Cheryl Tiegs, Bo Derek, and Linda Carter.

I also had several non-swimsuit posters on my wall. Sir Gattabout left several posters hanging, and I didn't bother to take them down. Among these was an Elton John poster depicting "Captain Fantastic & The Brown Dirt Cowboy" from the album of the same title. There were also several black light posters. He also left his black light, so those were really neat. Since this was my "Dark Years" I had snuck a couple of posters in the house that were drug related. Since my folks rarely came up to my room, and when they did, didn't pay attention to the decorations, I felt safe. One said "Roll Your Own" depicting a guy rolling another guy in a tire(Yeah, right). The other had the Jolly Green Giant puffing a doobie. The elves that worked in his vally were rolling joints for him and the caption said "I Get High With A Little Help From My Friends".

Gattabout had also had sketched out the British flag on the sloping ceiling. He was big into British music for awhile. He intended to paint it. It never happened. I didn't bother painting it either, I just left it there.

In addition to the big posters, there were several smaller pictures. There was a "TV Guide" type magazine that we got every week that had good pictures on the cover. When it was ready to go in the trash, I would cut out the picture and hang it on the wall. I had about 20 or so of these. I also had several pictures that were lifted out of magazines. I also had an Artex (fabric paint in a tube) picture of a fluorescent pink caveman holding a flower that said "I Wuv Yu". There was also a framed picture of the Batmobile that I had gotten many moons before at a car show.

I had mentioned the black light, but there was also another interesting light. I had my grandfather's shop clock hanging on the wall. This clock also had a fluorescent light. The timer in the light needed replaced, making the light to flicker incessantly when on. Turn the black light on, then turn the shop light on and sit back and enjoy the mind-blowing light show.

I wish I still had that shop light. Not only because it belonged to grandpa, but it would be really useful in my basement. And yes, I would replace the timer. I'm not into mind-blowing anymore thankyouverymuch.

You Might Want to Think About What You Put on Facebook

I saw this today, and thought it was hilarious. Those of you who have a Facebook profile know the following is true.

Thank you cracked.com for the laugh.

I Had A Horrible Nightmare Last Night.

Last night I had a nightmare in which President Obama won re-election and we had to endure another four years of his presidency. You mean it really happened? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Flashback Friday #209

My Room


Greetings. Yes, I know I'm late. Sorry about that, I'll try to do better in the future.

I have spoken many times about things that happened in my room, but I've never given you a description of the decor (or lack thereof) I intend to rectify that with this post.

As you walk up the stairs, you come to a small landing. There you see the openings to two rooms. The room on the left (which had no door) lead to my old room. This is the room I shared with the pool table, and slept on a hide-a-bed couch. When my brother, Sir Gattabout left for the military, I abandoned this room and commandeered his.

His room (which I will refer to as "My room" for the rest of this post) had a door.This meant there was a small amount of privacy. Although it had a door, it had no door knob. There was a hole cut into the door for one, but no knob. If you wanted total privacy, you had to stuff a sock into the hole, and put something in front of the door.

As you walk through the door, you notice that there is a gray, Berber carpet on the floor. There was no padding under the carpet. You'll also notice that there was a strange cut-out near the door. This came from the previous room the carpet was in. Dad knew someone who was putting down new carpet, so he brought the old carpet home. Even though it was second-hand carpeting, it was much nicer (and warmer) than the linoleum in the other room.

As you look into my room, to the left sat my desk.On top of it was the shelf from the kitchen hutch. This held the many models that I had put together. The right top drawer contained all the supplies needed to model building (paints, brushes, glue, exacto knives, etc.). The other drawers contained a hodgepodge of this, that & the other.

Clockwise from there was a six-foot coffee table that held my stereo. My records & tapes were stored in the doors on each end. I kept a couple boxes of books & magazines under it.

Next you come to my bed. This was the greatest bed that I had ever had in my life. Sir Gattabout had slept on a roll-away bed. Not me. I rolled his bed away when mom & dad got a new mattress & box springs and I got their old ones. I didn't have a bedstead to put them on, so they rested on the floor in the corner. The head was at the corner of the room where the ceiling sloped down. I had slept on at least a dozen different beds up until then. None of them as comfortable as this one.

In addition to the mattress & box springs, I also got their old pillows. I added them to the other pillows I slept with. There were about a dozen or so pillows on my bed, and I used all of them.

Near there area of the foot of the bed was my window. This was the window that Gattabout climbed through while home on leave and nearly scared the life out of me. This was also the window that he would sit in front of on the roof and pelt me with walnuts. This window never had a lock on it until the Crook boys moved in. After that, we put a lock on it and it stayed locked whenever we weren't home.

Around the corner from the window was my closet. It was a walk-in closet that took up the majority of the wall on that side. Since I didn't have a dresser, everything had to be hung up, or piled up on the floor of the closet. Mom didn't venture up very often, so I could get away with that. As long as she got her basket back, she was happy.

Between the closet and the entry door was and end table that my TV sat on. I could lay in bed, prop myself up with the pillows and watch TV in comfort. I was even allowed to take snacks upstairs as long as I saw to it that the trash was thrown away, which it was (at least monthly).

My next post will go into depth about the decorations on the wall.