Things that don't work around here

My left side mirror on my van doesn't work. It did until I let my little grand daughter practice driving. Out in the country with nothing around for miles but a cow fence. Yep, she hit it. Well she didn't so much hit it as just kind of drive down the side of it. Finally, I convinced her to get off of it but that's a whole nuther story. Anyway , so my left hand side mirror doesn't work. Did you know that you can't see vehicles coming up on the left side through the rearview mirror, or in the right hand mirror? You can only see things in the rear and on the right side with them. How ridiculous is that? I was gonna get it fixed until I learned that it would cost 200 dollars , then I decided to just deal with it, so I never go anywhere that I cant get to from the left lane. I discovered that if you stay in the left lane all the time , that it eliminates having to switch from the right lane to the left, thus avoiding the problem of not being able to see. I also discovered that I can go just about anywhere in our little city, in the left lane. True , sometimes I have to turn left when I don't really want to, but a couple of spins around the block usually gets me back on track.

My internet doesn't work . It did until the other night. I was sitting at the computer typing away, when all of a sudden my internet box started running across the desk. It scrambled all the way across the desk, down the side , across the floor, until it was stopped by the wall. It lay there for a minute and then tried to squeeze itself through the little hole in the wall from which the internet cable was coming out of. Well I just sat there for a minute contemplating. If you've ever been to my house, you would know that this is not very unusual, compared to some of the things that have happened here Anyway , I went to the door and cautiously looked outside in the direction of where the cable comes into the wall. I couldn't really see anything cause our outside light doesn't work . Just about that time I heard our dog, Scamp , growling at something in the yard. I went to get the flashlight, but it didn't work, so I went outside and tried to find the dog. Now this wasn't too hard ,since he's white and he was growling. He had something between his jaws , shaking it back and forth like bloody murder. I finally managed to get him off of it and peered down. I live in the country and anybody who lives in the country knows how dark it can be when your outside light doesn't work. After not seeing any movement from the thing lying on the ground I carefully picked it up and brought it up to my face until I could see that it was my internet cable. Apparently he had yanked it off the side of the house and ran out into the yard with it. When he ran out of cable and was jerked back, it must have made him mad, so he decided to kill it.

One of my drawers in the kitchen doesn't work. This may not seem important, but when you consider that I only had 4 to start with, to me that makes it pretty important. The whole front of the drawer just fell off one day. At first I propped it back up there cause it looked better you know? It has been broken for 5 years , but when the kids would come home for Christmas they would still try to open it and it would fall on their foot. So then I turned it around so that there was no handle to grab. They would pry their fingers in between the crack and STILL try to open it, so I took it off completely. It doesn't look very pretty leaning against the fridge , and the drawer is useless without it, but oh well .

My mop doesn't work anymore since I ran over it. Well that's not entirely true. It's much shorter than it was and bent to the right, but it still works if I crawl on the floor when I'm mopping, and only use my right hand. The icemaker in the fridge doesn't work, the freezer on the back porch doesn't work, and one of the commodes has gone on strike. I will soon not be working because I have figured out that I'm not making any money at it. My closet light does not work and my dryer only works 2 days a week, and then only if it isn't raining. One of the headlights on my van just stopped working, but that's ok. I'll just make sure that it's daytime whenever I go to wherever I can get to by using only the left lane.

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Mammy's Mammogram

So the other day I went to get a mammogram. I was nervous as all get out and I KNEW it was gonna be painful. I mean , the way I had it figured was that if your boobys are squeezed every now and then , they get desensitized and it won't hurt as much. Well mine had not been squeezed in so long , I knew it was gonna hurt reallyreallyreally bad.

So after it's over I'm sitting there feeling abused and stretched and sore when the girl comes back in and tells me I can put my shirt back on. So shes behind me where I can't see her and she says,"By the way , your breasts look really good". I just about choked on my own spit! Nobody had said that to me in 30 years! Well I didn't know what to say but naturally I started talking anyway. I was a little embarrassed so I suppose I might have rambled , but it went something like this: "Why thank you! I don't really work out anymore (never have ) and I've had 7 children , but I don't guess they look too bad , considering. I do try to take care of them".

I have no idea why I said that. I mean it's not like you can put them on the treadmill and let them run, you know. Anyway , you could have heard a pin drop. During this PREGNANT pause , I started thinking.(usually a mistake)............I know shes not gay and even if she is , she isn't making a pass at you so don't get scared. I mean ( I was thinking) why would she? You're fif----well you're OLDER and shes like 12 or something. Shes just being nice. Women notice other women's bodies. Its ok for a woman to give another woman a compliment. Anyway , while I was doing all this thinking , it occurred to me that I should return the compliment , so I opened my mouth and said ,'' Yours don't look bad either". I swear I did.

By this time I had my shirt on and buttoned so I finally had to turn around (against my will) and she was just standing there staring at me. Then she said ,without cracking a smile ," I meant your mammogram". What could I say ? I mean , really what would you have said? Well you know me. I felt like I had to say something , so I said , "Well yours still look pretty good".

I tell you what. I am NEVER going back there again. And WHEREVER I go for the next one , I'm taping my mouth shut.

If I could save time in a bottle..............

Maybe I'd finally know what time it is. Sure , I've got clocks and watches and vcr's and even a clock on the stove. But they all have a different time on them. So if I want to know what time it is, I have to go outside and look up at the sun , then go back inside and try to decide which clock most closely resembles the position of the sun in the sky. Or something like that. If it's summertime and the sun is still high in the sky....and I'm not starving, but only slightly hungry , I can guess that it's around 7 pm.I tell you , we love the nightly news around here because then we know for sure its 10 o'clock.Or at least we did until a few weeks ago when we heard somebody on TV say,"News at 9-an earlier time , so you can get to bed earlier".That messed us up pretty bad. Now we're never sure if we're watching news at 9 or news at 10 ,which means that we can't even tell if it's time to go to bed or not.

Now all this confusion is not because we're too lazy to set the clocks. It's just that we don't know how.Especially the one on the vcr and oven.We've never recorded anything or timed anything.The other day my daughter-in-law was here and we were cooking pizza's for the kids and I kept going in and checking on them.Finally she asked me why I didn't just set the oven timer. I looked at her like she had two heads. Speaking of kid's , when the big boys come home for Christmas I usually get them to set all the clocks and gadgets for us. It doesn't last long though , cause we have a lot of power surges around here and soon everything is blinking again. At night time it looks like the Vegas strip around here with all the blinking and flashing going on.

You may wonder how my husband manages to get up for work.Well, he always wakes up at 5 am, no matter what the clock says.This includes the days he doesn't have to go to work. So if I happen to be awake at 5 am and ask him what time it is , he can tell me. Otherwise , he's useless as a timepiece.

I've heard that everyone has an internal clock, but take my word for it when I tell you that mine is not reliable.The other day I woke up at 8 ( I thought) and jumped out of bed . Well , at my age , it was more like a stagger , than a jump , but you get the point. Anyway , the kids had a dentist appointment , so I threw a piece of toast at them and we headed out. The appointment was at 9 and my internal clock told me it was around 9ish as we pulled into the parking lot. We went in and I told the receptionist we were there, then went and sat down. I saw her whisper something to her co-worker but I thought it was cause I had on two different shoes. After about 10 minutes she approached me and timidly informed me that our appointment was at 9. I agreed with her. Then she told me that it was now 11:15. THEN she told me that the appointment was at 9 yesterday.........see what I mean about my internal clock? Not only is it A WHOLE DAY LATE but it can't even get me up at a decent hour. As I was slinking out my cell phone buzzed to let me know I had a new message. It was the dentist office calling to remind me of my appointment.............

Well I guess that's all for tonight. I'm feeling kind of tired so it must be time for bed..........(I think).

Another Hamster Story

"Mama , we want a hamster," the boys whined.

"You can't have a hamster. You won't take care of it. It'll end up being my responsibility," I answered.

"We WILL take care of it, " they insisted. "We promise."

So I gave in. I warned them if they failed to keep their promise the hamster would have to go.

Against my better judgement , I got them a hamster. EVEN THOUGH I KNEW BETTER. I vowed that it would not be like LAST TIME. Some of you may remember LAST TIME. Anyway , they named him Danny. Three months later when I found myself cleaning the cage and feeding him , with no help from the boys , I decided I should look for him a new home.

When I told the boys that Danny would be leaving, I thought they took the news very well , which surprised me. One of the boys said , "He's been around a long time. We'll miss him."

I agreed with him , but I added , "Yes I know you'll miss him a little , but he's too much work for one person. Since I'm that one person , I say he's got to go."

The other boy said, "Well maybe if he wouldn't eat so much and be so messy we could keep him."

But I had had enough. I had been DOWN THAT ROAD BEFORE. If you have kids , you know which road I'm talking about.

"It's time to take Danny to his new home now, " I insisted. "Go and get his cage."

At the mention of the cage the boys eyes flew open in surprise and they started crying and screaming, "DANNY? NOT DANNY! WE THOUGHT YOU SAID DADDY!"