Kids Can Do The Darndest Things

The following is a true story (really, I can't make this shit up):

My mother and my maternal aunt and uncle all had kids, and I am one of seven grandchildren.  Like all grandparents, ours had the unfortunate job inevitable joy of looking after us at one time or another, not all at the same time of course, while our respective parents were at work.

My uncle was quite an athlete when he was younger and would watch and involve his sons in many sports as they grew up. He has three boys, the eldest, Kevin (not his real name) being about sixteen years younger than me.  All of his kids would follow in their father’s footsteps by joining hockey and baseball teams at very young ages.  They all played extremely well, I might add.

Before his brothers were born, my grandmother would look after Kevin for a few days a week.  Kevin was about two years old during this time.  When Granny had to run errands, Kevin would be loaded into the obligatory car seat and taken along for the ride.  These trips were usually uneventful.

Usually.

Like most toddlers do when you are not watching them, Kevin would get into mischief.  So, after returning home one day from shopping, Granny left Kevin in the back seat so she could keep an eye on him while unloading the groceries that were, in those days, still packed in brown paper bags. This would take a few trips back and forth from the car. On her final trip, she was horrified to discover the entire interior of the car had been egged:  it was all over the back seat, the front seat and Kevin was covered in it.  The last and final grocery bag had contained a carton of eggs which had been placed right on top and which was located right beside Kevin in the backseat.

Apparently, Kevin got bored while waiting to be liberated from the car.

Now I'm not sure exactly what was said, but from what I understand, it went something like this:

Granny, not normally known to use expletives, yelled at him, “What in the HELL did you do?”, to which Kevin excitedly cheered, "Baseball!!"

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 Theme Thursday is having a "Ball" - check out the others!

You Haven't Left Yet??

I was totally stumped for a post for this Theme Thursday when, all of a sudden, I heard a familiar cry from across the canal.  Well, maybe more like a screech, or the sound a cat makes when you step on its tail.  You see, there is a very loud and noisy parrot that lives across the waterway.  I concede that this post isn't particularly imaginative on this week's theme, or particularly humourous for that matter, but it sort of involves the colour of blue.

At any rate, the neighbouring parrot reminded me of a day years ago when I lived out in the country.

Not far away lived some friends who trained and bred dogs and had a small kennel on their property.  One summer, they were invited to an all-day wedding affair that was quite a distance away.  Since they probably wouldn't get home until later that evening, I volunteered to look in on the dogs.

Their kennel consisted of some six or seven mastiffs - one dog was always left inside the house as a guard.  They also had a blue and gold macaw who's name was Boomer.  Boomer was very loud when he squawked and screeched and could be very annoying when he was hungry or wanting attention.  Cheryl and David (not their real names) got Boomer a few years earlier.  Macaws are very intelligent birds and can be taught to speak.  Boomer, on rare occasions, would say a word or two, but usually when no visitors were around.

I should mention here that this kennel was the ultimate alarm system:  anyone coming up the driveway would be announced by continuous barking until David came out and hollered at them to be quiet.

So, on this hot summer day, I arrived at around 3 p.m.  All the windows in the house were open to vent the heat.  The dogs, as expected, were barking like mad and it was extremely loud.  I had to shout as best as I could to be recognized as a friend.  They were having none of it.   When I started towards the kennel so they could see me,  I heard David's voice coming from the house, yelling his usual command at the canines.

David and Cheryl were supposed to leave early this morning, I thought to myself.   "David, are you still here?   No response.  "Hello?  Did you forget something?", I called as I approached the house; the dogs still barking wildly.  Just before I reached the door, David's voice again bellowed in a more succinct manner, "Shut - the - fuck - up!"  It got eerily quieter.  I'd swear on a stack of bibles that it was David's voice that I had heard, but after I searched the house and was satisfied that no one was there, it finally dawned on me that the voice could only have originated from one source:  Boomer.  From that day on, I never heard Boomer speak a single word other than gobbledigook.  I'm sure he was laughing at me.

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This is a Theme Thursday post  - check out the others!

Phardon Me?

It was the mid seventies and my second, and last year at boarding school in the U.S.  I would be returning to Canada to finish high school.  In order to graduate in Ontario, one must have at least thirty eligible credits, whereas in the States (or at least in Florida), the requirement was six or eight credits less.

Determined to get all the required courses I could get in this second year, I signed up for geometry.  Unfortunately,  this conflicted with an elective class that I also wanted to take.  Alas, a sacrifice was made.

Geometry was my first class every day.  The teacher was new to the school and unknown to any of the students.  Upon entering the classroom  for the first time, everyone noticed that all the window blinds were closed and there was subdued lighting emanating from the overhead fluorescents, making the room somewhat darker than what we were used to.  Granted, the morning sun was a bit blinding at that time of day, but the north side shades were also closed.  We were all puzzled.

More puzzling was the teacher.  He was writing on the blackboard as the class entered.  His back was toward us.  When he finished writing and after everyone had taken their seats, he turned around.  Oh my god, I thought to myself.  They've hired Dracula!  Standing at the front of the room was a tall, dark-haired man, dressed in a black robe-like garment and wearing sunglasses.

Yes, sunglasses.

None of us knew what to make of him.  He appeared very strange and ominous.  My first thought was that he wanted to intimidate the class with his appearance.  He certainly did achieve that effect.  That was until he spoke.  We were all expecting a deep, foreboding voice to accompany this somewhat daunting figure standing before us.  Instead, he sounded like my stepfather (a.k.a. Satan ) when Satan rambled nonsense to himself in a somewhat high nasal voice.  It took all I had not to bust out laughing. Some other students also chuckled.

After introducing himself , he told us that he was from the Philippines, and that the bright morning light and the chalk dust, to which he was allergic, would irritate his eyes.  Thus, the shades of both types were explained.  I assumed the black robe was to protect his clothing underneath from collecting chalk dust.

He also had a slight speech impediment wherein, for example, he would say "phlease" instead of "please".

It was my third week in geometry.  I was struggling not so much with the lessons, but with the voice of the teacher and the fact that he was becoming more phonetically challenged as the days progressed.  It was somewhat hard to ignore, but I stuck it out.

Then one fateful day in that third week, he dissected the triangle, complete with diagrams and explaining all the angles, sines, cosines and tangents.

I immediately knew that I would not be earning this math credit when he pointed to the blackboard and uttered the words, "Can anyone name this 'phart' of the triangle."

Bodies fell to the floor erupting in laughter, with me being the first.  I happily dropped geometry for drama.
  

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This Theme Thursday's prompt is:  Triangle

"L-O-L-A Lola"

I'm dying for a Caramilk bar.  It's one of the many edibles I miss living on this rock.  Oh, there are some Cadbury bars down here, but not my favourite Caramilk bar.  Sob.  "How do they get the caramel in a Caramilk Bar?"  was one of Cadbury's most successful ad campaigns.  I think they even had a contest about it.  And then there is the Crunchie bar, also produced by Cadbury. A chocolate covered sponge toffee piece of heaven that would stick to your teeth for some glorious molar licking sweet aftertaste.  Great hang time on the toffee, for sure.

"Don't eat so much candy...it'll rot your teeth."   So the saying goes.  So does methamphetamine.  Meth addicts like candy.  I guess they are doubly cursed.

But some of my favourites in the candy family were penny and Halloween candies.  Pixi Stix, Twizzlers, Shoelaces, and "Rockets".  There were also individually wrapped little hard candies, caramel cubes, tiny Tootsie Rolls, your basic suckers and the like.  The "gummies" came much later, but I enjoy those too.

Ice cream, snow cones and Popsicles are other things I consider candy.  One of my summer favourites was the "Lola":  a large triangular-shaped ice treat that I believe was introduced about the time the song of the same name was released by The Kinks.   It would take almost 2 hours to finish one of these ices and, if you were successful in sucking out all of the flavour (thereby leaving only the ice behind), you could crush the ice in its packet and cool your body off on a hot summer's day. A truly multitasking treat in my opinion.  Alas, Lolas are now relegated to smaller wedges:   it's just not quite the same.

So, if you are now craving "candy" and you really, really, REALLY don't want to screw up your diet or whatever, eat a banana, suck on a lemon or consider that your teeth may eventually look like this:

(My "Elvis".  I think he smoked coconuts, not meth)

Else, have at 'er!

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It's Theme Thursday - check it out

Holy Heatwave Batman!

I'm white hot

I can't take it anymore

I'm white hot

By the Somalian shore

I'm white hot

Yes I'm burning to the core

I need rain, I need rain, I need rain

~ Lyrics from "White Hot" by Red Rider **

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I'm so hot,

I can't take it anymore,

I'm so hot,

I won't make it to the shore

I'm so hot,

My mind has melted to its core,

I'm insane, I'm insane, I'm insane

~ Odd Thoughts by 00dozo

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Really.  I got nuthin'.

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It's Theme Thursday - check it out!

** There was no video of the song, but this is the original (and best) version.

Turdpulls

Today is Theme Thursday - Pets.

I wasn't going to participate this week as I had nothing prepared, but someone hopped in this morning, bringing back a fond memory.

A few years ago our pool would get green from lack of maintenance - okay,  MY lack of maintenance - and frogs would come by and breed, leaving their clutches of eggs floating around in the pool. Soon thereafter, the eggs developed into tadpoles and since I didn't have the heart to shock the pool and kill them, I scooped up as many as I could and deposited them into an aquarium, complete with gravel, a water filter and food.

They soon matured into these tiny little frogs that were no bigger than a pinkie finger's nail and would hug the sides of the aquarium for days.  When they were large enough they eventually escaped, making me chase the little buggers all over the house.  Upon recapture, the froglets were liberated to our garden.

These rescues went on for a couple of years, but I had since learned to cover the aquarium with a screen.

Once again, breeding season has arrived and every night we are inundated with the very loud and obnoxious croaks of their mating rituals.  Oy.

This morning, while having my coffee, I hear this moist thud on the floor not four feet away.  At first I thought  a small bird had smucked itself into the door and fell inside.  A closer inspection of the thud revealed it to be a large frog.  Once again, I had to chase the larger little bugger around the house, this time to save it from becoming the latest "toy" for one of our dogs, who was also not four feet away from it's arrival.  This particular dog doesn't play with the usual dog toys, oh no!  Instead, she chases lizards and cats and plays with coconuts, brooms, watering cans and pretty much anything else that may be within reach.  I once tried to get her to fetch a tennis ball.  She ran away from it.

I let the frog go in the garden and I thought to myself, "I wonder if it was one of those I had saved and came back to thank me".  Probably not, but I would like to think so.

Potholes

Today is Theme Thursday and this week I thought I would throw my hat into the ring.

I couldn't find a ring, so I used the bougainvillea in our backyard instead.  Deceptively pretty thing, isn't it?  Don't be fooled as these suckers have long, nasty thorns.  They will bite.

And those are my sunglasses, magically attaching to my "eyeballs" when the need arises.

Not too far away from our house, there is a little grocery store that has become very handy to me since I'm always finding that we're out of an ingredient necessary for the dinner I've already started to prepare.  So, off to the store I go.

Recently,  I had to take this trip twice in as many days.  The first time was uneventful.  But on the second trip I noticed this:

Now, potholes aren't generally inexplicable in and of themselves, but this one was particularly interesting because: (a) while they are usually found on those parts of the road most frequented by cars (and lying in wait for the next unobservant driver who will land a tyre - or two - straight into its gaping maw), this one is smack-dab in the middle of the road;  (b) there is very little debris inside the hole and the piece of pavement that once covered it is nowhere to be seen.  Absolutely nowhere. There it is...gone!; and, (c) it happened sometime during the night.

WTF??

So, one has to wonder how this tyre biter came to be.  I have no idea.  But I have a few theories:

1. A land crab woke up from his long hibernation and suddenly popped up out of the pavement due to his urgent need to pee, and didn't notice the pavement on top of his head.
2. It's an obvious impractical attempt at a practical joke by a bunch of drunk and juvenile Bahamians.
3. Aliens came down and sucked the pavement out because they thought it looked like one half of an Oreo cookie and that it would taste good dipped in whatever it is they use for milk.
4. The island farted and sent the piece of pavement flying into the nearby bush.

My vote goes to the aliens.

Still, it remains a mystery.

(My Bad:  Being new here, I forgot (a.k.a. should have realized) to post a link to Theme Thursday  - d'oh!)