I'm going pickin'!
Accept that some days you're the pigeon, and
some days you're the statue.
Always keep your words soft and sweet, just
in case you have to eat them.
Always read stuff that will make you look good
if you die in the middle of it.
**Pick Up**
"Hello?"
"Hi honey, this is Daddy, Is Mommy near the phone?"
"No Daddy, She's upstairs in the bedroom with Uncle Frank"
After a brief pause, Daddy says, "But honey, you haven't got an Uncle Frank"
"Oh yes I do, and he's upstairs in the room with Mommy, right now"
Brief Pause "Uh, okay then, ...this is what I want you to do. Put the phone
down on the table, run upstairs and knock on the bedroom door, and shout to
Mommy that Daddy's car just pulled into the driveway"
"Okay Daddy, just a minute"
A few minutes later the little girl comes back to the phone "I did it Daddy"
"And what happened honey?" he asked
"Well, Mommy got all scared, jumped out of bed with no clothes on and ran
around screaming. Then she tripped over the rug, hit her head on the
dresser and now she isn't moving at all!"
"Oh my God!!! What about your Uncle Frank?"
"He jumped out of the bed with no clothes on too. He was all scared and he
jumped out of the back window and into the swimming pool. But I guess he
didn't know that you took out the water last week to clean it, he hit the
bottom of the pool and I think he's dead"
***Long Pause***
***Longer Pause***
Then Daddy says . . .
Swimming pool??
...Is this 555-7039??????"
No
Click............
And we thought our lives were bad :)
A Jewish man walks into a bar and sits down.
He has a few drinks, then he sees a Chinese man and punches him in the face.
"Ouch!" the Chinese man says. "What was that for?"
"That was for Pearl Harbor," the Jewish man says.
"But I'm Chinese!"
"Chinese, Japanese, what's the difference?"
And the Jewish man sits back down.
Then, the Chinese man walks up to the Jewish man and punches him in the face.
"Ouch!" the Jewish man says. "What was that for?"
"That was for the Titanic," the Chinese man says.
"But that was an iceberg!"
"Ice berg, Goldberg, what's the difference?"
Around age 10 my dad got me a really cool present ... one of those little badass compound bow beginner kits. Of course, the first month I went around our place sticking arrows in anything that could get stuck by an arrow. Did you know that a 1955 40 horse Farmall tractor tire will take 6 rounds before it goes down? Tough sumbich.
After a week or two simple targets got boring, so being the 10 yr.old Dukes of Hazzard fan that I was, I quickly advanced to taking strips of cut up Tshirt doused in chainsaw gas tied around the end and was sending flaming arrows all over the place. Cool! Keep in mind that I lived in an area that was 99.999% humidity swampland so there really wasn't any fire danger. I'll put it this way - a set of post hole diggers and a 3ft. hole and you had yourself a water well.
Anyway, one summer afternoon, I was shooting flaming arrows into a large rotten oak stump in our backyard. I was making good progress and my aim was honestly quite good but even the flames weren't quite enough that day. As I was lighting up another arrow I looked over under the carport and saw a shiny brand new can of starting fluid (ether). Yup, my trusty light bulb went off.
I grabbed the can and started walking toward the smoking stump, but then thought . . .when I hit the can with the arrow it would probably just spray out in a disappointing manner. I could probably do better. Let's face it. . . to a 10 yr. old mouth-breather like myself, the ether really didn't seem like it was going to be all that flammable. So, I went back into the house and got a 1 pound can of pyrodex (black powder for my dad's muzzle loader rifles). Yeah! Now we're talkin'!
Back outside, I set the can of ether on the stump and opened up the can of black powder. My intentions were to sprinkle a little bit around the ether can but it all sorta dumped out on me. No biggie...1lb pyrodex and 16oz ether should make a loud pop, kinda like a firecracker you know? I knew you had to pack it tight to make an explosion, so I was still pretty safe. . . just a cool flash, right? On second thought, screw that. I'm going back in the house for the other can. Yup, I got the second can of pyrodex and dumped it too. OK. Now we're cookin'.
I stepped back about 15ft and lit the 2-stroke-gassed-up arrow. I drew the nock to my cheek and took aim. As I released the arrow from my bow I heard a clunk behind me. In a slow motion time frame, I turned to see my dad getting out of the truck... OH S##T!
He just got home from work. So help me God it took 10 minutes for that arrow to go from my bow to the can. My dad was walking towards me in slow motion with a WTF look in his eyes. I turned back towards my target just in time to see the arrow pierce the starting fluid can right at the bottom. Bull's eye! . right through the main pile of pyrodex and into the can. WOW!
The shock knocked me off my feet. Well, truthfully, I don't know if it was the actual compression wave that threw me back or just a reflex kick-back from 235 frickin' decibels of sound. Honestly, I think I only caught a half a millisecond glimpse of the violence, but I will tell you there was an instant cloud of dust, grass, and bugs all hovering 1ft above the ground as far as I could see. It was like the earth moved 12 inches down and left all the dust, swarms of grasshoppers and spiders, and even a crawfish or two right where they had been sitting. Wow! Amazing!
The shock knocked me off my feet. Well, truthfully, I don't know if it was the actual compression wave that threw me back or just a reflex kick-back from 235 frickin' decibels of sound. Honestly, I think I only caught a half a millisecond glimpse of the violence, but I will tell you there was an instant cloud of dust, grass, and bugs all hovering 1ft above the ground as far as I could see. It was like the earth moved 12 inches down and left all the dust, swarms of grasshoppers and spiders, and even a crawfish or two right where they had been sitting. Wow! Amazing!
The daylight turned purple. Let me repeat this...THE DAYLIGHT TURNED PURPLE! There was a slow rolling mushroom cloud about that had climbed to about 2000ft above our backyard. There was a big sweetgum tree by the gate going into the pasture. Notice I said "was". That hulk just gave up and fell over.
I was on the ground blown completely out of my shoes with my Thundercats T-shirt shredded. My dad was on the other side of the carport having what I can only assume was a Vietnam flashback - ECHO BRAVO CHARLIE, YOU'RE BRINGIN' EM IN TOO CLOSE!! CEASE FIRE, DAMMIT, CEASE FIRE!!!!!
I noticed that his hat had blown off and was lying 30 ft. behind him in the driveway. I also noticed, with a gut-wrenching feeling, that all the windows on the north side of the house had blown out. My Honda 185s 3-wheeler was parked near the site and now sat with its plastic fenders drooped down and touching the tires. Dang! I could even see the imprint of the tread into the plastic. .musta been hot, still smokin'. . .funny what you notice at times like that.
I wish I knew what I said to my dad at this moment. Truth is, I don't know even if I said something. I couldn't hear anything. . .even inside my own head. I don't think he would have heard me anyway... not that it really mattered. I don't remember much from this point on. I said something, felt a sharp pain, saw black, woke up, felt another sharp pain, blacked out, woke later...my mother told me later that I repeated this process for more than an hour. She also said she had to give me CPR and try to keep dad from continuing to get at me. Yeah, bring him back to life so dad can kill him again. Thanks mom.
One thing is for sure... I never had to mow around that stump again. Mom had been bitching about that thing for years and dad never did anything about it. I stepped up to the plate and took care of business.
Dad sold his muzzleloaders a week or so later. I still have some sort of bone growth abnormality . . . either from the blast or the beating or both.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, get your kids outside more....into a good sport like archery. Its good discipline and will teach them skills they can use later on in life. Something they won't learn in school.
Top ten tips to know if you have PMS
10. Everyone around you has an attitude problem. 9. You're adding chocolate chips to your cheese omelet
8. The dryer has shrunk every last pair of your jeans.
7. Your husband is suddenly agreeing to everything you say.
6. You're using your cell phone to dial up bumper stickers that says, "How's my driving? Call 1-800-EAT-SHIT."
5. Everyone's head looks like an invitation to batting practice.
4. You're convinced there's a God and he's male.
3. You're counting down the days until menopause.
2. You're sure that everyone is scheming to drive you crazy.
1. The ibuprofen bottle is empty and you bought it yesterday.
