Let's Get This Party Postponed!

Alas, Val has stayed too long at the fair.

Well, she would've...if there had been a fair to go to, and if Hick had taken her, and allowed her to stay out past the time he judged she should return home. It would have been a sight more fun than what she really did today. With cotton candy, and foot-long corn dogs, and midway games of throwing darts and tossing balls (heh, heh) and grabbing mechanical goldfish out of blue plastic kiddie pools, with the chance to win giant stuffed animals, and foam sabers, and those pretty mirrors etched with pictures that have been rumored to be merely flat surfaces for cutting lines of cocaine or meth. Yep. That would have been a darn sight more fun.

No, I've had a busy day, writing thank you notes to a multitude of funeral well-wishers, the ones assigned to me by my sister the ex-mayor's wife, who acted like she was giving me half, but when informed that I was one thank-you notice short, was sure to tell me the number SHE had written, which turned my allotment into a paltry third. Let the record show that she attended the same church as Mom, and many of the people she claimed were her fellow attendees, and that I happen to work five days a week and cannot be using my employer's time to write thank-yous and look up addresses.

In addition, I ate my fill (or almost) of a belated birthday dinner at a local catfish house, this day being The Pony's actual birthday, so the two of us killing two birds with our birthday dinner stone, though that's actually not a good analogy, what with the events that transpired upon arrival at the restaurant.

Are you salivating for more? Well, you'll have to wait a day or two until I have more time to elaborate. I know you wouldn't want a bare-bones story from Val. No sirree, Bob! I expect to have plenty of time tomorrow, what with the 5-10 inches of snow in the forecast, our already-planned President's Day holiday, and The Pony's dentist cancelling his tomorrow's check-up this afternoon at 1:00.

Let the snow begin, and the marination of Val's tales as well.

Just When Val Thought It Was Safe to Go Back In the Laundry Room...

I might have mentioned how Hick does his own laundry. It's not because he's doing Val a favor, being all noble and crap, lessening her workload. Nope. It's because he's a hard-head. Because during our first year of marriage, I laid down the Val Law. Told him I was not his maid, and I would not pick up his inside-out pants and his tighty-whities from the bedroom floor. If he wanted laundry done, he would put it in the hamper like a normal human being.

Well, being Hick, he was not about to kowtow to Val's commands. Rather than pick up his own dirty clothes off the bedroom floor and carry them one room away to drop them in the clothes hamper, Hick decided that he would do his own laundry. That would show Val who was boss! Uh huh. It did. For 25 years now, Hick had done his own laundry. In a curious manner.

First Hick adjusts the washer setting on the load size (super to large, even though he crams a month's worth of pants and shirts into one washing), the temperature (hot/cold to warm/cold), and the dryer setting from polyester/knit to cotton/high heat. Then he changes the dryer timer from silent to LOUD. Who knew we were such opposites? Fetch that meat platter forthwith for the Backroads Jack Sprat and wife!

Hick has a penchant for leaving dryer sheets in the dryer. Even though they are used up, he leaves them for me. Such a thoughtful guy. Leaves them in plain sight, right in the middle of the drum, just like he had put it there on purpose. Always at the front and center. Not like he might have simply forgotten it. What are the odds that Hick removes a month's worth of pants and shirts, or a month's worth of underwear and socks, and that Bounce stays right in the same place? Uh huh. Told you so.

This afternoon, I went in to do some laundry. And this is what I found:

Yeah. Do YOU know what that is at first glance? I was expecting a Bounce. Or a Walmart equivalent. But this thing was foreign. I sent The Pony to take a picture for me. He returned holding the unidentified drying object. Yep. It's a UDO.

"What are you doing with that? I told you to take a picture! Now you have disturbed the evidence!"

"No I didn't. I took the picture first. Then I picked this up. I thought you would send me back to throw it away. Look. It's a Taco Bell receipt!"

"Huh. We brought home Taco Bell last night. How did he get the receipt?"

"I guess he got it out of the bag."

"That doesn't make sense. How would it end up in the dryer? Wait a minute! When I got the receipt, I handed it back to you in T-Hoe! I took my change and put the dimes in the coin cup, and the bills in the side of my purse, and gave you the receipt."

"I remember! And I put it in the trash bag!"

"Uh huh. That was a different Taco Bell receipt. Your father has been going to Taco Bell without us!"

Which would explain the smell in the bedroom when I go to bed at 1:00 a.m.

Oh, and here's an interesting tidbit. I sent Hick a text that I would make him lunch when I got back from town today. He replied: "OK o lobe you."

So I sent back: "O lobe you too."

That's my Hick. Happy Valentine's Day.

And You Thought Hot Dogs Were Unhealthy

Well. Turns out you were right.

Let the record show that Val takes a hot dog in her school lunch every day. Don’t you worry about Val. That is healthier and tastier than what passes for food slopped onto the cafeteria trays these days. But it’s not just a regular run-of-the-mill, non-garden variety of hot dog. It’s half a hot dog, cold, on half a bun. That’s because the hot dogs are the big ones from Save A Lot. It’s cold, because Val can’t take time out of her precious 20-minute lunch hour to heat it, and doesn’t keep mustard in her mini-fridge anyway. And what good is half a hot dog without half a bun? No good. That’s for sure. So what we have here is a quick and easy lunch that can save time and be transported to the cafeteria with an individual bag of chips and a bottle of water at 10:53 a.m. for a sumptuous repast.

After the unfortunate events last Wednesday, when I had to rush from school at 9:00 a.m., a half-hot-dog remained in my mini fridge. And remained through Thursday, through Friday, through Saturday, and through Sunday. On Monday I brought a new half hot dog. I meant to throw away the one from the mini fridge, but I was busy with other things, like 27 assignments from a homebound pupil, some of which were from October.

Tuesday, I brought the other half of my freshly-made Monday hot dog. I put it in the mini fridge beside the lingering hot dog. At the stroke of 10:53, I went to fetch it for my lunch. As I put it on the paper plate, I noticed something amiss with the bun. IT WAS A GREEN SPOT THE SIZE OF A TIC TAC! My bun was moldy! So I did what any normal person would do, and rather than go through the line for a school lunch of chicken nuggets, I grabbed my lingering half-hot-dog.

My impromptu entrée was good enough. It tasted a little funny, but I thought nothing of it. After all, the hot dog had been laying in the bun for six days. I figured they were picking up each other’s flavors.

Wednesday morning, I grabbed the big bag of hot dogs to make two new halves of lunch. Oh, dear. ONE OF THE HOT DOGS WAS GREEN! Not neon green, not day-glow green, but green. Kind of a brownish grayish green that is only found on the surface of meat or meat substitutes. So I took that hot dog and the four left in the pack, and made The Pony feed them to my sweet, sweet Juno. Now I was hotdogless for lunch.

I couldn’t bring myself to take tuna salad. Those persnickety lunchmates would no doubt turn up their noses. So I foraged around in the pantry. Mmmm. Sardines in mustard sauce. Again, a no-go for the fish-hating nugget-eaters. The only alternative was potted meat. Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire! I spread that potted meat on a hot dog bun to look like a hot dog. A whole bun. This was not a fat bloated hot dog.

Many eyes were upon my meal. But nobody dared say a word.

Too bad I couldn't even win the Unhealthiest Lunch trophy. The large bag of chocolate-covered peanuts washed down by a 20-ounce Coke took that prize.

Be Careful What You Wish For (The Pony to Pick Up)

Perhaps I've mentioned that The Pony is my personal shopper. Well, he would be, if he had his driver's license and could be sent to town for provisions every week. Right now, he is my shopping assistant. Believe you me, Val is not one to look a gift Pony in the mouth. That little fella trots all over the store gathering items for me. He really pulls his weight. However...

The Pony has a knack for choosing damaged goods. It's like a sixth sense for him. The tabloid with the staples not on the fold, or six pages where the color is off center, or one corner with overgrown extra paper on every page? That's the one The Pony picks. Or the bread with a deep crevice baked into the top of the loaf, leaving a V of sandwich meat exposed. Or the dented can of Hunts Meat Flavor Pasta Sauce.  Are you pickin' up what I'm layin' down? He manages to do this without even thinking.

Tuesday evening, we stopped by Walmart on the way home. I sent The Pony to the pharmacy area for a large bottle of Germ-X. Have you heard? I have one class that had their Germ-X privileges withdrawn early in the year, due to waste and tomfoolery. Even so, I have run out of Germ-X 63 school days early.

One might assume such a simple task as picking up a large bottle of Germ-X that looks just like my depleted bottle of Germ-X, the same size and style I have used throughout the last 10 years of my career, would be easily accomplished by a child so gifted as The Pony. You know what happens when one assumes.

I didn't look closely at the bottle. After all, I had other items in my cart. The Pony finished fetching, and raced off to look at Valentine cards for his sweetie. It was not until I reached the checkout that I sensed something was rotten in the state of Germ-X. I lifted that bottle out of the cart, and it slimed my hand. What in tarnation had this boy done now? I looked more closely. The top was already unscrewed. So putting it in a bag with other items was not gonna happen. I alerted the checker. "Do you want a different bottle?" Certainly. But did I want to wait for somebody to go find one? No. I told her to put it in a bag by itself.

When The Pony and I reunited, I asked him why he got the bottle of Germ-X that had already been opened. He smashed his forelock with his hoof. "Something else I didn't do right! It was the only bottle I could find. It was just sitting on the shelf. There weren't any more that size."

"I think you grabbed the bottle that was set out for the employees to use. It has definitely been opened, and it's still open. And it's not full."

Yeah. We bought the employee Germ-X allocation. This is what we had. I took a picture as soon as The Pony packed it into school this morning.

It appears that I paid for Germ-X I did not get. Paid for Germ-X that was only minutes before making the skin of the associates so clean and so moist.

You be the judge. As always, I reserve the duties of jury and executioner for myself.

Val Thevictorian Loves Her Some French Fries

When we last convened, I reported that Hick and I had passed the muster AND the mustard at our dinner with the parents of The Pony’s prom date. Perhaps it is a bit formal to term a meal at a bowling alley dinner. But Thevictorians are nothing if not formal.

Hick almost blew it. Each burger came in a basket with french fries. Thin crisp fries that are so delicious when dipped into a paper ramekin of ketchup. But while the burgers were nothing to write home about, being nearly see-through in their lack of robustness…the fries filled up two-thirds of that rectangular, cardboard, wax-paper-lined basket. And even though The Pony loves fries, and Val has been known to put away a few, and Hick has a hollow fries leg…each Thevictorian still had a plethora of those crispy potato sticks left in the basket when the meal concluded. Where was I? Oh, yes. Hick. Hick acting like his regular scavenging, bargain-seeking self.

As Girly’s family gathered up their salad plates, spaghetti platter, and BLT basket to clear the self-service table on the way out to the parking lot, Hick stood up and announced, “I’ll take these fries home to the dogs.” He commenced to dumping them all into one basket. Which he handed me to carry out to T-Hoe. I’m not too proud to carry left-over french fries out of a bowling alley. Even a rectangular cardboard combo basket filled to overflowing. But we were still being evaluated by Girly’s parents.

Val is not a small woman. I could imagine the thought bubbles over the heads of Girly’s mom and stepdad. “Hm. For the dogs? I’m so sure.” And, “I hope the dogs get a couple of fries out of that basket.” Yeah. Maybe not. But that’s how I felt.

In fact, when we got to the cars, and Hick put his and The Pony’s balls in T-Hoe’s rear (heh, heh), I made a big show of stowing that towering basket of fries in there, too. “I guess I should just leave these back here so they don’t make a mess.” Proving, you see, that Val was NOT planning to eat those fries, and that they were truly for the dogs. Which they were.

And after all that, my sweet, sweet Juno turned up her nose when Hick dumped them onto the side porch, and ran into her house. What a waste of perfectly good fries! It was all I could do not to scoop them up and take them in the house for my personal enjoyment.

Pony Went A-Courtin’ and He Did Bowl, Uh Huh

Sunday was the day The Pony had been eagerly awaiting. Yearning for. The day Hick and I were going to meet his prom date’s parents. Oh, he was not so excited because we were meeting them, his little gal’s prom attendance pending on whether we passed the muster. He was excited because HE was going along, and SHE would be there, too. Let the record show that he has not seen his would-be paramour since November, at the reunion of HIS PEOPLE.

We decided to rendezvous at a bowling alley on neutral ground between our cities. It was about a 30-minute drive for us. I had no interest in bowling, having peaked when the boys were younger and we were in a family league. The best average I attained was 112, what with bowling once a week. I’m sure it’s not that good now. The Pony and Hick were all fired up to bowl, though. They each took their own bag with shoes and balls. Heh, heh. You know what I said.

Girlie and her family all participated. We had two lanes. Hick, The Pony, and Girlie were on one lane, with a sister joining them. The rest of her family was on the other. The Pony is a decent bowler, with an average of around 124. So every now and then he rolled a strike. The significance being that Girlie gave him a high five. And that’s where it gets interesting.

You know that The Pony lives in his own world. Not really caring about helping other people, or the social ways of the world. It was an awkward kind of high five. She DID sit right beside him after they each got up and took a turn. The Pony chatted with her. I could almost feel the concussion of air against my face, all the way up on the spectator level, as his heart thumped with excitement each time they spoke. He spent the first half hour glancing nervously at the soundless TV up on the wall near me as he conversed. Then he loosened up and looked her in the eyes. Ah. Young love infatuation.

The evening was a great success. After bowling two games, we put two round tables together to enjoy a meal of bowling alley burgers. Except Girlie had a BLT, because she doesn’t like burgers. And her parents had a salad, I guess because they’re healthy. Hick made sure that if we didn’t pass the muster, we could at least say we passed the mustard. He brought several packets to the table, even though The Pony and I don’t use mustard on our burgers. When it was all eaten and done, we walked to the parking lot. Hick got right to it.

“So…did we pass?”

They agreed that we did. Goodbyes were exchanged as The Pony herded Girlie to the back seat of T-Hoe. STOP THAT! She’s not that kind of girl. And while he may wish to be, The Pony’s not that kind of guy. He had her standing on the pavement, leaning into the back passenger seat, filling out his Outside Date form to file with the school so she can attend prom. And he gave her the prom ticket, a cute laminated "bookmark," that will have to suffice until the fancy invitations come out.

Later, I asked The Pony if he was trying especially hard to get strikes, so he could be rewarded with a high five. He said, “What do YOU think?” Then he went on. “She gives a really strange kind of high five, though.” Yeah. I had noticed. It wasn’t strange at all. After the high five, she closed her hand over his, kind of sideways, like a brief moment of hand-holding.

Yes. Now I feel like Frankie Heck on The Middle, explaining to her daughter Sue that her wrestler boyfriend was not jabbing his eel-like tongue into her mouth because he had forgotten how to kiss.

You Can't Take Hick Out of the Country, Because You Can't Take the Country Out of Hick

Saturday I dropped The Pony off at the local junior college to take the ACT. He's taken it a couple of times already, but he's chasing that elusive perfect score of 36. Right now his official score is 34. He thinks he did well this time, having been able to go back and check his answers on all parts before time ran out. He said there were only three math problems on which he was not sure, but he had narrowed it down to a 50-50 chance with his answers. AND he says he will still be disappointed if he only moves up to a 35, which is the top score his brother Genius attained. Other kids think he's nuts, because the Missouri average composite score for 2014 was 21.8, what with testing 76% of all high school graduates, not just the college-bound elite.

After abandoning my young nerd, I went to Walmart for some unobserved Valentine shopping. I stashed my purchases in T-Hoe's rear end and headed home to catch up on some neglected chores until it was time to return for The Pony.

As Even Steven would have it, Hick turned up as I arrived. That's how it always is. Hick has some kind of sixth sense that acts as a GPS for my whereabouts. He needs a box of Tic-Tacs in his pocket, like Elaine gave The Sidler down at J. Peterman. Wherever Val goes, so goes Hick. At least around the homestead, where I can't escape him by vehicle.

There he was, revealed as I opened the garage door, standing just outside the people door fiddling around with the pet food. "I got you biscuits!" Hick said, proudly holding a clear plastic bag of pink and green bone-shaped dog biscuits over his head like a leather drawstring bag of gold dust. He came through the garage and started for the rear of T-Hoe.

"Wait! You can't go back there!"

"Why not? I was going to help you carry things in." Hick opened the passenger door to inquire.

"Because I have Valentine stuff in there. So leave it. And leave me alone. I have to go in the house first, before I get it out, because I have to go to the bathroom."

"I have to go to the bathroom, too." Hick usually tries to outdo me, like that Kristen Wiig character, Penelope, on SNL who used to one-up every claim by every other person.

"I have to go first! Which bathroom are you going in?"

"The one right around the corner. The outdoor bathroom!"

And with that, Hick walked out the garage people door, turned right down the brick sidewalk, and stood in the front yard facing the gravel road. No. He did not have a toilet, nor a urinal, in his outdoor bathroom.