Glass and Bugs Just Go Together

Hey! You know that saying, "Sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug?" Yeah. I like it, because it's so Even Steveny.

Can you imagine what it would be like if you really were a windshield? If eyes are the windows to the soul, then windshields are the windows from the driver's soul-windows to the outside of the car. Not quite so poetic, eh?

If you were a windshield, you wouldn't have to wipe yourself. There are contraptions to do that for you, and folks like the occasional full-service gas station attendant like those at a certain establishment in Backroads that hires the ex-cons, who don't use a cash register but instead carry the money in a long wallet on a chain, because who's going to mess with an ex-con to get that cash, anyway, because even though ex-conny may have a heart of gold, he is still what we lily-livered pantywaist educators consider hard-core.

Yes, if you were a windshield, people would do their darnedest to keep you crystal clear. Not foggy. Might even give you a drink of Coca Cola every now and then. Shade you with metallic plastic springy contraptions in the heat. Cover you with cardboard on frosty nights. Give you a birdpoopectomy the instant your illness was diagnosed.

If you were a bug, on the other hand, you could fly. Around and around people's heads, buzzing them like an old-timey crop duster after an alleged spy. You could walk on the surface of water. Treat other people's bodies like an amusement park. Sail on saliva in a cavernous mouth like it's the tunnel of love. Explore the ear canal funhouse. Break a leg...heck, have one pulled from its socket, and walk without a crutch.

WAIT! What I really wanted to share with you was that I set The Pony to gathering some creek water yesterday morning, and snipping some leaves off a tree, for my microscope-using lab. The students were buzzing around, looking at prepared slides, like honeybee mouth parts and housefly legs, and ones I had made with crushed leaves, and weed pollen, and creek water...when I saw them.

BUGS!

The miniscule hitchhikers were in the Ziploc bag with the leaves. Tiny red bugs marching along the serrated edges. Tiny red bugs. Clingy. I tied to shake some onto a piece of printer paper. Knocked that leaf on it with a vengeance. Pried a couple off with a pencil lead. Wouldn't you know it? Each time I tried to pick one up on the pencil point and deposit it on a slide for dousing with a pipette-drop of water before sealing it with a cover slip...that darn bug would disintegrate into a red stain. At first I suspected they were chiggers, but I think chiggers are a hardier lot. Oh, and there was also a tiny thin gray leggy spider. He was kind of twisted, but I rehydrated him and flattened him forthwith.

Yeah! Who knew we would end up with bonus bugs? Kudos to The Pony for his selection techniques. Sometimes you're the windshield. Sometimes you're the bug.

And sometimes, you're pressed in a drop of water between a cover slip and a slide.

Val Continues To Depreciate

Oh, how my stock has fallen! It continues to plummet. This $8-daughter is on an express elevator to not-heaven. Today, my very own mother, the one I picked up at the park in 98-degree heat, and drove around on my monetary errands under the cool breath of T-Hoe, stuffed a mere $4 in my cup.

Don't go thinking that Val is some kind of privileged panhandler, driving around Backroads in a Tahoe, rattling a 44 oz. styrofoam cup for donations. No. I had my cup ready for the daily Diet Coke. And in the midst of my many errands, stopped to get The Pony, a ravenous after-school beast, some waffle fries and a root beer. Mom peeled off four ones. "Here. Let me give you this. For The Pony." I was driving at the time. I may or may not have waved my hand dismissively, letting her know that I didn't need her money. At least not at that instant. And she shoved those bills down into my 44 oz. cup!

Let the record show that it was not a malicious act. She was not trying to slice a leak, thus depriving me of my single daily pleasure. I had already put ten twenties in there. The bank refused to take them as a deposit! What's the world coming to, when you can't deposit cash into someone's account if you don't know their account number? It's not like I'm a Nigerian scammer. Genius needs his monthly allowance. The drive-thru teller's excuse was that there have been too many complaints about money being deposited in the wrong accounts. Seriously? I'm betting the account-holders were not the ones complaining. What's up with that? Is everybody dumping money into John Smith's account? Now I have to go back to the bank tomorrow with a deposit slip. Oh, and I also had to put three deposit receipts from my savings&loan in there. As well as two receipts from the credit union. But that didn't mean Mom could jam four ones in there indiscriminately. I have a sneaking suspicion they were not facing the same way, and some were floppy, and they infiltrated the ordered chaos of my circular file.

I need to go call her before she goes to bed. I have some spoilers from Big Brother that might raise my current daughterly value.

I'll Let You Know When I Get My Own Cooking Series

We're friends, right? You and me? Besties? Except for my BFF Google, of course. But after that, we're likethis, right? So I want to share a little secret with you. Shh...not just anybody can find out.

I can almost make something kind of like a Market Fresh Chicken Salad Sandwich from Arby's!

It's true. Shh...don't let this get out. I don't want to hurt corporate business. People need to keep buying gas and driving to Arby's for their chicken salad sandwich fix. I, however, shall have my homemade Val's Chicken Salad Nearwich. Here's how it goes:

First you cube or shred a leftover boneless chicken breast that you baked on Tuesday. It should have no seasonings on it, because you ran out of lemon pepper, and in the heat of the moment shook a little garlic salt and fresh-ground pepper onto Hick's portion, but left yours unadorned.

Next, you take a half-full bag of whole pecans that your mom gave you last Christmas to make Chex Mix with off the top shelf of your freezer, shake a few onto your Everyday China, and cut them into thirds.

Then you find the bag of Granny Smith apple slices that you bought last Sunday on the bottom shelf of Frig, where that bag somehow opened itself and disgorged half its contents to parts unknown, then lay back with its top open like some common tart. Dice about eight slices to the size of dice. You know. The gambling thingies that teachers have to call "number cubes."

Dump these three ingredients into a recycled Dairy Queen Grilled Chicken Salad black plastic bowl. Notice that it's not big enough, and pour the contents into your favorite smallest brown plastic mixing bowl. Sprinkle on about a sixth of an envelope of Hidden Valley Ranch Dip powder left over from seasoning the vegetables in a pot roast two weeks ago. Grind some fresh black pepper out of the silver bullet pepper grinder that your bestest friend and ex-teaching buddy Mabel gave you one Christmas.

Shake around those damp dry ingredients. Add several dollops of Kraft mayonnaise. NOT Miracle Whip! Shake in one packet of Splenda. Stir the whole kit 'n' caboodle with one of your serving spoons that have all been deformed by the men of the house ignoring the three ice cream scoops.

Serve on Oat Nut bread, which is a poor substitute for the Market Fresh tasty hearty wheaty multigrain stuff.

Enjoy!

Dainty Val Discusses a Delicate Matter

This afternoon I was waiting for The Pony to get out of his once-a-week after-school Algebra II lesson review. Wouldn't you know, the day I had everything caught up and was ready to leave at 3:15, he was staying an hour later?

Have I mentioned that Hick and The Pony have been sick? Hick has been popping Z-packs and old-timey antibiotics like they're sugar-free candy. He has bronchitis. The Pony came down with a bug on Saturday. He tells me, in a raspy voice, between fits of coughing, that he feels much better now.

So this afternoon, I was catching up on some future work, sneezing every time the air conditioner kicked on, blowing my stuffy nose, clearing my throat, and I started to feel a bit...um...indisposed. My stomach was rumbling like that of Davy Lardass Hogan scarfing up blueberry filling at the Pie Eat, just before he set off the chain of events that resulted in the Ladies Auxiliary barfing all over the Benevolent Order of Antelopes.

I wasted no time in scurrying down the hall to the faculty women's restroom which is housed inside the teacher workroom. Yes, no time to waste. And it wasn't a Barf-O-Rama I had a date with. Of course, from the other end of the hall came a colleague. One of my lunch table brethren. OH NO! He's known for his chatfests. I didn't have a moment to spare. I ducked into the workroom before he passed the office. Locked my door behind me, and ensconced myself on the throne.

Dear me. What a predicament. The nature of my...um...indisposement left me vulnerable. One could only hope that Lunch Brother was hard of hearing. Oh, he came in. I heard his footsteps. I heard the tinkle of change, and the thud of the beverage machine. But then I heard nothing. Was he waiting? To chew the fat? Shoot the breeze? I certainly hoped not. I was not comfortable doing my business with him on the other side of one thin concrete-block wall and wooden door. Like Jerry separated from Kramer's boys by one thin layer of gabardine, I was a bit freaked out. And so was the Febreze Air Effects Hawaiian Aloha.

There was no holding back my...um...indisposition. When I exited, I snuck a look over toward the table area. Whew! Lunch Brother was gone. Gone with the mighty wind.

I was in no mood for his rhetorical question of, "Is there really any nutritional value in corn?"

Good Thing It Wasn't Perishable

We are a booky family. Not a bookie family, taking bets from hipster doofuses who got a hot tip on a horse whose muddah was a mudder. Booky. We read. All but Hick, of course. Who could not even be bothered to read the tag on the lovely rust-and-green plaid pillow he put on our bed. The one that smelled of cedar and came with the new doghouse and said, "Not for human use."

The Pony and Genius read on Kindles and Nooks, when convenient, but we all prefer a heavy tome in our hands when given the option. Two years ago, Genius talked me into Amazon Prime. And by talked, I mean strong-armed. I'm not saying it's cost-effective for the average Backroader. But it suits us just fine. Mainly because when Genius decides he wants something, he wants it yesterday. Oh, and no more waiting until there are enough items in the cart to justify an order. We throw out orders all willy-nilly now, at the drop of a hat into the wind to hold hands with caution.

Two weeks ago, The Pony spent Friday night with his grandma. I had to pick up a package at the dead-mouse-smelling post office all by myself. Sometimes Amazon ships USPS, sometimes they ship UPS, and occasionally, they ship FedEx. This package was in a book-shaped cardboard box. You know the kind. It folds around the book. Because I was Ponyless, I left it on T-Hoe's shotgun seat. I figured it was a book that had shipped separately from my last order.

I have been PG-13-cursing that book for two weeks. It is in the way of the stuff I throw on that seat. It's no skin off The Pony's soft, soft nose. He doesn't ride there. I thought he'd take a hint and carry my package inside. He's had two weeks, you know.

Sunday afternoon, The Pony said, "What book IS that, anyway?"

"I don't know. I didn't even open it because it would be more awkward with those flaps sticking out." Surely you don't think I'd throw away the cardboard if I won't even carry in a book.

The Pony ripped that package open. "It's The Adventure Time Encyclopedia! I wondered why I saw it in Walmart this morning. I knew it should have come by now!"

Yeah. Sorry, Pony. Even Amazon Prime is only as good as its package picker-upper.

Everybody Poops in Backroads

Pardon me while I address those summer vacation caravans who pull into our little burg of Backroads and proceed to de-poop their animals on our landscaped restaurant lawns. YOU PEOPLE ARE FOUL!

Okay. I feel a teeny tiny bit better. Here's the deal. We have a Dairy Queen just off the interstate. The owners have been improving their property this summer with a new building facade, a new sign, and a new roof over their previously bare drive-thru window. They already have a nice metal-bar enclosed playground for the kids, with tables and a little covered pavilion thingy. The parents can eat inside, soaking up the air-conditioning while watching the kiddies play through the front windows. Or they can sit outside with them.

Across a strip of parking lot from the barred playground, there's a well-maintained section of grass that merges up on the stoplight and road right-of-way. Every day, while waiting in line catty-corner from the DQ in my gas station chicken store with my 44 oz. Diet Coke, I see a carload of people pull in and walk their leashed dogs on that grassy area. And by "walk," I mean stand and watch the pets poop. On the grassy area. Without even an inside-out baggie or old Walmart bag to pick up the poop for disposal. So the kiddies and their parents, enjoying almost-ice-cream or Dilly Bars or an Arctic Rush that used to be a Mr. Misty get to gaze upon piles of dog turds. Oh, and what IF those free-poopers actually scooped? Would they take their turds away, or stuff them in the DQ trash receptacle?

THIS IS SO UNSANITARY!

I mentioned it off-handedly to The Pony as we drove past. Okay. I ranted about it to The Pony. "Look at that! That's nasty! Who wants to look at dogs pooping while they're having lunch?"

"Kids. Kids love that stuff. They'd love to get ahold of them if they could escape from those bars."

"The dogs?"

"No. The piles of poop."

Kids these days. They don't know how to work up a good head of indignation.

This'll Scare the Pants Right Off You

I am submitting a ghost story today. I've got plenty, you know. My life is a regular cornucopia of the supernatural. The story of choice came to mind right away. No, it's not even the headless man in the basement. That one might go too, if I have time. Last night I relived this chosen incident in my mind in preparation for the finishing touches. Unfortunately, I relived it at 3:30 a.m.

I'm pretty sure that trip down memory lane affected my dreams. I was upstairs in a totally white area, with severe, square-cornered architecture. Several groupings of college students sat around on the floor. I began my tale. "Anybody here want to hear a ghost story?" I heard several members of my captive audience breathe, "Ooh!" Then a girl in a different grouping said sarcastically, "Can we stop with the oohs already?" I heard people milling around under my concrete platform on the mezzanine, hubbubbing. Probably drinking white wine in Waterford crystal. Behind me, as I was compelled to look over my shoulder, stood a mannish, frowning, black-haired woman with a blunt haircut in a Jack LaLanne belted white jumpsuit. As I turned, I saw several identical women stationed around the area, hands on hips. They were like those models in the Robert Palmer "Addicted to Love" video. Only nobody would have considered them hot. And they were not wearing red lipstick or fake-playing guitars.

On the bright side, after tossing and turning several hours, I got up for a drink, and thought up the first two lines for my story. Here's one: I saw my first ghost shortly after 9:00 on a hot August night in a Cuba, Missouri, high school gym.


A big thanks to blog buddy Donna for tipping us off about this opportunity. You've still got time. Whatcha waitin' on?

That's all from me for now. I've got to let my ghost flag fly.