He's a Skipper, He's a Snipper, He's a 2:00 A.M. Flipper...

Perhaps you are familiar with my significant other. I might have mentioned him once or twice. However, you might not be aware of his many talents. Sure he can duct tape a front passenger window into a $1000 Caravan. And lose a banana peel deep inside a La-Z-Boy. And find a way to play hooky from work on the very days I have off from school. He can even give boys their summer haircuts without feeling guilty when a little shaver runs to get a towel for draping around his shoulders, and announces solemnly, "This is to catch the blood."

Last night early this morning Hick revealed a new hidden talent. He's a flipper. Uh huh. It's true. At 2:00 a.m., Val was awakened from a deep sleep. Some of the best sleep she's had in the past six months. AWAKENED! Startled out of her slumber by a hand. Hick's hand. He could write his memoir and call it "My Left Hand," so noteworthy was its performance.

You may not want to know the point on Val's person where The Hand made contact. Quick! Cover your eyes, and yell, "Too much information!" It was on the left buttock. Okay. It's safe to read again. The Hand was like a pinball flipper being played by a world-champion hyperactive pinball player all hopped up on Monster.

While I nodded, more than napping, suddenly there came a tapping
As someone un-gently slapping, slapping at my left buttock.
"'Tis that Hick again," I muttered, "slapping at my left buttock-
I shall tell him, 'That's a crock.'"

Yes, The Hand was in fine form, flapping away to flip my left buttock like some adolescent youth snapping a towel in the junior high boys' locker room. Flipping as fast as a woodpecker would if a woodpecker could flip wood. On and on, like a jackhammer breaking up pavement.

I rolled out of bed to escape this torture. Made a detour to the bathroom to sooth my ire. When I came back, Hick denied it all.

"I did not! I was not slapping your butt. No. I don't know what else it could be. But I wasn't!"

Sure he wasn't.

After the alarm went off at 4:50, I made the lunches and took my shower while Hick slumbered. Unencumbered by the flip-hand. When I came out of the bathroom at 5:30 and woke Hick, he was already awake. So sad. That sleep time wasted.

"Did you call me?"

"No. What do you mean did I call you?"

"Did you holler my name?"

"No."

"Well, at 5:15 I heard you call me."

"I didn't."

"Well, then who was it?"

"I don't know. I guess you're hearing things."

Funny I should mention this name-calling thing to The Pony on the way to school.

"SEE? Now will you believe me?"

"What do you mean?"

"All those times I run up the stairs and ask why you called me."

"Oh. I just thought you heard me complaining about stuff, and thought I was talking to you."

"No. I hear that. But those times I run up there, it's because something said my name. And I thought it was you."

"Huh."

Come to think of it, The Pony has been doing this frequently since we were off for Christmas break. And I didn't think anything of it at the time, but one night last week or on the weekend, I woke up because somebody called my name. I figured I had been dreaming. The first thing I thought of was, "Does Mom need me?" That was my only plausible explanation. I was having a psychic bond with Mom when she needed something.

Or maybe not. There might be a flipping name-caller on the loose.

You Can Tune a Piano But You Can't Tunafish, Because It Stinks Way More Than a Piano

Lately I have been enjoying a delicious tuna salad whipped up by me, myself, and Val. I know that it does not require warming in the oven or heating in the microwave, but I must say it has recently been a staple on my go-to menu.

Hick won’t eat it. M-O-O-N! That spells Hick doesn’t like tuna because he used to work with an old man down at his place of employment at Tower Grove and Chouteau who ate a can of tuna every day for lunch. No frills. No ingredients. Tuna. From the can. Perhaps he had crackers with it some days. Anyhoo…Hick had to work up close and personal with this guy, moving office furniture from the basement to the floor, cleaning out drains, repairing machines that make saw blades out of rolls of steel. He did not appreciate breathing in tuna fumes. If he had it his way, he would have worn a yellow HazMat suit or one like those evil government doctors who tormented Stu Redman in The Stand. I even have to put my used tuna can in a Ziploc bag before I dispose of it in the wastebasket.

Yes, lately I have been liking my tuna salad. So much so that I am willing to forgo my usual school lunch of half a cold hot dog on bun and a snack bag of assorted chips. However...tuna salad at the teacher lunch table is a recipe for disaster.

All year (and last year, too) we have been subjected to the ichthyological menu stylings of Jewel. I suspect she scales it and poaches it between the lunch bell and the tardy bell. People sniff and turn up their noses, but nobody really says anything to her. Few folks want to raise a stink. Except for Jewel. So we grimace and bear it. Turn up our snooty snouts and mouth-breathe until the bell.

On the other hand, a congenial member I’ll call Sweet Alabama Beige LOVES fish. She said she looked forward to Friday suppers when she was a kid, because they always had FISH. Last week she brought her lunch and had not even made it to the cafeteria yet when she was accosted by Tomato-Squirter, my sometimes friend, sometimes nemesis, and always relative who doused me with seeds one day upon taking a bite of her salad. “WHAT are you cooking? That stinks! I don’t think I can stand it! It smells like you buried it and dug it up.”

Poor Sweet Alabama Beige! She said, “I thought it smelled good.” She turned off the microwave in the teacher workroom and carried her plate to the table, where the abuse continued. I believe her dish was salmon patties, or salmon cakes as we called them around Val’s childhood kitchen. We had them often. Tasty. Made from salmon given to us fresh from the cannery by my uncle who lived in Ketchikan. I never noticed the smell.

No, it wouldn’t do to take my tuna salad to the teacher lunch table. Val is no Jewel.

He Walks in Duty, Likes the Night

Hey! Something is afoot here at the homestead!

Just when you think your supernatural activities are on the wane, all not-heaven breaks loose again.

Genius was home for the holidays. He was sickly most of the break. Which meant he stayed home all but two days, and was in bed at a reasonable hour. I just assumed those noises I heard in his room were him. Like the turning in the bed, and the footsteps to and fro. Perhaps he had gotten up for the bathroom, or to get his medicine and a drink from the kitchen. That's what a reasonable person would assume in a house with a noisy bedroom that was occupied.

On a day that Genius was feeling up to snuff, when he made an all-day trip to visit a college pal, I thought I saw something. Darkness had not yet fallen. It was late afternoon, a cloudy day. Genius has a bedroom with a wall of windows facing the west, the front of the house. He leaves his shades open, and the door to his room open while he's gone. I was on my way from living room to kitchen when I spied it out of the corner of my eye.

It looked like a person in Genius's room. Not with clear features, like that headless man I saw in the basement years ago. But the size and shape of a person, with a body and head, kind of a gray color. I turned my head to look into the door of Genius's room. That gray person stepped over against the inner wall to avoid me. Uh huh. It didn't fade away like that headless man. It hurried out of my sight.

I did NOT go to look inside the room.

I didn't tell anybody. Maybe it was a trick of the light. Maybe I had a floater in my eye. I'm sure there was a reasonable explanation. Genius returned home after 10:30 that night. The usual home-Genius noises occurred above my head as I sat downstairs in my blue recliner watching the big screen TV.

So Genius packed up and left us on Thursday. I was kind of busy visiting my mom, and tired in the evening, so much so that I fell asleep in the chair, oblivious to any real or imagined noises.

Saturday night and Sunday night, around 8:30, with The Pony on his basement couch, and me in my recliner, we heard footsteps thumping around upstairs. Hick was gone to the auction from 6:00 to 10:30. The footsteps were not as heavy as his footless ankle-stumping.

"Did you hear that?"

"Yeeessss."

"It's waiting for you to go upstairs."

"Maybe."

"It sounds like it's in your room."

"I know. It's been doing that all afternoon."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"I try to ignore it. I heard it before, but I pretended it was Genius. Then that one night, when I went up to take my shower, I was on my way to the kitchen to get some ice water, and I saw something in the hall, between my bedroom and Genius's. It was white or grayish. I don't really remember the shape, because I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and I just thought, 'HUH?' And I backed up to get a better look, and it was gone."

"I'm going to pretend any future noises are you getting up in the night."

Just this evening, around 6:05, with me in the living room ensconced in Hick's La-Z-Boy, and Hick out test-driving T-Hoe for a new rattle, and The Pony in the basement...we heard a loud THUMP in the kitchen. Kind of a cross between a THUMP and a BANG. Like a can of biscuits exploding in Frig II. Or a two-liter soda bottle falling off the kitchen counter.

"I have no idea what that was."

"I don't WANT to know."

"I heard it yesterday afternoon, too. In the same place. Nothing there."

"Well, now you heard it again."

The Pony is not much help during Val's investigations. I've half a mind to revoke his Mystery Inc. membership card.

The Baby in the Bath Grows Apprehensive...

I'm sure you will be pleased to know that Val got off her rumpus today and accomplished many feats. One of which was knocking a bank envelope down behind the stove. That was not on her mental list. Hick promised to retrieve it as soon as he got home, but Hick's road home is often paved with good intentions.

Since the oven was in use tonight, to warm some garlic cheese bread Val slapped together with day-old french bread, some Save A Lot Can't Believe It's Not Butter, a squirt of minced garlic from a squeeze bottle, some part-skim mozzarella, and a dash of garlic salt...it looks like either Val's other element is not cookin' with electric, or a behind-stove bank envelope won't burst into flame if the oven is used.

In between the first and second sink of dishes, and the 4th and 5th loads of laundry, after balancing the checkbook and filling out the personal property assessment form, but before the trip to town for some forgotten grocery items, in the midst of cleaning out Frig II...I dumped some old spaghetti sauce off the back porch deck. That's the way we do it here in Backroads. I have no garbage disposal. And no backyard neighbors. Besides, there's always some critter that will enjoy a surprise treat.

As I shook that sauce container over the rail, a glint from below caught my eye. No. It wasn't somebody's class ring from 25 years ago. No strongbox of gold coins from a lost pirate traveling over land. No Civil War cannonball (that was found before we started building the house). Look closely. Maybe you can make it out from The Pony's unfocused phone photo.

That truly is the back yard as seen from the deck. Not a closeup of a doormat. Not moldy oatmeal. Not a picture sent back from the surface of Mars. Look. There in the center. Can you make it out?

IT'S MY SPOON!

Not my favorite spoon, of course. I stash that way on the bottom of the silverware holder spoon stack. The dainty, petite, pointy-ended spoon that's at this very moment sitting beside me waiting for my Little Caesar's marinara sauce plastic holder of no-sugar-added Bunny Tracks ice cream to melt sufficiently for me to enjoy. No, this was a regular spoon from my kitchen set. Not the good silver. I don't even have any of that. Just as well! Because look where it might end up!

Of course The Pony knows nothing about how this spoon got into the backyard. Nor does Hick. Genius has not yet been interrogated, but I am sure he will pull a Schultz and declare "I know NOTHING!" That does seem unlikely, Genius allowing a spoon to fly over the rail. Because he never dumps anything off there for me. That might actually work in his favor when this judge, jury, and executioner hands down her sentence.

The Pony often gets rid of stuff for me. But I'm sure he would tell. He knows he's going to be the one sent to get it when I discover it anyway. Hick is suspect. I sometimes catch him entering or leaving by the kitchen door, and foist expired foodstuffs upon him. I can imagine him deciding that he doesn't want to deal with Val's wrath at that moment, because, well, he can pick up that spoon next summer before he mows the backyard, and, well, the Apopadopalyspe might just happen between now and then, and he won't have to do anything about the spoon.

Anyhoo...Spoony is back with his mates. And Val knows that she must run a tighter ship, and count utensils out and utensils in, much like was explained to her on a maximum-security-prison tour many years ago.

The Gift That Won't Stop Taking

Hey! Have you heard? Genius was home over the holidays. He was sick as a dog for most of that time, but he perked up a few days before he had to head back and return his nose to the grindstone. Yes, a few tears were shed just prior to and shortly after his departure. I'm kinda fond of that boy.

Every day, I find more evidence that he was here. No, I don't go into his room and shove my face into his pillow and inhale. That would be creepy. Even for Val of the Tightest Apron Strings on Record. His door is closed, and will stay that way. And I'm not talking about a couch pillow on the surge strip for my laptop and the phone chargers. Not even about the odd red Solo cup here and there with water that was once precious ice from Frig II. But I AM talking about red Solo cups.

This afternoon, after a trip to visit my mom in rehab (I reiterate, NOT the drug kind), and dropping The Pony off for his bowling league, and running in Save A Lot for some essentials, and carrying in my own groceries and putting them away without my little Pony helper...I went to cut up some celery to make tuna salad for my lunch. Let the record show that the time was already 1:30. Val is not able to conform to her school lunch time of 10:53 a.m. on weekends.

I had just bought some new celery, but saw no reason not to finish using last week's celery first. Sure, it was a little limp. That only means it's thirsty. So I went to get a red Solo cup out of the pantry to put my freshly-cut stale celery in. THE CUPBOARD WAS BARE! It's a wonder my sweet, sweet Juno has not hit the road with a red bandana full of cat kibble tied on the end of a stick, to join Old Mother Hubbard's boneless poor dog on a speaking tour about irresponsible pet owners.

Okay. There was still stuff in the pantry. But no red Solo cups. We use them every  now and then for gathering ice from Frig II to carry down to my dark basement lair, or for Hick to beat an egg (more like 3 eggs) before scrambling himself some breakfast on the weekend, or...well...that's about all we use them for. A package lasts us six months or more.

Since I could find not a solo Solo for my celery, I took the red Solo cup off the kitchen counter. The one I use for taking my medicine every morning at 5:00 a.m. It's so old that it was not even of the current pantry Solo generation, with the square bottom. I put the mutilated celery in my Solo filled with icy well water. Then I opened a can of tuna and rinsed out the salty water, and chopped a dill pickle and a small onion. Squirted in a long squiggle of mayonnaise from a squeeze bottle that said, "Best before Jan 10, 2015." (I AM my mother's daughter).

As I readied my bowl for mixing just before chopping my celery, I reached for a plastic fork. Sometimes you don't want a heavy metal fork. A black plastic one will do. I have some favorites, saved from the fast-food bag, that I wash and reuse. Captain D's has the best ones. Smooth tines. None of those grooves. But when I pulled open the drawer for plastic forks and sharp knives...THE PLASTIC FORK TROUGH WAS NEARLY BARE! Only two. And one was in the wrong trough.

I was simply shocked. With all the metal silverware that Genius left in his wake, I find it hard to believe that he was also sullying my plastic forks. AND THROWING THEM AWAY to hide the evidence. Not so the Solo cups. Every day I had to harvest them. A wastefuller boy you'll never see than Genius. That boy must have dirtied forty cup...to borrow and twist a line from Rooster Cogburn.

If only Genius had bothered to mention this depletion, The Pony and I could have restocked only yesterday, on our Walmart shopping spree after school.

Oh, and he also took a leftover Little Caesar's pepperoni pizza. That's fine. I don't like pepperoni. Or Little Caesar's. But Genius made it clear to me. "I'm taking the Little Caesar's. I have to feed myself until the dorms open." Far be it from me to make an RA cannibalize his muscle mass until the cafeteria starts serving.

Hope you're happy, Genius. Mommy is drinking celery water with her meds, and burning an extra calorie every time she lifts a fork.

I'VE BEEN THROTTLED!

I saw that. Don't go cutting your eyes at each other like I can't see you. Uh huh. As if to say, "We all knew THAT was going to happen."

"Yep."

"Just a matter of time."

"I'm surprised Val hasn't been throttled WAY before now."

"It couldn't have happened to a nicer gal."

"She's been playing with fire, and now she got burned."

Genius came home for Christmas break. He was here 25 days. Out of the kindness of his heart, he showed me a thing or two on my computer. That was right after my internet broke. Or so I thought. It wouldn't work one morning. I told Genius, and he fixed it during the day while I was at work. He wouldn't tell me how.

"Look. This site tells you how much of your internet you have used. Not even a third of what you get. And you're more than a third of the way through your billing cycle."

Hmm...why would Genius care? He has his own UNLIMITED internet, through his phone, which he jailbroke, a process which I believe he mentioned was frowned upon. But for $10 a month, that boy has UNLIMITED internet. Same with The Pony. And for Hick. And for me. Of course, those last two are like giving Cosmo Kramer as Dr. Van Nostrand, dermatologist, unlimited access to an operating room. Might as well open up a box of Junior Mints and watch the show, because none of us know what we're doing.

So Genius went on to explain that there may be a lag time of a day or two in the usage and the reportage of how many thingabytes I've used. Let the record show that Val is the only person who uses this internet service through DISH. The boys have theirs on their jailbroken phones through SPRINT. Hick never uses internet at home. That's what he has a job for, looking up barbershop tools on eBay.

Knowing that I had so much internet usage left didn't make Val a movie-streaming fiend. Nope. Streaming is not allowed on my plan. Believe you me, I am well aware of that. The customer service rep who took my order must have asked me five times if anyone would be streaming. No, no, no, no, and no. I kept on with my usual blog-writing, blog-reading, and conspiracy site snooping. Nothing changed.

A couple of days later, I noticed that my internet was really, really slow. Genius sat down at my laptop, Shiba, and pounded those keys like he was Nick Burns, my company computer guy.

"I hate to tell you this, but you have used up all of your internet. You've been throttled. That's why it's slow. It doesn't cost you any more. You can still keep using it. But it's going to be at the speed of dial-up."

Huh. Wonder how I used all that internet?

Funny thing...The Pony was having trouble connecting to his own phone internet. He asked Genius for help. "Well, it won't work because you're using MOM'S internet!"

Such a coincidence. For six months, The Pony and I have peacefully coexisted with no internet usage issues. He uses his. I use mine. But while Genius is here, things go all wonky. The Pony admitted to using mine only for a little bit, not to play games, of course, but for writing purposes. Genius denied using it at all, then said hardly at all. He likes to keep his phone free for texting.

Something's rotten in my DISH.

Short and Tingly and Sweet

"Hey, Mom. Do you know how my friend Curly found out he was allergic to bananas?"

"Um. No. I don't believe I do."

"He sat down at his kitchen table and peeled a banana and took a bite. The he told his mom, 'Don't you love how you get that tingly feeling in the back of your throat when you eat bananas?'"

"That's kind of scary. What did she do?"

"I don't know. I guess she took him to the doctor to get tested, and that's how he found out he was allergic to bananas."

Not much of an elaborator, that Pony.