The Ballad of Not-Bonnie

No good deed goes unpunished.

You might recall that recently, Val lamented that Hick had brought her NOTHING from his trip to France. Not even a giant Toblerone from within the county lines of Backroads. Nor had he gifted her with a semblance of thoughtfulness, like that time he gave her a $3.00 change purse and two boxes of Sno-Caps for Mother’s Day. But let’s not forget that Hick DID give Val a gift within the year 2016. For her birthday. Or perhaps Valentine’s Day. Hard to say, because Val’s birthday is within three days of that sweet holiday.

Far be it from Val to complain about actually getting a gift. Well. Unless it happens to be a $3.00 change purse and two boxes of Sno-Caps. But Hick does not understand the ramifications of the conditions he places on his gifts.

Here it is.

There was some question as to how much input Hick had on this token of affection, and how much was left to The Pony. There’s nothing wrong with the gift itself. Except that Hick played the guilt trip card.

“I see your gift is still sitting on the bookshelf. Aren’t you taking it to school?”

“Oh. Well. I guess I could…”

“That’s why I got it. For you to put on your desk at school.”

Let the record show that Hick has gotten me other gifts that he expected me to take to school. One was a nice pen and pencil set, in our school colors, and a fancy case. Any teacher knows that you can’t put that on your desk at school! No matter how well-behaved and well-trained the students, of any age, one day you’re going to walk back to your desk and see that your pen is gone. Gone, baby, gone! Then you’ll have to spend the hour walking around the classroom, looking at your pupils’ writing implements, and say, pointedly, “Did anybody borrow a pen off my desk? Because nobody asked, and it was there just a minute ago, and now it’s gone.” And somebody will sheepishly say, “Oh, I thought you let us borrow the ones you had out on your desk.” Or you’ll have to zero in on the one clasping it in his fingers, and he’ll say, “Oh! This? Yeah, I think I might have gotten it off your desk. Do you want it? I forgot my pen. I was just using it.”

Or that fancy cut-glass paperweight that could only become an implement of noggin’ knockin’ every time my back was turned. Some things you just don’t put on a teacher’s desk.

I do admit that I liked the shiny nameplate on a block of wood that was nicely done. Quite professional. IF I worked in a law firm or some prestigious office job. Or even as a receptionist at a scrap yard. But teachers don’t have them on their desks. The kids know who we are. Because we write it on the board for the first few days of school. And the parents know who we are, because they are fired up to talk to us, and aren’t about to confuse us with somebody else. It’s not like they’ll wander into every room, reading nameplates on desks. They will check in at the office and be directed to us.

So…to appease Hick, something I am rarely concerned about, I took that felt flower in its glass (!) vase to school. I put it on my desk.

GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY!

You would have thought I’d set out a platter of caviar. Strung a line of shrunken heads above my desk. Wheeled in a baby mammoth for dissection. Tongues were a-wag. “Mrs. Thevictorian! What’s that on your desk? Where did that come from? Who gave that to you? What does it say? Can I hold it? Don’t you like it? Turn it this way!”

Yeah. It generated a lot of excitement. You might picture our school in sepia tones, or gray and drab and depressing, like in the movie Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. That little pink felt flower was the talk of the building.

Let the record also show that the majority of my pupils are high school freshmen.

As it came to pass…the very next day, actually…one class took a shine to that felt flower, and gave it a name. Clyde. And I have to hear about him. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

“Clyde doesn’t like you.”

“Clyde can’t see the board.”

“Turn Clyde around. He want to see ME.”

“How’s Clyde today?”

“What did you do to Clyde? He turned his back on you!”

“We’re doing WHAT? Clyde doesn’t like that.”

“Clyde wants to watch a movie.”

Yeah. Putting that little fake flower on my desk costs me several minutes of unneeded attempted time-wasting every day, and extra effort to settle down the kids from all that excitement.

The school year is almost over, you known. I think it’s time Clyde came home.

Hick is Like a Box of Chocolates

No, I'm not saying Hick is sweet. I'm saying you never know what you're going to get. Hick goes from one predicament to another, with barely enough time for me to catch my breath.

Sunday, The Pony and I left to do the shopping, with Hick in the front yard talking to HOS (Hick's Oldest Son) and HOS's seven-year-old son. When we returned, there was no sign of any of them. That's not unusual. We set to putting away the groceries. No sooner had we begun than The Pony's phone rang.

"Oh. Okay. I'll be there in a minute." Heavy sigh. "Dad has the Gator stuck in the creek, and wants me to come get him out."

"How are you going to do that?"

"I have to bring him back to get the tractor." The Pony grabbed his keys and left. Darn that Hick all to heck, leaving me to do my own chores while he stole my helper! Hick has an incredible sense of timing. On Mother's Day, even! You'd think a woman could at least have her own son help HER on Mother's Day, and not run off to save his father from his latest error in judgment.

As soon as I finished putting away the last item, The Pony returned. Obviously having inherited his father's sense of timing.

"Dad already had it out by the time I got there."

Of course I had to rub it in to Hick when he got back to the house.

"I can't believe you stole The Pony away from me! I remember the days when you could actually WALK back to the house from the creek. You could have got the tractor yourself."

"Val. I wasn't down by the cabin. I was at the low water bridge getting sand for my sidewalk." That's out on the county road, about two miles from the homestead.

Never mind.

No $3.00 Change Purse For VAL!

You only go around once in life. So grab all the gusto you can. Oh. Wait. Val is not encouraging you to drink Schlitz beer. What she MEANT to say was, grab all the Mother's Day swag that you can!

Here's my take.

Two 5 x 7 spiral notebooks

A leather-bound journal

A planner

A two-pack of Paper Mate Profile Retractable Pens
(With the super-soft comfort grip, extra-smooth writing system, and easy-glide feel!)

A card from The Pony

A card from Hick

Okay. Everything except that one card was from The Pony. He knows just what I like. Hick, however, had volunteered to barbecue our supper so I didn't have to cook. All I had to do was cut up some baby carrots, some onions, wrap some corn-on-the-cob in foil, make The Pony a salad, and make my own BBQ slaw. Hick handled the T-Bone, the pork steaks, and the boneless skinless chicken breasts, which were mainly for my lunches all week.

Let the record show that the final product was delicious.

By 9:00 a.m., I had received calls and texts from Genius, HOS (Hick's oldest son), and The Veteran (Hick's second-oldest son) wishing me a happy Mother's Day. HOS also came out to the homestead to give me a plant.

Genius had planned to surprise me, but had a deadline with the solar car. They're taking it on the road this summer, competing against other colleges. He's still working full time until June 1st. So he's planning to drop in this Sunday for The Pony's graduation. And to see Puppy Jack, who I believe he called hideous in an early picture. We'll see what Puppy Jack has to say about that.

This Mother's Day certainly beat the pants off The $3.00 Change Purse and Two Boxes of Sno-Caps Mother's Day.

The Old Goat's New Goat

Hick has a new goat. Against the wishes of Val. His excuse was that the mini pony was lonely. I guess SO! Hick reports that when he first put the new goat into the pen, Barry (the already-named when we got him) mini pony thought the new goat was his girlfriend. Quite traumatic, I'm sure, to Billy, (the already-named when we got him) new goat.

More updates on the recently-returned France-trotter, Hick. We won't go into his latest transgression. I'm still trying to cool down from that one. And let me tell you, I was HOT to TROT! And not in a good way.

Anyhoo...Hick has been tearing out the side sidewalk to put it back just like it was. He has been mowing the grounds. He couldn't wait to go back down to his creekside cabin upon his return from France. Just in case some wildfires had broken out and were fast approaching, I suppose.

THEN I found out that Hick took Puppy Jack with him down to the creek!

"How did you get him there?"

"On the Gator."

"Didn't he try to jump out?"

"No. I held him. With one hand. When we got down there, Juno went out in the creek, and Jack followed her, but he didn't much like getting his feet wet. On the way up to the house, I put him in the bed of the Gator, and he ran around in it barking."

So...Hick is bonding with Puppy Jack. Who adores him. Stops what he's doing, whether it's gamboling through the grass like it tickles his privates, or chewing on his boneless fake-fur squirrel toy, or pooping, or following Juno, or chewing on The Pony's pants leg...just to look around and see where Hick is when he hears his voice. Of course he does the same for my voice, and runs towards me. So Hick hasn't stolen my puppy's affections just yet.

More Hick antics in the future.

Perhaps Puppy Jack Needs To Appear on an Episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?"

Let's hope Puppy Jack is part blue heeler, part dachshund, and part cat. Because if he's not, he's in trouble. He's already used up four of his nine lives!

Nobody pampers a puppy more than Val. Let's not forget her sweet, sweet Juno, who had a baby afghan all her own, and toys out the wazoo, and canned moist puppy chicken to her heart's content. Everything but an inside bed. And Puppy Jack even had THAT for the first week at his new home. Yes, Val is very protective of a new puppy. Did she not hold him on her ample chest, his little nose snuggled up by her neck, and nap right along with him? Nobody pampers a puppy more than Val.

Most certainly not The Pony.

It wasn't his fault, really, that he used up the first of Puppy Jack's nine lives. All he did was hold Puppy Jack in his arms like a baby, standing in front of the long couch, cooing and sweet-talking him on the second day of our new-puppydom. When out of the blue, Puppy Jack twisted like a corkscrew in a drink-deprived alcoholic's hand, and

TUMBLED OUT OF THE PONY'S ARMS AND ONTO THE COFFEE TABLE!

THUD!

We looked at each other, The Pony and I, as Puppy Jack scrambled and contorted and uprighted himself there on the coffee table. Let the record show that tears flowed from Val's eyes in sympathy, and The Pony let out an "aawwwww" kind of choking noise. Puppy Jack was okay, though. Despite his hard landing. And I cautioned The Pony that a baby dog was like a baby human, totally unpredictable, and needed a firm grip, and probably would not benefit from a fall of three feet onto a hard wooden surface.

Puppy Jack had a paw in his own second-life scenario. We had him out in the yard, and The Pony went inside to get his food. He purposefully left Puppy Jack down on the ground, so he didn't run around the porch following Juno so quickly that Val could not catch up, lest they went around to the back side of the house where the drop is about 12 feet to the yard. Puppy Jack heard me talking to him. He tried to find me, and ended up on a big fat log that looks kind of petrified. How he got up on that thing I'll never know. It's about 16 inches or more off the ground. Anyhoo...Puppy Jack got overbalanced and toppled off that log. I gasped, thinking he was going to land on one of Hick's flat rock art pieced that he has scattered along his rock garden. But no. Puppy Jack landed smack dab in the  middle of a nearby yucca plant, which broke his fall.

The third life loss was not so safe. The Pony and I sat on the front porch pew, talking to Puppy Jack while he trotted around all self-important, tail up and wagging, following Juno to and fro. She stopped for petting, and The Pony and I gave her attention so she knew that Puppy Jack's arrival is a good thing. Puppy Jack stood looking up at her, and got his back legs too close to the porch edge, and disappeared from sight. The Pony and I made eyes at each other. WHAT? We leaned over, and saw that Puppy Jack was up and walking. It's at least three feet from the porch to the ground in that area. The Pony, quicker off the pew than Val, said he landed on his feet! Go figure. Part cat!

Saturday saw Puppy Jack's fourth life pass before our very eyes. The Pony had him on the porch steps, to see if he's ready for climbing. He went down two of them the other day, turning his little body sideways in a kind of a hop going over the edge. Different from the Superman leap he takes, all stretched out, when going off Hick's brick sidewalk onto the rock garden. But this time, The Pony was watching him try to go UP the steps. He helped with the first one, which is a little bit taller. As with all things Hick, nothing is ever uniform. Puppy Jack stood on the first step, tried for a minute to come up the next one, then stumbled off that first step and hit hard on the brick sidewalk, sideways. He got up and staggered a minute, then did his Superman leap to get away from those devil porch steps.

We ARE taking good care of Puppy Jack. Really! No need to call those Sarah McLachlan people. No sad songs needed for Puppy Jack.

Let the record show that between the beginning of this post, and the end, when I went outside to play with him before his supper...PUPPY JACK WENT UP THE DEVIL STEPS ON HIS OWN!

Hick Gets Even-er Than Steven

Well. It's not supposed to work this way, you know. Hick should not be getting even with Val, especially when HE'S the one who started it!

All I did was tell him how to find his tool. You know. His conversion tool for changing euros to U.S. dollars. I did him a favor, really. It's not MY job to turn in an expense account after a business trip to France. AND I even called the credit card automated line and wrote down all the charges. Can I help it if they listed them in dollars, and also listed about 10 Internal Debit Adjustments, in several clumps, making it impossible to tie the IDAs with a specific charge? Let me answer for you: NO, I CANNOT!

Can you believe Hick was less than thrilled that he had to type in that information and write it down himself? I know, right? He had everything he needed. Just a matter of finger movements, really. For his job. Which pays him twice what Val's job pays her!

This morning Hick was a little whiny. He's worse than Puppy Jack sometimes, I swear. He said he was going to town for a haircut. That's right after I asked him what he was trying to do with his beard. The sides stuck out all willy-nilly, making him look like Mr. Bumble in the PBS version of Oliver Twist:

With a different hat, of course. So Hick tells me he's going to get a haircut, and I say, "Okay. I'll see you in four or five hours." Depending on whether there was a fistfight between middle-aged men on the parking lot this time, or not.

Let the record show that I had already washed a sink of dishes. I was making a shopping list for Save A Lot, so Hick can prepare a Mother's Day meal for us on Sunday. And I may or may not have watched couple episodes of Flip or Flop, switching over to The Pioneer Woman and Ridiculousness and Dogs 101 during commercials.

Anyhoo...Hick returned after less than two hours. "The barber shop was closed!"

"Then where have you been for two hours?"

"Well...I went to get some sand for my sidewalk bricks."

Let the record further show that Hick is now tearing out the SIDE sidewalk between the garage and the house, to put back just like before, same as he did with the front sidewalk. Not sure where he went to get sand that took him two hours. The Florida coast, maybe, if he declared a moratorium on his sweaving, and drove in a straight line.

Hick went back outside for a couple more hours. Then I saw him carrying Puppy Jack to his hutch with his hand under Jack's belly, and that poor pup held out to the side like an apple offered to a horse. Hick came back in the house.

"Why were you carrying Jack like that? You need to hold him close. He's a puppy!"

"Jack is fine. He likes to be carried like that. I had to put him up. I've got things to do."

"Like what?"

"Well...uh...I'm going to get a baby goat. Barry (the mini pony, already named when we got him) is lonely."

"HAH! You've planned on this for at least a month! Don't think I don't know! HOS (Hick's oldest son) told us when he drove us home after bringing your car for the airport. 'Dad is getting their little goat, too, as soon as he gets back from the trip. It's a cute little thing. It follows their little boy around the yard. They like it, but they can't keep it.' So don't act like you're doing Barry a favor. You planned this behind my back, and you know it. I don't want any more goats. The last ones ate the bark off the trees, and destroyed my lilac bush that I waited 7 years to bloom!"

"Oh, well. I'm going to get my goat."

Yeah. Because he already got mine. Anyhoo...I got ready to go to town. By now it was 12:15. I don't get in too much of a hurry these days. When I went to grab my purse, I saw a check in it for over $4000. That's right. Hick's expense check for France.

Funny how it wasn't there last night. And it wasn't there when I got up and washed the dishes. And it wasn't there when I made breakfast. And it wasn't there when Hick came back from the not-barbershop. Funny how the bank closes at noon on Saturday, and if I had only known Hick had that check, I could have left earlier to deposit it.

Now I have to go to the bank after school Monday, when we will most certainly have our First Monday meeting, since it was canceled last week because the meeting-giver was absent.

Sometimes, I think Hick is not only a spy, but also an evil genius.

Back-of-the-Book-Blurb Friday #13

Blog buddy Sioux is hosting Back-of-the-Book-Blurb Friday. I have 150 words to entice you to buy my fake book. Step right up! I'm giving away free popcorn and cotton candy with each fake purchase today.

Uncle P.T. Wants YOU!

Business has been down at the Big Top. "What this circus needs is new blood," says P.T. Narbum, proprietor of the Bestest Show on Earth. He gives strict orders to his barkers to be on the lookout for unattended children.

Unbeknownst to P.T., little Rhoda Markpen has a burning desire to join his traveling band of entertainers. Rhoda wants the world to know that she has the very best penmanship of any child who ever picked up a quill. After conning her mother's friend, Monica Lovebreed, into taking her to the circus, on the pretense of winning a basket full of kisses to give her father when he returns from the war, Rhoda tap dances her way around the unattended children sign. "Why don't you go see the lion tamer, Monica? I'll be fine here."

How many performers will turn up dead, with mysterious little half-moon bruises on their skin? (150 words)

___________________________________________________________________

 

Fake Reviews for Val’s Fake Book

Jo-Jo the Dog-Faced Boy…”This fake book made me want to lift my leg. Val Thevictorian writes worse than Lobster Boy.” 

Chang and Eng Bunker…”This fake book is so bad that we were beside ourselves when we read it! Our wives gave our 21 children a stern talking-to, making it clear that they were never to read a fake book by Val Thevictorian.” 

The Lion-Faced Man…”I roared with displeasure upon reading this counterfeit tome. It was easy to ascertain that Val Thevictorian has no pride.” 

The Bearded Lady…”Shiver me whiskers! This Thevictorian lady needs to grow herself a beard as a disguise, so that nobody will associate her with this hair-owing attempt at fake literature.” 

Claude Daigle…”I wrote the best hand! That's why I won the medal! Val Thevictorian cannot call what SHE does 'writing.' Not even FAKE writing. Alls I can say is, 'Val better not ever take a walk on the dock with Rhoda when she's wearing her tap shoes.'” 

Leroy the building super…”This fake book was so bad that I would not even rip out the pages to make myself some very comfortable, very flammable bedding down in the basement.” 

Miss Fern…”It has always been a personal nightmare of mine that one day our fine school might turn out a student who writes a fake book such as this. If Val Thevictorian had attended our academy, I would have personally kicked her off the dock and held her underwater until I was sure she would never write another line.