This Actually Took Longer To Write Than the Time It Took Me To Vote

Two years ago, when I voted in the November election, it rained. Two years before that, when I voted in the November election, it rained. This evening, when I voted in the November election, it rained. Guess who's taking an umbrella to the polls in November 2016.

Despite leaving school by 3:45, the skies grew dark and headlights came on. Val is no fan of driving on twisting two-lane blacktop in the dark and the wet. But she did it, of course. Because that's her civic duty. It buys her a ticket to complain for two years. Or gloat.

Many of my teacher lunch table cronies were early voters. Fie on those folks whose polling place is on the way to work! Mine is in the opposite direction. So I wait until the workday is done, lest there be a delay. My voting buddies reported a glitch in the school town election hall. The ballot scanner was not working. Allegedly...it gave a message something like, "You have already voted." Which seems kind of impossible, because mine was working this evening, and it even said, "Thank you for voting." Not that it recognized me or anything. Nor did theirs have any idea who voted. Maybe they were stuffing that scanner too fast, like the father and son and son ahead of me who didn't wait for the green light, and the scanner choked a bit, unable to swallow, until the older son did a bit of a Heimlich maneuver and pulled the ballot back from the clinched maw of the scanner, explaining to his little bro, "You didn't wait until Dad's was in. You have to let the green light come on."

Hick said the scanner at our place was also on the fritz this morning. He went by there after leaving for work at 6:00. He does not have a classroom full of antsy adolescents waiting for him unattended if he is late for work. I made sure to tell Hick how to vote. Normally, I don't bother. He has a mind of his own, and sometimes we simply cancel each other out. Not that he'd tell me. He learned his lesson after confessing to the Ross Perot debacle.

Anyhoo...I had to tell him to vote NO on the education issue and YES on the child molesters and also YES for 9-1-1. Not that the education issue will affect me, because, ahem, I will be retired before it will take effect. The child molester issue is a vote on whether an accused molester's previous record of convictions for child molesting can be revealed to the jury. The consensus at the lunch table was that this is too good for child molesters, the idea being that a better plan would be requiring them to be turned loose in prison to serve their time with the "general public" as one teacher put it. Upon further inquiry, she stated that yes, she DID mean the "general population." Gotta recommend that TV show "Lockup" for her next time. The 9-1-1 issue puts the funding for our county system in a 3/8 cent sales tax, rather than having only the landline subscribers pay for it as a tax on their phone bill.

Hick did not think the child molesters should have to reveal their previous convictions. He thinks the alleged criminal should have a right to be tried only on the merits of his current case. Whatever...you're not going to get a tableful of teachers who devote their lives to protecting kids to agree to that.

So...climbing down off my soapbox...let's go to church. The church where I voted. Chapel, to be exact, as that is its name: Val's Voting Chapel. Almost. I can't reveal its real name, as it might be swamped with looky-loos who want a glimpse of Val's haunts and hang-outs. And speaking of haunts...that was one spooky spectre this evening.

It was a dark and stormy night. Nowhere, a dog barked. The blacktop parking lot of Voter Chapel was full. A big dually truck was trying to back out of a space. An SUV was parked all cattywompus at the entrance, and six cars sat along the retaining wall where they would have to back out blindly onto the blacktop at the risk of cars flying over the hill to pulverize them. I went on past to the gravel lot.

That parking lot used to be gravel. Now it is laced with moss and dead leaves. It's not even a regular shape. No square or rectangle or circle. Just a blob where cars can arrange themselves any which way. Three sat there under the big hickory tree. I knew it was a hickory, because even though the leaves had been rained off, some hickory nuts still clung. Then there were the fallen nuts (heh, heh, I said fallen nuts) that I trod upon as I made my way across the moss to the sidewalk in order to go around the front to the side door and the basement voting area. The dark church loomed above me, its stained-glass windows with their pointy arches mere pastels of what they must be when the light shines out. Darkness had settled in, the woods loomed menacingly along the back of the property, past an unkempt wooden shed of unknown purpose. If not for the multitude of perhaps 35 voters, it would have been an eerie setting.

I lumbered down the carpeted stairs to the church basement and confronted the local election volunteers. That's how it seemed. Like my presence was an intrusion. One guy had just gone down the line, many were marking ballots at tables better suited for pot luck dinners, and the white haired hens were cackling to beat the band. The one at my end of the table, behind the book for OOPS, almost gave away my last initial, which, of course is "T" for Thevictorian, finally turned to look at me. Not in a friendly way. I thought it was going to be a staredown. I wanted to tell her, "Sister, you think you know, but you have NO IDEA what I go through in a typical workday, and I could stare you down until the cows come home." Instead, I spoke first, in order to speed things along, and get back to The Pony sitting in T-Hoe on the undressed set of a real live horror movie.

"Do you need to see my ID?"

"Yes."

"Do I need to take it out?"

"No. Not as long as I can see the picture."

Talk about a horror movie. I withdrew my drivers' license that nobody seems to find the least bit flattering. Thank goodness nobody keeled over when viewing my flat plastic countenance. I signed the book and was shuffled down the pushed-together tables, walking the gauntlet to get a ballot. Other cackling hens stopped when they were darn well ready in order to service my voting needs. One handed me a ballot. Another took the cap off a Bic pen, as if I would abscond with it if given the chance, requiring them all to give chase. It would have been slower than George on a Rascal pursued by senior citizens on other Rascals.

The rest is history. I voted. My ballot was sucked into the scanner. I gave back my pen and snagged an "I Voted" sticker. The Pony had not been attacked, and no bloody hooks were found hanging from the door handles when we got home.

I appreciate the suffering that came before me in order to allow me my suffrage.

The Silver Lining of the Raptor-Taloned, Elbow-Jabbing, Virus-Breathing Fart Cloud

The Pony is down in the dumps this evening. He has been staying after school for about six weeks now, every Monday, to work on a contraption that will fling a pumpkin. This is an activity for a new club that formed this year. They have a self-imposed deadline of Wednesday.

When The Pony entered my classroom at 4:45, he was not himself. Why the long face, one might ask, forgetting that, duh, he's The PONY. He pranced to and fro. I could tell something was on his mind. He's not much of a talker.

"What's wrong? I can tell something's going on."

"Curly can't stay after school tomorrow, either. He has band. It looks like we're not going to get done. And it's our part that's holding everything up."

"You can stay until 3:45. But I have to go vote. We won't have any longer. You know we have to go way out past home to where I vote."

"I know. But it's not worth it. I'm the only one who can stay."

"Isn't there anybody else that can do your part for you?"

"We had four people in our group. But Curly and I are the only two who ever stay to work on it, because the other two have sports."

"Well...you can't be expected to do everything. You have stayed every week."

"I know. We need plumber's tape and two holes drilled. The other two guys have shop class, so maybe they can do it."

"You don't need to worry about it. You did all you could."

"We might have had a chance if Curly brought the plumber's tape today like he said."

"Clubs should not make you feel bad. Don't worry about it."

Yet he did. Because he's The Pony. He's not used to leaving things unfinished, or not having what he's supposed to have. Like that time he forgot to wear PANTS for a lab, and was nearly in hysterics, even though the worst thing to happen was that he would have to make it up one day after school. So I called my mom to go out to our house and find his pants and bring them.

On the way down the hall as we were leaving today, his teacher mentioned a bunch of kids going home with a stomachache.

"Now The Pony has one. He feels bad that the only reason the pumpkin-flinger won't be done is his fault."

"Oh! I told him not to worry. We've got it covered."

"See, Pony? She's going to go down to the shop every hour tomorrow and work on it herself."

"That's right. I'll get it done."

The Pony was still not convinced. On the way home, he commented that nobody had any plumber's tape. But he was sure his dad had some at home, because he'd seen it. At first I wanted to verify that we were talking about plumber's TAPE, and not plumber's CRACK. But it just wasn't the time.

Hick came in from feeding his animals, and asked me first thing, "So how did the pumpkin fling go?"

"Shh...they didn't do it yet. And The Pony is afraid it's his fault because his part isn't done. Curly didn't bring the stuff, and they need two holes drilled and some plumber's tape."

"Aw. Hey, Pony! Do you need a drill? No? I have some plumber's tape over in the BARn. Let's go get it. No...you don't HAVE to walk over there with me. Wait. I think there's some downstairs."

Hick went to the basement. No plumber's tape. He went to the BARn while I dished up The Pony's spinach & ricotta tortellini with garlic toast. Hick was gone quite a while. That was not a good sign. The Pony was almost done eating when he returned.

"Well, I guess I don't have any plumber's tape. I was thinking about running by the auction anyway. I'll pick some up while I'm in town."

"Before you eat? Your supper will get cold."

"Let it sit there. I'll have it when I get back."

Let the record show that Hick rarely goes to the Monday night auction. But when his boy The Pony needs some plumber's tape, he makes a special trip.

Because that's the kind of daddy he is.

I Still Haven't Quite Mastered This Child-Rearing Business

Now that Hick is adding The Little Barbershop of Horrors as a sideline to my proposed handbasket factory, I feel like I need to step it up a notch. Can't let Hick have the newest business on the block. I'm leaning towards a halfway house for nerdy teenagers. Val's School For Boys Who Can't Dress Themselves and Don't Really Care About Helping People. Perhaps you can guess my inspiration.

This morning I hollered to ask The Pony if he wanted to wear shorts or pants. The temperature was below freezing. The Pony replied, "Don't really care. Whatever you want to lay out." Yes. I still lay out clothes for The Pony. You might think, perhaps, "Val! It's time to cut the apron strings!" Uh huh. But you thinkers are not the ones who are seen with The Pony on a daily basis.

Genius grew tired of my taste in clothing in middle school. By his freshman year, he was actively choosing his wardrobe during back-to-school shopping time. No Walmart fall-aparts for him. He was given a budget, and selected his gladrags online. As my mom and all the old people at church used to say, "Genius always looks so...neat."

Then we have The Pony. He would let me drape him in velvet and not give a hoot whether or not it was socially acceptable. He would wear clothes from a tourist who asked him to watch a suitcase and never came back. He would wear a woman's cashmere sweater with a red dot and not think twice about it. I daresay The Pony would wear a puffy shirt designed by a low-talker and not have the sense to object. He's the boy who fell off the monkey bars and hurt his butt on the first day of kindergarten, and was discovered to be wearing TWO pairs of underwear. "You laid out clean ones with my clothes this morning, and I put them on. You didn't say to take off the other ones."

This morning I chose a pair of khaki pants and a navy blue polo shirt. I laid them on the back of the couch, where I always lay his clothes, straight from a folded stack in the laundry room. I cut out the middle-man long ago. No need to carry those clothes to his room and put them in drawers, when I only have to go back in and select them for wearing.

I put the finishing touches on my shopping list while The Pony was dressing. We gathered a pint of day-old chili, four Entertainment Weeklys, and a job application to drop off at my mom's car on the church parking lot. No, she's not looking for a job. The application was for my nephew-in-law, who just got laid off from his job in the lead mine. We had a brief discussion of whether to leave the door locked or unlocked, since Hick was Gatoring about the grounds. The Pony passed me, loaded with his burden, as I looked in the dog house for my sweet, sweet Juno. Alas, she was no doubt burrowing through the burr field behind Hick, having a grand old time living a dog's life.

As I rounded the porch corner I saw it. The Pony's complete clothing selection for a morning at Walmart, with his mother, Val, who is a small-town celebrity, everybody seeming to recognize her on her jaunts, what with the 17 years and 1700 students whose lives she has touched. There he was, silhouetted against the white frost of half the front field. He had dutifully donned the khakis and navy blue polo. And on his feet, to complement this outfit, was a pair of Adidas black slides with white stripes. That is all. No socks. His toes wiggled in the wind chill.

"I can't believe you! That is NOT appropriate for Walmart." (Hoping he had never seen 'The People of Walmart' in all his computer-fiddling.)

"What? You always let me wear them!"

"Yes. With SHORTS. On days that the temperature is above freezing. Not today."

"Awwww...."

"Go back in."

"Okaaaay. I'll put on shoes!"

"AND SOCKS!" It never hurts to be too specific with The Pony.

So...yes, I still lay out The Pony's clothes. His sartorial sense is like Forrest Gump's momma's box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. I folded his clothes in matching ensembles for the three-week Missouri Scholars Academy this summer, and cringed to see him in pictures the week after he had to do laundry. His answer to that? "Mom. We ALL looked like that." And he was right.

Thus the need for Val's School For Boys Who Can't Dress Themselves and Don't Really Care About Helping People.

Good Shock Collars Make Good Neighbors

Thursday evening we came home about an hour late, and found three boxers in our BARn field where the chickens like to browse. Not boxers, like muscular sweaty men with 0.5 % body fat, swinging their padded fists and clobbering the noggins of their opponents. No. Boxers. The dogs that I do not find aesthetically pleasing, nor wish to find roaming suspiciously about Hick's chicken zone.

I stopped T-Hoe in the middle of the gravel road and glared at those boxers. I know they belong to the neighbors across the road. The ones whose dogs have already killed several chickens, though only one which has been admitted to. I knew they had one boxer, and that long-tailed standard poodle who invade our homestead as soon as The Pony and I drive away each morning. The two bonus boxers were unknown to me until this moment.

Those dogs had the nerve to turn and look at me over their muscular shoulders, toned from chicken-chasing, no doubt, like I was the intruder. They gave me that faux surprise expression, like Jerry in George's hospital room when Elaine walked in as he was pushing the pillow onto George's face to put him out of his self-requested misery. Those dogs might as well have said, "Val. What are YOU doing here?" One of them was in abominable shape for a boxer. Her belly hung down nearly to the ground. She looked as if she'd recently eaten a Saint Bernard and a Great Pyrenees. Like a turducken, she was a Boxbernees. She really needs Jenny Craig. And not for a snack.

I wish I had taken a picture of them standing there so insouciantly, as if they were inspecting their personal chicken herd. Then there's no neighborly denying. But I did not think of preserving evidence. I put the windows down and hollered, "Get out of here!" That usually works from the porch. That, and the memory of Hick shooting one of them with a paintball gun, I suppose. One walked slowly across the road in front of T-Hoe, maintaining eye contact all the way. Then he stood on the grassy strip between the road and his other neighbor's horse fence. I hollered some more. Not so much for the dogs, but hoping the neighbors would hear and call their murderers back. That didn't happen.

This morning, Hick returned from his mysterious trip to town. He didn't stay long, no doubt because he has his own barbershop now. "I seen a pile of chicken feathers beside the road, next to our buddy's horse fence."

"Huh. That's no surprise. The chicken killers were prowling around your BARn field Thursday night. I know we don't have near as many chickens as we used to."

"Yeah. I need to get a cartridge for the paintball gun. They stayed away for a while after I shot that one."

"You'd think the neighbors would know their killers are eating our chickens again. They always take the carcasses home. Which one did they eat?"

"One of the white ones, I guess. It's a pile of white feathers."

Here's the thing. Even if they didn't see their precious pets with our meaty fowl in their jaws, those neighbors drive by the exact same pile of feathers that we do. A wild predator is not going to grab a chicken, take it across the road, and rip into it in the open, where people pass by. It's going to drag that chicken into the nearby woods, out of sight. I suppose those neighbors might think our chicken looked depressed, and crossed the road to lay down and die of a broken heart, ejecting her feathers with her last exhalation. And that the white feathers on their land blew there in the wind.

I know its the country. But their dogs' right to roam kind of ends when they come onto our land and eat our chickens. Other dogs make the rounds and don't eat the chickens. It's not like we didn't offer a couple of sessions with Old Shocky to make their pooches averse to tasting fresh fowl flesh.

I can't imagine they would remain so silent if my sweet, sweet Juno took a bite out of their two horses every couple of months. If she did that, I would put Old Shocky around her sweet, sweet neck myself, so she would learn that horses are not snacks.

What I need is a male German Shephard pup. One to raise with the chickens as part of his pack. One who will take the guarding of his territory seriously. We've been one dog down for over a year now. I declare that next summer is the time to enlarge our canine family. I will start working on Hick now. By then, he'll be ready to give in.

Or he'll be a pretty good shot with a paintball gun.

Remove Your Elbow From My Back, Val Said Pointedly

Alas, my friends, Val did not have a restful slumber last night.

The moment I plopped myself onto my side of the marital bed, I was stabbed in the back by my sweet baboo. That’s right. A left elbow intruded between my shoulder blades. That’s the proximal end of the ulna poking the space between the scapulae, plural for scapula, in science teacher talk. Of course I squirmed to get away, but it followed me, that pointy implement of torture.

I felt like a chunk of beef speared by a skewer. A maraschino cherry pierced by a plastic sword. A cocktail weenie stabbed by a festive red-cellophane-frill-tipped toothpick. Like a cube of day-old bread impaled by a fondue fork. Like a whale harpooned by a…well…a harpoon. That princess with a mere pea under her stack of a hundred mattresses had nothing to complain about.

When I dared voice a complaint, Hick denied that his bony protuberance was in contact with my thinly-padded spinal column. He then moved the offending appendage, rammed it under my pillow stack, and denied that it was there. “My arm is NOT under your pillows. Your pillows are on my arm.” Hick would argue with a guy when he stumbled and accidentally stuck his chocolate bar in the guy’s peanut butter. I can hear it now: “No! YOU got peanut butter on MY chocolate!” There is no arguing with Hick when he’s in denial. But that doesn’t mean I can’t try.

“Duh. I KNOW my pillows are on your arm. So why did you put your arm UNDER my pillows?”

Hick snorted and removed the intruding limb, choosing instead to breathe me into insomnia.

Here’s the worst part. The salt in my between-scapulae wound. Hick got up this morning and told me to wake him in an hour. He was going in to work late, because he was tired.

Readier Than a Proposed Handbasket Factory

I think Hick is almost ready to have a rootin'-tootin' ribbon cuttin' for his Little Barbershop of Horrors. He's got four walls now. Okay. He always had four walls, even back when this structure was supposed to be a hay shed. But now he has four walls decorated on the inside.

You've already seen Wall 1, it of the no-fireplace mantel and baseball memorabilia. Now Hick has added two chairs. I suppose that's his waiting area. Notice that he is starting out slowly. Just taking the overflow from his Saturday barbershop frequented by bald men who sit around chewing the fat and rabble-rousing when an impromptu road rage fight finds its way onto the parking lot.

Next, he has Wall 2, the lighter and spoon wall, which I hope does not speak toward any strange drug-preparation ritual. I doubt Hick would even know of the uses of spoons and lighters in the drug culture. But avid reader and chock-full-o-culture Val does. Don't ask. A lady reveals nothing. Didn't you retain your lessons from A League of Their Own?

The mirrored wall, or as I fondly call it, Wall 3, reflects that St. Louis Cardinal mantel. I suppose that mirror came from an auction, or else from my grandma's house. Looks like this is where Hick will park his barber chair, with counter space for his tresses-trimming accouterments. Perhaps those are cubbies for cups for customers' shaving cream. Not sure about that. But very sure that Hick has never read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, so this is not an ode to Johnny Nolan's shaving mug.

And now for Wall 4, my personal favorite, the fisherman's wall. I am especially partial to those fishing lures hanging near the ceiling, some of which may be my grandpa's and my dad's. Or else they are just auction baubles with the audacity to give me a feel-good vibe. Watch out! Looks like we've got a flying fish, ready to swoop in and pluck Hick off that ladder if he has a spell of vertigo.

That's the grand tour. I'll let you know when the city officials arrive for the ribbon cutting. Maybe Hick will sell hot dogs off Gassy G, and find an old earthenware jug he can fill with lemonade so folks can take a pull, a snort, a swig...and pretend it's moonshine. I'm not going to push that issue. Hick brought home some real moonshine from Asheville, North Carolina. Yep. Carried it right on and right off the plane in a 20 oz. Mountain Dew bottle. That was before the strict regulations. The Little Barbershop of Horrors has no liquor license, so it will serve no alcoholic beverages.

I think the next order of not-yet-business if for Hick to scout those auctions for a
"We're Open!" sign.

The Ladies Take Over the Barbershop

We’ve got UNRULINESS, blogfriends. Right here in Barbershop City. We’ve got UNRULINESS. In the middle that's a capital L. That rhymes with not-heaven. And that stands for Little Barbershop of Horrors. We’ve surely got UNRULINESS. Right here in Barbershop City. Right here! Gotta figure out a way to close down that future den of iniquity!

Oh, dear. Where to start. Hick has been working night and day…well…evening and weekend day…on his precious barbershop. I have fresh pictures, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow for them. Because right now, you must hear of Hick's latest barbershop adventure.

When we last convened, Hick had painted the front wall red and set up a mantel with no fireplace, a mantel dotted with St. Louis Cardinal memorabilia. That left him three bare walls to contend with. But in Hick's mind, that was only three walls left to decorate with man-things for my barbershop. So he got to furnishing his newest labor of love.

Last week, Hick came stomping in the front door at quitting time. Oh, not quitting time after work at his day job, which he should be keeping, I tell him, rather than thinking we can exist on the proceeds of his pipe dream. No. It was quitting time from decorating his barbershop.

Hick was agitated that day, my friends. Agitated, like a hipster doofus in a dented motorcycle helmet after an encounter on the street with the former boyfriend of a gal with a big wall of hair and a face like a frying pan, Crazy Joe Davola, the Pagliacci fan, dressed as the tragic clown.

"My barbershop is full of them! Ladybugs! All over the place! There must be five thousand of them! They're down my collar, up my sleeves, in my hair...all over me!"

So of course he came straight into the house to virtually shake himself like a wet dog, spraying ladybugs throughout our homestead. At least that's what I pictured upon hearing his lamentations from my dark basement lair. That's the last thing we need. An infestation of ladybugs to rival those in my mom's drop ceiling, which don't seem to bother her, since they go back into their hideaway after crawling around on the walls and windows all day.

So far, I've only seen one, near the ceiling, on the master bathroom wall by the shower. If only Hick hadn't chopped up those mice in the ceiling light vent fan, they might have eaten any ladybugs that get in the attic. Nah. That's just wishful thinking. Mice don't eat ladybugs. And of course Hick is going to chop up every mouse he gets a chance to behead in a bathroom ceiling light vent fan.

I find a certain symmetry in the fact that five thousand LADYbugs invaded the MANcave barbershop that Hick is decorating.