Blog Entries

Have you ever been in the bathroom stall when the person next to you begins talking and chatting away to you? She will say, “Hey girl hey, how are you doin’? I haven’t seen you in forever.” You are like, OMG, is this someone I am supposed to know. Was I not paying attention to passing her on the way into the restroom? So, you answer back with, “Fine, thanks girl, how are you doing?” Suddenly, she says in a totally different tone, “Hold on a second Fiona, there is a girl next to me who keeps asking me questions.” In a louder and more curt voice she says, “Excuse me, may I help you over there?” That is when you realize that she is talking on her cell phone to someone else and not to you. It is a very awkward feeling. Yes, I admit that.

  My son Adam was invited to go on a trip to Mexico with his new girlfriend and family. On the way to the airport, he developed severe stomach pains. Once on the plane, his stomach began churning and rumbling. He thought if he could quietly poot, it would help to relieve the pain and he would hopefully feel better. Soon after the flight took off, Adam began farting in a stream of deadly but silent series. Immediately, an appalling aroma began to envelope the entire airplane. The flight attendant who couldn’t take the disgusting smell any longer walked back to where people were sitting with their shirts covering their noses, trying to mask the smell. She sternly asked the girlfriend and her family who was making such an atrocious smell. Everyone in unison and with burning tears in their eyes, all pointed to Adam. The flight attendant firmly leaned down, looked him in the eyes, sharply pointed her finger in his face and angrily said, “Let me be clear young man. If you continued stinking up this plane with your vulgarity of vile behavior, I am going to ask the Captain to land this plane and make you exit off of it. It will be up to her decision as to where to land and leave you. Do you understand me?” Everyone of the plane began happily clapping and lowered their mask. He went to the bathroom and made it to Cabo with no further troubles. Yes, he admits that.

  In college, I borrowed a dorm mates bicycle to get exercise and also to run errands. She dearly loved her bike and treasured it above all else and only agreed to let me use it if I swore on my life that I would be careful and take good care of it. I promised that I would be careful and take excellent care of her bike. On the way to my first stop and destination, about three feet ahead, a train began crossing the track. What? Are you kidding me? I missed crossing the train track by seconds! The train blocked my and many other bikers and walkers path for what seemed like forever. On and on, clickety clack, clickety clack, geeze already, what the hell, how long is this train? Finally, the train stopped but stayed on the track for another thirty minutes or more. I noticed people were picking up their bikes, climbing onto the flat part of the train and gently placing their bike onto the other side of the ground while hopping off the train and continuing on their way. After a long debate with myself, because I did not want to hurt my friends bike, I thought, that looks easy enough, therefore, I will do it also. So, I put the heavy bike above my head, up onto the very high train bed and climbed and hopped up onto the train. Whew, that was harder and higher than I thought. Just about the time I got to the other side of the train bed and getting ready to gently lower my bike down, wouldn’t you know the stupid train started moving again. OMG, what if the train goes to another town or something while I’m still on it with my friend’s precious bike. Therefore, I panicked. Fear and anxiety took over my brain and common sense did not prevail. I was afraid the train would never stop again, so I threw the bike off the train and jumped off while it was moving. I rolled around on the grass and rubble a bit but did not get hurt. I can’t say as much for the bike rims. Needless to say, she never let me borrow her bike again. Yes, I admit that.

  During our youth we experienced animal magnetism or crushes not exactly knowing what these feelings and emotions were or even understanding them. We only knew that we were passionately drawn to the person that we saw at school. This person rocked our world. When we had the off chance of running into them at school, we experienced sweaty palms and our hearts would pound faster and feel like it was going to explode out of our chest. Our day was complete and considered a full success if we even had only a quick peek of the person that we secretly admired from afar. An example of this unquestionable love is my friend Cindy. Cindy was madly in love with a boy in her classroom. She did not care that he did not return her love or even knew her name. It didn’t matter because she was happy just knowing that her feelings for him were enough for now because she had a plan. Cindy discovered her star struck feelings for her handsome classmate in the 1st grade. Her plan for winning his love was for her to give him her brothers army men. Every night before bed, Cindy would sneak into her brother’s room and steal his army men. She would ride the early bus to school so that once inside the classroom she could secretly give them to her boyfriend. Daily and with sheer precision, Cindy would carefully line up the army men on the inside of his desk. Every morning and to his surprise, he discovered a new cool army man and was excited to see what each new day would present with the gift giving desk. After many weeks of expressing her love, she found that he was only interested in playing with the army men and not with her. She quickly became bored and moved on to her next conquest. He never discovered the identity of the gift giver and Cindy’s brother could never figure out the disappearance of his most prized possessions. Yes, she admits that.

 While visiting my friend April who lives at the beach we enjoyed an action-packed girlie weekend. We had so much fun eating and drinking too much, catching up, giggling, staying up too late, talking about mean high school girls and reminiscing of the good old days. We spent our last day playing games on the beach, swimming, laughing and meeting new friends. I had a long drive ahead of me so decided to leave the beach early. I grabbed up my chair and beach bag and shook the sand off the towel. I tearfully bear hugged April and said goodbye to all the new friends and acquaintances I had met over the weekend. While walking away, the beach gang yelled at me to say goodbye so I turned around, walking backwards and waved and blew a few couple of air kisses to them. I continued walking backwards, smiling and waving and didn’t notice or know that there was a cooler of iced beer in my path. I walked backwards straight over the cooler. The cooler opened up with me on top of it and all the beer and ice spilling onto me. My beach chair and bag flew up in the air and landed on me while my legs were sprawled straight up into the air. I got up, brushed off the ice and sand that consumed my entire body, adjusted my bathing suit bottoms and top, brushed back my sandy hair, lifted my chin, squared back my shoulders, picked up my chair and bag and walked away as if nothing had happened. I refused to look back because that extraordinary exit did not just happen. Yes, I admit that.

  My sister Vicki and I hung wallpaper for our very pregnant sister Judy’s baby room. Upon finishing, we stood back to admire our handy work. At the same time, we noticed the error of our ways and looked at each other with our mouths wide open. To our surprise, we had hung the wallpaper upside down! We didn’t tell her for a long time. Yes, I admit that.

  Back in the day, the drinking age was 18 years old instead of the current age of 21. During the summer in our small town there was not much to do for us girls except drive around and hit the several hot spots of where everyone was hanging out. The tennis courts were always a good spot for finding others for catching up, talking and other silly shenanigans. We would each drink a bottle of Annie Green Springs Plum Hollow wine or at least a couple of solo cups full. This was years before our wine tasting capabilities had kicked in and were refined. None of us had any wine etiquette and definitely, it was a long time before we became wine snobs. The driver would be in charge of getting a cooler of ice so we could continually fill our cups full of ice to keep our wine cold. One particular night, there was something bazaar happening with each sip or gulp. Occasionally someone would ask if they had something weird going on in their iced wine cup because it seemed as if there were chunky things floating around. We did not understand nor did it prevent us from continuing to consume our adult liquid beverage. After we turned on the car light, we saw something weird in the cooler yet we continued drinking and filling our solo cups with ice. Later in the night, one of the girls Cindy said, “Y’all, I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you would get mad but I threw up in the cooler earlier in the night.” Girl, no you didn’t. We had been drinking her throw up all night long. Ewwww. Yes, I admit that.

 

  My eight-year-old son Adam and I were riding our bikes to the pond in order to play with a remote-control boat. We had looked forward to this all day and finally gotten the opportunity. It was a beautiful day and a warm and sunny afternoon. Off we go towards the pond with Adam riding in front and I carrying the boat within my bike basket following close behind. We were exhilarated and riding fast over the bumps and divots along the dirt and occasional grassy path. Every now and then Adam would turn around and yell in excitement with a big, “Whoo-hoo!” All of a sudden, I hit a steep bump and lost control of my bike. Down to the ground I go, bam, crash and boom! My legs got all tangled up and soon, I was sprawled out flat on my back. The boat flies out and hits the ground almost near where I had landed. Adam, hearing the excitement, turns around and hops off his bike while quickly running over. With a worried expression, Adam looks down at me and in a concerned tone he asked, “Do you think the boat is ok?” Yes, I admit that!

  One night my husband and I were getting dressed to go out to a party. I wore the cutest turquoise dress but it had terrible static cling. I walked into the laundry room to get a can of static guard out of the cabinet in order to spray on my dress. At that moment from the other room, my husband yells for me to hurry up because we were going to be late. I quickly sprayed a considerable amount of static guard all over my dress. It had a funny smell, but I hurried out of the room and sat the can on the counter. The next day when I took dirty clothes into the laundry room, I noticed on the counter was a can of WD-40! Apparently, I had not sprayed static guard but sprayed grease instead. I opened the cabinet and there sat the can of static guard and yes, it ruined my pretty dress. Yes, I admit that.

  On an industrious day in the back yard, I spray painted several flower pots. My four-year-old son Colton asked if he could help and wanted to paint some of his yard toys. I handed him a can of spray paint and showed him how to not spray his face or body and to hold his breath. I also told him that he could paint his toys but was not allowed to spray paint the house, the lawn furniture or the plants and flowers. I thought I had covered my bases and continued working on the flower pots. After a while, I noticed he was being a little too quiet and went over to investigate. Any child that is too quite is usually up to no good. And boy was I right. To my dismay, he had spray painted the entire back of my car! He had found a short stepping stool, placed it behind the car and spray painted away using an entire can of paint. I was in complete shock as to what he had managed to do in such a short time. When I computed what he had done, I said, “What did you do?” He said, “You didn’t say that I couldn’t paint the car.” He was right and yes, I admit that.