Walmart Talk

I am not making this story up. I wish I were.

When my kids prepare to go to camp, a serious Walmart trip is necessary. Which is why I was pushing my loaded cart down the shampoo isle scanning the shelves for small, camp-sized bottles of Prell. I passed a woman in a Walmart uniform as she loaded conditioner onto the shelves, and I steered my cart to the side of the aisle.

"Excuse me," a deep, male voice behind me addressed the conditioner stocker, "where would I find the Preparation H?"
"Triste," she said in her heavily accented voice, "que?"
"Preparation H," he said louder. "Where is it?"
"Um," she hesitated, "I no understand. So sorry. What is it?"
"Preparation H," he enunciated slowly.
"No hablan. I not hear of this thing. What is it to be used for?"
AND THEN HE TOLD HER.
And I was wishing that I also could not understand English.

Seriously, are there cameras around recording this stuff?
BECAUSE THIS IS NOT NORMAL.

Boys About Girls

Vacations are fun and exciting, but what I really love are the conversations that happen after spending countless hours together. One such conversation happened during a game of Battle of the Sexes on our last night in Mexico. The girls drew a card and asked the boys the question written on it: How does a girl stop a run in her pantyhose? The boys discussed this question at length and came up with many possible solutions including: cutting the legs off and having pantyshorts, using a blowtorch to melt the fibers together, and covering the spot with duct tape.

"No," I told them, "the correct answer is to paint clear nail polish around the area."
"What?" Drake yelled. "That is ridiculous!"
I smiled thinking he was surprised that it was a good idea to purposefully put nail polish on clothing.
"That's crazy," he continued. "Who in the world would have such a thing as clear nail polish?"
"Yeah," Josiah agreed. "Whats the purpose of clear nail polish?"
"It would be for people who just like the feeling of paining their nails but don't want them to actually look any different," Drake laughed.
"Yeah," Josiah added, "they would sit and paint their nails and then show all their friends how they looked exactly the same as before they started."
"Look!" Drake mimicked in a girly voice, "I just spent the afternoon painting my nails and you can't even tell because the polish is CLEAR!"
"What a waste!" Josiah agreed. "Nobody would do that!"

And I have to admit, their logic was actually pretty solid.

Nature Channel Living

I'm not a cat person. Never have been. Which is why I cannot explain the collection of kittens I now have.

I had a cat named Fred when I was in college. Even though I had never loved cats, I loved him because he could fly through the air and land in my face as I opened the front door. That's cool. 
After Fred, I said goodbye to cats. I had had one cat, which was much more than I had ever wanted.

Recently, though, some mice came into my house. Cats are better than mice, so we decided to get a kitten. What took me by surprise, though, was how utterly adorable kittens are. They can jump straight into the air from a sitting position all because of a tiny noise. And when they want to be scary, they fluff their tail, stomp their itty bitty paws, and make a hissing noise. They think they are fierce, but they are just really hilarious.

So I took two. And then I took another one. Then another.

Yes, I have four kittens.

Please stop me.

And then my son said something terrifying, "Mom, don't freak out." When you tell a person not to freak out, that pretty much guarantees that they will freak out. And then something astounding happened. Josiah tiptoed to the garage, grabbed a kitten, and put it in my living room. Then, that small, adorable kitty moved faster than my eyes could really keep up with. It did something that looked a lot like ninja wrestling a horrible rodent until that rodent was gone.


In my living room. Where I do my living. Not my naturing.

Then that fluffy kitty began to play with a towel in an adorable fashion that would make you think she had not just swallowed a mouse.

I stood transfixed, torn between total disgust and amazed wonder. I can't decide if she is more disgusting creature or brave champion.

But I have four of them.