Voice Mail Woes

Drake told me that he was thinking about joining the wrestling team for school this year. As I was sitting in the carpool lane to pick him up from school, I thought it would be smart to call the school and find out when wrestling started. I called, and the front office transferred me to the head coach's voice mail.

Drake and his friends entered the car at the exact moment the beep to leave a message sounded in mygreet the kids after not seeing them all day voice I use when I see them.
ear. Somehow, the two experiences combined in my head, and I began talking into the phone in the

"Hey!" I said, overly friendly. "This is Sharla!" As if we were old friends instead of complete strangers. Rattled, I continued. "My son, Drake Hintz, who is a sophomore this year, is interested in Wendy."
"What?" Drake asked from the back seat.
"Who is Wendy?" his friends asked.
"I don't even know a Wendy!" Drake said.
"NO!" I shouted at the voice mail. "Not Wendy! Wrestling! He is interested in wrestling."
And then, fearing further action, I hung up.

"Well, Son," I said to his red-faced reflection in my rearview mirror, "I've done all I can do."

Mile High Bed

Twenty-two years ago, when Mike and I were first married, my parents said that they were throwing away their lumpy, old, horrible mattress. Being broke newlyweds, we told them that lumpy, old, and horrible sounded free to us so we would take their mattress.

Two months ago we decided that it was finally time to purchase a nice mattress for our middle-aged backs. Memory foam is all the rage these days, so we forked over the much-more-than-expected money and proudly hauled the heavy thing home. The next morning we smiled at each other in silence and stiffly limped about our breakfast ritual. Six days later we were watching TV well past our normal bedtime.

"Is there anything else you want to watch?" I asked when the late-night show ended.
"No," Mike moaned.
"I guess we should go to bed," I sighed.
"I can't!" Mike fairly shouted. "I just can't take it! I hate that mattress!"
"Thank God! I hate it so much!"
"We will return it tomorrow."
I put our old 4 inch mattress topper on the horrid memory foam, and we slept uncomfortably, but peacefully knowing it would be the last night we had to endure such sleeping conditions.

We overstayed our welcome at the mattress store the next day. The store offered only one chance to exchange the hated memory foam for something else, and we wanted to make sure we made the right choice. We finally settled on one, and, even though we had to pay extra, we smiled knowing it couldn't be worse.

"Did that mattress look super tall to you?" Mike asked over the phone the next day.
"No. Why?"
"I just dropped it off at home, and the pillow top on it is so big you can hardly see the headboard anymore."
"Well, at least it should be nice to sleep on!" I said, looking forward to finally sleeping soundly.

The next morning we smiled at each other in silence and stiffly limped about our breakfast ritual. Six nights later we stood silently by the bed, hanging our heads in dread, as we were about to climb in for the night.

"I can't do it!" I fairly shouted. "Thanks for buying such a nice new mattress for us, but I just hate it!"
"Thank God! I hate it so much!"

I dragged out our old 4 inch mattress topper and piled it on the mattress. Since the new height of the mattress was well above my belly button, Mike had to climb in first and then pull me up.

And that is why our fancy, new mattress is leaning against a wall while we sleep soundly on the lumpy, old mattress we know and love.

Text Pranks

I clearly have a texting problem. I have embarrassed myself countless times through the medium of text. It was already a problem. I didn't need any further help in order to eventually text myself into hiding. But my husband has discovered a way to make my problem even worse.

Apparently our smart phones have assimilated each of us into a collective in which actions done to one phone also take place on the other phones in the family. Resistance is futile. 

Mike discovered a way, which is complicated and outside of my grasp of understanding, to make certain words auto correct to other words when they are typed. When he makes this change on his phone, each phone in our family suffers the consequences. He decided it would be hilarious to "booby trap" words we use often. He does it randomly and without telling us it will happen so we never are able to protect ourselves. 

The first one he changed was "ok." A tiny, innocent phrase, "ok" suddenly became, "I went poo poo in my pants." This little phrase is apparently used by each of us more than might be expected. We have each fallen prey to this prank. We have sent it to many people, but Drake suffered the worst when he sent it to his boss. 

Then "Drake" became "Mr. Stinkerpants." This one trips me up most often. I have sent questions about "Mr. Stinkerpants" to almost everyone who knows me. 

Then "me" turned into "aliens." While funny, if Big Brother is listening in, I may soon end up imprisoned in a bunker below ground somewhere in Nevada due to all my activity with aliens. 

Just when I trained myself to type "okay" instead of "ok" to avoid the embarrassing poo poo auto correct, my son, Drake, who is too smart for my own good, changed "okay" to "no." That will confuse people.

My family, who knows me well, should understand that I am a danger to myself already. I don't need their help to complicate things. 

Old Man Mug

I set a challenge for myself awhile back. I wanted to learn to like coffee. I felt left out of the coffee hype, and I hate being left out.

For the last nine months I have had coffee every day. I vowed to only drink it black, so I never monkey around with it by adding cream or sugar. I still do not love it, but I do admit to a sense of satisfaction when I drink it. It is calming and comforting.

During this process, I have discovered some things:
1. Coffee gives you bad breath.
2. Coffee makes you crave a sweet dessert.
3. Brewing coffee makes the house smell comfortable.
4. When I make coffee, people start smiling.
5. Coffee is best when drank from an old man mug.

I had several mugs from my tea drinking days. However, when I made the switch to coffee, these mugs

just didn't satisfy me. I found myself reaching time and time again to a cheap mug I had purchased on a whim while at Dollar Tree. It felt right. I decided the reason the mugs felt right was that they were cheap and simple, like a group of old men might use while drinking their coffee black.

Thus began my obsession. I have been to nearly every Dollar Tree within reasonable driving distance in order to collect each old man mug Dollar Tree sells. I have five mugs now.

I think choosing the right mug might be the most important part of my coffee drinking. 

Too Bad

"You know what is too bad about me?" I asked Mike as we left the house on a rare opportunity to spend the evening doing whatever we wanted to do.
"This sounds like a trick question," he answered.
"With our location and our huge front yard, I could grow plants and sell them. I could probably run a very successful greenhouse."
"How is this bad?"
"I don't like to grow stuff. That is what is too bad about me."
"So you brought this whole conversation up just to let me know how you could be making us a lot of money but you aren't?"
"I guess that is another thing that is too bad about me."

"Don't forget about the parents meeting this Tuesday," I told Mike later that evening.
"I didn't know about a parents meeting,"Mike said.
"I told you about it on Sunday."
"I don't think you did."
"Yes, I did. I remember the exact conversation word for word. You were wearing your blue shirt and we were at HyVee in the dairy section."
"You know what is too bad about you?"

I think I'm going to regret bringing that phrase into our life.

Naughty Dogs and Dream Jobs

My dog was made to pull a sled through snow. So he has a pretty easy go of it when he runs through fields of hay. Out in the country, people let their dogs run loose. We did that until he caused trouble. There was the fact that he looks like a wolf and scares small children when he tries to hug them. There was also the time he trapped a raccoon on our neighbors porch at 3AM and woke their household with
his proud barks. Then there was the time he killed some of the neighbor's chickens. That time did it. We bought some heavy duty cable, and now Arrow spends his days straining and tugging against the cable. He lives at the edge of his leash.

Then he figured out how to bust out of his collar. He must have been thrilled at his new freedom and ran like the dickens with the wind plastering his ears to his head. He must have sniffed out the water in the nearby creek and sprinted his way through the forest behind our pond. When he infiltrated the horse farm, he must have thought to himself, "What glorious creatures I see! I should play with them!" He crouched, tail wagging, and, when the horse finally noticed my puny dog, Arrow pounced. Horses don't like pouncing dogs.

I got a phone call and arrived at the farm minutes later. I hung my head in apology as I introduced myself to the lady who could have but did not shoot my dog.
"He's such a nice dog," she said, "but he scares my horses and it's dangerous for both of them." I couldn't apologize enough as I took note of her beautiful farm. Three gorgeous horses held me in their lazy eyes as they nibbled on hay in the sun.

"My daughter would love to come see your farm," I told her. "She loves horses."
"I always need help around here. Is she looking for a job?"

And that is how my naughty dog got Emery the job of her dreams. 

Chicken Crazies

It is my personal belief that owning and raising chickens should not turn us into raving lunatics.

We knew when we filled our chicken coop with over twenty living chickens that we were embarking upon a journey that would stretch and challenge us. We knew we might need to do things we had never considered doing before. Things like frequent the feed store or save our table scraps.

I didn't really foresee the necessity of "removing" certain chickens. Apparently they can go nuts. When a chicken goes nuts, it tends to believe it is continually laying an egg. It sits in it's nesting box just waiting for that egg. But the egg never comes.

Unfortunately, when this happens, all the other chickens find it disturbing. They find it so disturbing, in fact, that as a group they all go on egg production strike. No eggs are laid until the sad, crazy chicken is gone.

I refused to be a part of this removal process. My husband undertook the job and removed the chicken. By that, I mean he removed the chicken's head from the rest of it's body.

It is my personal belief that when a man must, for the sake of his family, undertake head removing jobs, he should most definitely not place the headless chicken in the deep freeze for his wife to unsuspectingly find when forging for food.

NOT NICE.