DO NOT Do This Outside

Back in yonder days when our family lived at the old (newly built) house in Rockspray subdivision, my friend Kara "The Maniac" Szczepaniec and I were spending a lazy Saturday or Summer day (can't remember which) at my house. It must've been pretty boring because we went with my dad to the grand opening of Peachtree National Bank. FOR FUN. And I'm pretty sure it was the first real bank in our town. It was on the corner of Crosstown Road and Peachtree Parkway, and I think another bank now takes its place.

We got a bunch of balloons.

A bunch.

And I got this crazy creative idea to make "hot air balloons" for my brother Jess' hamsters.

Which we did. We fastened the balloon strings to plastic cups and spent a heckuva long time trying to distribute the pull of the balloons evenly on all sides. (Because one of the hamsters took a little sideways spill on the first attempted launch.)

Then came the actual launch. 10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . .

And then we had hamsters . . . floating V-E-R-Y slowly . . . around the living room.

I can't remember if they ever made it all the way up to the top of the high ceiling, but I remember they went above the fireplace and floated all around the room. V-E-R-Y slowly.

We were in awe. Those hamsters must've been having the time of their lives.

When I went for a hot air balloon ride in college, it was the time of MY life. But I'll save that story for another day.

Miss Nancy Takes Virginia Beach

You'll need a little background to fully understand the conversation I had with Dallas this evening.  Or maybe you just had to be there.  But the background information is a story in itself.  It starts with Dallas driving home from work at 10:00 pm last Friday night in this seventeen-year-old beauty we like to call "Miss Nancy":

He was working two hours away from home at his dreaded day-job (which turned into a night job that evening - hence, the "dread"), and a huge thunderstorm had been pouring down for a few hours when I called to check on him at 10:00.  He told me that when he began driving the van home, the windshield wipers just STOPPED.  Mid-swish.  And he was in some rural Virginia town late at night in a heavy storm.

So he jimmy-rigged a little contraption out of some wire he had in the back of the car so that he could manually wipe his way home.  He thought, "Hey!  I can just stick my soaking wet arm out the window and pump it up and down for an hour-and-a-half on the freeway in this huge storm so that I can see my way home!"  And that's what he did!  When I called him, he was a half-hour away from home.

"Is your arm tired?"

"Yeah, a little."

"Are you wet?"

"Yeah."

BIG BURSTS OF UNCONTROLLABLE LAUGHTER FROM BOTH ENDS.

The laughter turned to tears when he told me that a car full of black guys pulled up next to him on the freeway, and they were like, "WHAZZUP??!" and taking pictures of him on their camera phones.  And he was like, "Yeah.  What's up?" with his arm going up and down.  The worst was when his little wire-guy started to bend in on itself and he had to refashion it.  Over and over again.  

As he got closer to home, I told him to tell me when he was pulling in to our parking garage so I could look out from the eleventh floor and see how funny it looked.  And . . . iiiiiiit was funny!  Poor guy.  But that was more like the icing on the cake for all of the scrapes he's been in since we've been here.  Without going into detail, here are just a few: 

He fishtailed all over the freeway in rush-hour traffic (without hitting anyone or rolling the car, luckily) when we first got here after swerving to miss an impending accident.

He locked his keys in his car at the start of a brand-new job.

The van sputtered to a stop late at night about a week ago when he was on his way home from work, and he got home at 1:00 am after being towed to some auto shop with his boss as helper.  Luckily, he had made it out of the Chesapeake Bridge Tunnel - THAT would've been a nightmare.

He was almost struck by lightning a few days ago when he was out in a storm on foot helping a Sales Rep look for a dropped binder on the freeway.  The bright flash, the loud noise . . . he ran for cover, and the search was called off!

He has had to move dead rats out of his way during his "day job" on occasion and has touched (and cut himself) on various rusty parts, so he's going this week to get a tetanus shot "just in case."  

Then TODAY he was driving to work when the BRAKES WENT OUT on the van.  Don't worry, Ray.  Everything's A-OK.

********************

So that's what you need to know to fully grasp the hilarity of our conversation this evening:

Dallas: "I got some new work lined up for tomorrow so you don't have to drive the Honda.  I can just take it to work, and you can drive the van around town."

Dionne: (?????)  "The van?  Why would I drive the van?  The brakes don't work!"

Dallas: "Well, they just started working like a minute ago.  I'm serious; like ONE MINUTE AGO." (blah, blah, blah, how the brakes started working, blah)

Dionne: "Are you sure you want me driving that thing?"

Dallas: "Oh yeah!  It's like in PRISTINE condition.  I filled up the brake fluid . . . I filled up the power steering fluid . . . I'm about to fix the windshield wipers . . ."

Dionne: (???)

Dallas: "What?"

Dionne: "Pristine?  Is that your definition of pristine?" 

And this is how I felt:

Actually, this is where I lay on the floor late at night talking to Dallas while he is in the shower cleaning dead rat off of himself after work.  It's pretty fun.  But it's the only time we get to talk in person six days out of the week.

Are we having fun yet???

Before the Geezer Ran out of Gas . . .

Don't let the title fool you.  He was one gas-guzzling geezer.  But don't let me get ahead of myself.  Just because I like that word and haven't said it in YEEEEAARS.  Geezer.  Geezer-geezer.

A few weeks ago I was dying to go running.  It's a good kind of addiction, running is.  It had been several days since my last run, so I found a place here to go on my first outdoor run in Virginia Beach: Mount Trashmore.  I'm not kidding; it is a real place.  And a real pile of trash.  More like a mountain, thus the "Mt." part.  It is covered with grass and things and has a nice little lake-ish area with ducks and seagulls and a jogging trail.  (But "don't eat the fish from the lake," my dad reminds me.)  So I decided to test out the trail.

I pulled up to the parking lot and parked right by the trail in the old van, Miss Nancy.  (She makes a great companion for stretching.)  Just past my parking stall pulled up an old man who looked ready to run, too.  Not one for social exercise with strangers, I started on my way so I wouldn't have to talk to him.  (Terrible, I know!)  

Just as I broke into a run, the old guy went ZOOMING past me.  Now I know that certain ways of life age people so that they look older than they really are, but this guy looked like he was in his LATE SEVENTIES.  My grandpa Van seems MUCH younger than him and he is 75, I think.  So when Mr. Wrinkly cruised past me, I was like, "What the?"  And then I saw his RIPPED legs and army t-shirt and thought, "He must be like some kind of retired military officer or something."  And he was faster than me.

But I enjoyed my run; breathing in the honeysuckle on the South side of the park and the smelly trash-smell on the East.  It wasn't too bad if I tried to breathe just through my mouth.  And the sun was shining through the thick, humid air, which made it really nice.  I love a good, sweaty run.  I decided to take the short loop since it was my first time back running in a week.

But wait.  Who was that coming near the fork in the trail from the LONG route?  Was it the GEEZER GUY?  Are you kidding me??  Was he about to pass me AGAIN??  I seriously started sprinting the minute I saw him (fight or flight, baby), and the minute I stopped at the van, he went sprinting past, just a hair behind me.  

And THAT is how I won the impromptu race at Mt. Trashmore before the geezer ran out of gas.

Death to Dionne

The scariest thing that has ever happened to me in my life happened two weekends ago.  In Georgia.  While I was supposed to be on vacation.

See that picture up there?  Me in a dunce hat?  Now that's scary!  But that is NOT what happened.

What about my mom here, WRASTLING a big snake down the street?  Scary you may say?  Not so, compared to what I'm about to tell you.

David driving Mama P down the stairs on his dirt bike?  She may think that's scary, but not compared to this.  Now look closely at the next picture.  Study those front windows on the house.  Notice how open they are to the blackness of a Southern night.  And remember that.

(Why oh why do I write scary stories when I am all alone in a strange new city?  Am I crazy??)

Luckily this happened the first night that Dallas made it to Georgia.  Or was it the second?  The girls and I had been there for a few days before he got there.  Let's just say it was a "rude awakening."  Oh my gosh, I am scaring myself already.

It was Saturday or Sunday night, and Dallas and I had gotten the girls to fall asleep finally.  They were sleeping in our bedroom on the floor of the upstairs bedroom next to the kitchen.  We were under a Tornado Watch, and the tin roof outside our room overhanging the patio indicated the severity of the storm.  The rain was coming in torrents; we could hear every shift of the wind, and the howling outside was so noisy that I could not sleep.  

A Tornado Watch just means that tornadoes are possible.  A Tornado Warning means that one has been spotted or has touched down in the area.  In that case sirens go off, and you run to the basement and take cover.  After living in Georgia long enough, I've become a little numb to the storms.  But now with little kidlets, it's a little harder to sleep well when you know you've got to listen for a siren - just in case.  So I was a little sleepless.  

Dallas was across the room on another twin-size bed, and I wanted to crawl in and use him for a security blanket.  But Kensington was crying downstairs, and I didn't want her to wake up everyone in the house.  I felt like she was having some sixth sense about the storm pelting outside.  Poor kid.  So I crept down to her "room."

We put her in the storage room in her Pack 'n Play to sleep at night.  She's such a good little sleeper; she was fine with it.  I, personally, would never sleep there.  It's such a huge, creepy room.  And it's at the end of the cavernous hall.  By my dad's office.  And the shop.  You just don't sleep in there.  And did I mention that it gets really really dark at night where I grew up?  And my parents live on three acres.  So it feels slightly secluded.  

Well, I went down there to help the little Choobs, and I got her to lay back down quietly.  But I couldn't sleep in the bedroom.  Not with all that noisy wind and rain on the tin roof.  So I grabbed a blanket and went to the living room to sleep.  I was getting a little creeped out (which doesn't often happen to me), and it started to thunder outside, to make things worse.  I was the only one awake in this large house, worried that I would be the only one to hear the sirens, and the huge black windows in the living room made me feel like the storm was watching me.  

As I lay there, I was almost asleep on the couch when I heard a crash from outside.  It sounded like maybe the garbage cans tipped over.  The wind must've been really bad, I thought.  Then Choobs started crying again.  It was like the part on Secret Garden when Mary finds the crying boy in the endless halls of the mansion.  That's how I felt every time I had to go downstairs to help Kensington.  

I went down and helped her get back to sleep.  Then I headed back down the hall to go upstairs, adjusting my eyes to be able to see through the darkness.  I was passing through the landing at the front entry and actually standing on the front rug when BANG BANG BANG someone was frantically knocking on the door.  Two feet away from me, some unknown stranger/monster was pounding on our secluded country door.  And they could probably SEE ME.  See me crap a brick.

I ran hysterically up the half-flight of stairs into my parents bedroom, threw on the light, and practically hyperventilated, "There is SOMEONE KNOCKING AT THE DOOR!" as the pounding came again and again.  I was literally shaking and cowering in the corner.  (I never knew this about myself.  That this is how I would act in a time of significant stress.)

My parents jumped up and began dancing around in their underoos, too!  My dad was trying to throw on some clothes, find glasses, etc., and why he did not bring a gun with him to the door, I have yet to find out.  3:33 am.  Luckily, Big Man Dave was right behind him when he opened the door. 

"I'm sorry to bother you, Sir.  I'm not a killer.  I've been in an accident . . . ."

WOULD YOU JUST DIE???  

Now I know I could never live on three acres in the country just because of the anxiety it would cause.  Anxiety, indeed.  Believe me, I crawled into that twin bed with Dallas afterwards and my raw nerves shook me to sleep two hours later.  And he was my buddy every time we had any middle-of-the-night issues thereafter.  I'm still not the same.

I had a similar experience last year at our home in Utah.  Dallas was out of town, and I lay in bed and saw the silhouette of a man's full body coming straight to my window.  (Which was in the basement.)  I pulled the same hysterical reaction and pounded on my upstair neighbor's door.  Luckily, it was only about 10:30 pm, and Rebecca's husband Peter heroicly went outside to ensure my safety.  He figured out that the shadow of the neighbor next-door (who was on his own property) was casting itself onto my window.  Fa-REAKY.  But the scariness of that one doesn't even come close the the TERROR I felt in Georgia, by George.

Dionne's "Better-Late-Than-Never" Spooky TRUE Scary Halloween Stories

"A Spooky Saturday Morning"

It was early one Saturday morning when I was about twelve or thirteen living at our old house in Georgia. The light came shining through the windows, but no one was awake yet; everyone was sleeping in. I had awoken to a feeling like someone was playing with my hair. I opened my eyes, but nobody was in the room. I looked over at Rikki (about 3 or 4 years old, sharing my room), and she still slept. The rustling on my head continued! I could feel someone playing with my hair. I thought, "Maybe there is a ghost in here!!" I was too scared to sit up, too scared to roll over, too scared to move. After several minutes, I finally got up the courage to look behind me, and Jess' hamster was crawling on my head! We never figured out how it climbed out of its cage, off of Jess' dresser, down the hall, up onto my bed and then onto my HEAD! I about had a heart attack.

"Tapping at Twilight"

One Friday night in Georgia, Jenny and I decided that we wanted to sleep outside on our family's boat parked on the basketball court behind our house. We thought it would be fun to climb underneath the cover on the boat and sleep in it like it was a tent! We put on our pajamas, brought our stereo and popcorn, and towed along our pillows and blankets and flashlight. We were giggling as usual, talking and laughing and telling all kinds of shocking teenage stories when we heard a "tap-tap-tap" coming from outside in the dark. We paused in our conversation for a minute and asked, "Did you hear that?" Continuing our talking and laughter, we paused again when we heard a little louder, "Tap-Tap-Tap," this time more audible than before. This time we nervously laughed and simultaneously whispered, "DiONNE! JENny!" We sat there silently for a few minutes and then continued our whispering. Neither of us had the courage to get outside of the boat to see what was making the noise. The tapping stopped, but after a minute, it started again. I was designated to climb out of the boat cover to find out where the sound was coming from. I took out my flashlight and peered out into the night, but the flashlight was too bright to see any surrounding areas. I had to turn it off! The sound came louder and more rhythmically than before! "TAP-TAP-TAP!" I climbed back inside the boat and made Jenny come out into to the night with me. The night was dark except for the moon and stars in the sky and the light shining off the corner of the house. Crickets chirped endlessly surrounding us, and we could feel the humidity envelope us as we leaped down to the warm pavement below. We clung to each other, laughing nervously and about to pee our pants!! "TAP! TAP! TAP!" We couldn't see where the noise was coming from. It wasn't the wind- there was no wind. It was coming from the front side of the boat. We tiptoed closer, squinting in the dark, when the tapping stopped, and from underneath the boat in deathly silence rang out, "BOO!" In a quiet moment of sheer terror, Jess almost lost his life to two screaming, dancing, laughing, crying teenage girls.