The Honeymoon is Over.

1973

My husband-to-be had just graduated with a degree in Nuclear Engineering, and I had just graduated from High School. Yeah, he's a cradle robber. We didn't particularly care where we went after the wedding as long as we had a few days away from work and studying.

In the days when it was common for friends to do despicable things to your car while you were busy getting married, my fiance had the inspired idea to hide his pride and joy in the Buick dealer's personal garage. He gave his brother a new can of car wax and told him if the guys just had to write nasty slogans and paint lewd pictures on his car, at least don't ruin the paint job with shaving cream.

I hope the artists were embarrassed when they brought the car back to the church. We drove out of the parking lot to waves and shouts of congratulations. One of the college roommates tossed a bottle of champagne in the back seat as we rolled past him.

We had decided to go to Wichita after the ceremony and then mosey up to Minden, NE. Minden is a ways off the beaten path, but it has an excellent pioneer museum. By the time we arrived in Wichita, it was sprinkling a little. At Kellogg and Airport Road we were waiting for the red light to turn green.  There were three cars in front of us.


THUD!

KATHUMP!

My brand new husband stood on the brake, but we were shoved into the car in front of us just as the light turned green. Behind us, a new Honda Civic had either hydroplaned or utterly failed to notice the traffic wasn't moving. Our day was ruined, but that driver had a day he'd never forget. An Olds 88 had plowed into him and turned his Honda into an accordion. Miraculously, he was not injured.

The people in the car in front of us were detained while the police investigated the accident.  Their car only had a scratch on the bumper. There was no visible damage to the front of our car either.

There we sat, holding up traffic, with some horrible art decorating the car. Maybe that guy in the Honda didn't hydroplane after all. Perhaps he was trying to read what was painted in wax on the trunk.

I didn't get out of the car since it was raining harder by then. I didn't want to ruin my gorgeous hairdo. A very nice police officer stuck his head in the window and offered me congratulations.

There was considerable damage to the rear of the Buick. Fortunately, it was drivable. When we got to our hotel, we sheepishly called home and told both sets of folks we had been in an accident, no, we weren't hurt, and please let the insurance agent know. I was SO glad we didn't have to ask them to bring us another vehicle to drive, or worst yet, come and get us.

That little chore finished, we decided to sample the champagne. Remember, it was shaken a good bit when it was thrown into the car two hours earlier. Then it was severely jostled in the wreck. I had given the wire muselet (I had to Google that word) one twist when the cork exploded out of the bottle and champagne showered half the room. It drenched the Gideon Bible on the chest of drawers. There was scarcely enough for us to have a taste.

Our room overlooked a swimming pool one or two floors below us. For some unfathomable reason, I thought that sounded kind of cool when we made reservations. At a truly unreasonable hour the next morning, we were awakened by an instructor with a bullhorn running a swimming class through their drills. Before we could even consider burying our heads under the pillows and going back to sleep, our phone rang.  It was our banker/insurance agent/friend.

"I hear you were approached from the rear," he drawled.

Learning the insurance would cover the repairs, we goofed off in Wichita for half a day. We had a mechanic look at the damage before we drove the car very far. At the small town of Minden, Nebraska, the motel clerk wouldn't check us in until we got our marriage license out of the luggage and proved we were husband and wife.

That was 45 years ago yesterday. Someone commented the honeymoon was almost over before it started, but we say it will never be over.

Efficiency Expert

My husband's first job as a nuclear engineer was at the Dresden power plant near Morris, Illinois. It was owned and operated by Commonwealth Edison. There were several engineers on site. Many were recent college graduates and newlyweds as well. Since it was nothing unusual for them to stay at work 12 or more hours at a time, they were in the habit of calling their wives a couple of times a day just to check in. In the morning they might call and make sure she was awake and getting ready to go to work or school. In the afternoon, they just called to say hi. There were two phone lines at the plant. One with the local phone company and another direct line to the corporate office in Chicago.

Since this was in 1974, it was at least twenty years before anyone had a cell phone. The calls home to the wives were made on company phones and company time. 

About a year after Commonwealth Edison hired my husband, they retained an efficiency expert to find ways to cut costs within the company.  The man traveled from site to site and studied procedures. At the Dresden power plant, he observed employees making personal phone calls. The engineers were taken to task. 

They informed the guy that marital bliss was maintained through the phone cord. Nevertheless, he told them to cut back. They protested the company was committing telephonus interruptus.

One day my husband answered his desk phone to discover the engineer at the desk next to his was on the line. 

"Bill, why are you calling me? You're sitting right beside me."

Bill laid the receiver down, leaned closer and whispered. "I called your desk long distance on the Chicago line. Their efficiency expert will never figure this one out."

They continued with their work but left the two lines open for an hour or so.

Rule 41: Never tell an engineer he can't do something. 

Pigweed Memories

Piggie and his friends and family lived in a big field.  It was their whole world.  None of them could see all the way across.  It was huge. Since they weren't explorers, they would never know precisely how vast their world was. Piggie had been living in this field for several generations. He had seen a lot of changes since he was only a seed. 

There were thousands of his brothers and sister, aunts and uncles, and cousins who stayed in the same field. He had a lot of big, strong brothers but he was the largest, strongest, smartest pigweed in the field. 

He was very fond of his family. They looked to him for advice. He had other friends too. He especially liked Velvet. Piggie wished he and Velvet could get married so he could touch her soft, heart-shaped leaves all the time, but his family had vetoed the idea. That didn't stop him from hoping some of his pollen drifted her way. 

Actually, the original Piggie had passed away several summers ago. He had been the lone survivor of a chemical warfare attack. What doesn't kill you makes you strong. Right? Like a sentinel, he had grown tall and proud in the midst of soybeans. Before he died of a killing frost, he stored up all his memories in his pollen and seeds to teach his children. 

Every year Piggie learned something from his parents who had lived the season before. It was imperative he do so. When the cold came, he would drop his seeds on the ground and hope the knowledge saved in them increased from his experiences. 

Not all of the species living in his field were friends of his. He and Sticker weren't what you would call friendly. Sticker, in his quiet way, did a great service for Piggie. Rabbit hated Sticker with a passion. They were mortal enemies. Sticker stayed close to Piggie and spread a carpet next to him. Rabbit couldn't nibble on Piggie's tender parts without getting sharp barbs in his feet and fur. Since Piggie appreciated the help, he let his shadow rest on Sticker for part of the day so he wouldn't get too hot. It was an equitable arrangement.

The other plants with whom Piggie shared the field were snobs. He didn't like them at all. They must have been in the military because they acted like straight rows were the most important thing in the world. And they were so needy. They needed a lot of food and water. Piggie could survive on a fraction of what they required.  They were stupid and lazy as well. They only produced a handful of seeds, and none of them remembered a thing their parents had taught them when they sprouted the next spring.

Piggie and his family of seeds had grown into a lovely green carpet. As they grew, they got reacquainted. Many were newcomers who had drifted in from other worlds. Not all of them had the same knowledge as Piggie and his family. They promised to teach the newcomers all they could.

One day they noticed a strange noise. It rapidly grew nearer and louder.

"What is it, Piggie? Where is that noise coming from?"

Piggie and most of his family knew at once what the noise meant. It happened every summer, sometimes two or three times. Every year they learned a better strategy for coping. Deep in Piggie's psyche lurked a memory of a huge iron monster with sharp rolling blades sweeping through the field and killing practically everyone who hadn't cozied up to one of the soldier plants in their straight rows. There was little to learn or pass on when that happened. His great-great-great-great-great-grandfather had barely survived. Piggie, however, knew a method to conquer the threat from the sky.

"Spread the word.  Hold your breath and close your eyes until I tell you it is safe. This is important. Do what I say. Hurry, there's not much time. Pass the word."

Suddenly, a noisy metal bird swooped down. It coughed nasty smelling mist that drifted down and covered Piggie's head. He squeezed his eyes shut and told himself not to breathe. Around him, he could hear other plants crying and coughing. He also heard the snobbish soybean plants laughing at them.
 

Most of the plants didn't have the stamina he had developed. Before the day was over, many pleaded with him for aid. Wisely, he did not answer. He would not speak until it was safe. The pampered soybean plants were jeering at them now. 

The noxious odor faded but Piggie's skin burned and he had trouble thinking. It took a great effort for him to whisper instructions to the other plants. "Play 'possum. Pretend you are dead. Just let your head droop over. Let your arms hang down. Go to sleep."

After a few days, Piggie began to feel much better, so he straightened up and looked around. A sad sight greeted him. Everyone in the field was sunburned. Well, everyone except the soybeans. A few of them appeared sickly, but for the most part, they were unfazed by the the poisonous fumes. His family was another story. Their beautiful green leaves and skin had turned yellow. The ones who hadn't obeyed his instructions were already turning brown. In a few days, they would be brittle. Their seeds were lost. His friend Velvet and Sticker were also dead. Piggie could see a few thorns on Stickers dead vines. Even in death, Sticker would keep Rabbit away from him. 

"How bad is it?" Piggie asked. Across the field, reports trickled back to him. Too many had ignored his warning. They were gone, along with a new generation of seeds. There was good news also. More had survived than last year. 

Soon Piggie and the survivors had outgrown the soybeans. The next time the big yellow bird dropped poison on them, they didn't even hold their breath for more than a few hours. The mist burned, but they didn't get sick and turn yellow. 

When the autumn winds came, Piggie and his family said goodbye to their seeds and watched them scatter. The children born from those seeds would carry the memory of this growing season and know how to act next summer. Their numbers were increasing exponentially. Piggie hoped the pigweed species in neighboring corn and soybean fields had learned something as well. Soon, the breezes would spread the smart seeds further away where they could teach new youngsters.

As the cold arrived, Piggie and his family told one another goodbye. "See you next spring," they said, although they knew it would be their children who would sprout to learn more lessons. Those children would remember their parents.

                  +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Although the above is meant to be humorous, herbicide-resistant weeds aren't. I hope you weren't rooting for Piggie. Some weeds have become so tolerant to herbicide, the application only makes them mad for a few days. Then they grow back with a vengeance.

Here is a link to a comprehensive site, if you want to know more about it.

http://weedscience.org/

Oreos

Growing up we had silly house rules for various games, but one set-in-stone rule for life. You do not tell lies. You couldn't water it down and make it a fib, or a story, or any other word which equated with untruths.  Thou Shalt Not Lie.

Liars were punished. Sometimes, just the thought of being punished was dreadful enough to tell the truth, even if you knew you were going to get in trouble anyway for something you did.

One day when my brother and I were about 4 and 6, or maybe 5 and 7, our mother discovered Oreo cookies on the dining room table. The first no-no was that no one asked mom if they could please have a cookie. Egads, the soft yummy filling was missing. Who ate the middle out of the Oreos and left the cookie in plain sight? 

My brother was the closest and he was questioned by Mom. He knew he was innocent, so he threw me under the bus, (a phrase that won't be coined for half a century). 

"She did it." He's pointing at me and I'm wondering what I did.

"Lisa, did you eat the middle out of these cookies and leave the outsides laying here?"

My Mom is looking at me with that scary, mean mom face and I didn't know why.  I hadn't done anything wrong. Therefore, my brother was lying.

"I didn't do it. He did it." I pointed at him to make sure she knew which one of my only brothers I was talking about.

This circular logic revolved around the room a couple of times with mom threatening to get the yardstick and switch us both when my little brother just happened to look at Dad.

Canary feathers were clinging to his lips.  

"Daddy did it," he exclaimed.

Mom apologized to us and asked Dad if he was going to let her punish us.

I never was satisfied with the answer he gave.

You Said WHAT to Grandma?

CAUTION: This content is not G-rated.

My brother graduated from college in 1979 with a chemical engineering degree. Then began the job hunt. Without naming any corporations, he interviewed with a firm that manufactured paper products. Our grandmother was anxious to hear about the company and whether he had a chance to land a job. When she learned the primary product was baby diapers, she wasn't as enthusiastic. She couldn't imagine that a large plant would limit themselves to one line and insisted on knowing what else they made.

My brother was as vague as possible and admitted that they did make other stuff. 

What other stuff? Grandma demanded specifics.

Later, my brother said he didn't want to tell her, but she made him.

In the 1970's, if a man didn't want to talk about unmentionable feminine hygiene, he could just say Kotex, and everyone got a pretty good idea what he meant without going into greater detail. There were other brands, but you get the picture.


"They make Kotex, Grandma."
 
Grandma's lips snapped shut, and she dropped the subject. Forever. By the way, he didn't take that job.

Today, kids aren't so reticent about what they say around their grandparents. For instance, last year my son and daughter and their respective spouses played Cards Against Humanity with my mother. If you aren't familiar with that game, I beg you not to look it up.

According to their own press:
Cards Against Humanity is a party game for horrible people. Unlike most of the party games you've played before, Cards Against Humanity is as despicable and awkward as you and your friends.
The game is simple. Each round, one player asks a question from a black card, and everyone else answers with their funniest white card.

Wikipedia says:
Cards Against Humanity is a party game in which players complete fill-in-the-blank statements using words or phrases typically deemed as offensive, risqué or politically incorrect printed on playing cards.

Anyway, these four thirty-somethings convinced my 80-year-old mother to play. Ah-hem. My brother and I played as well.  

Grandma was a good sport. I was offended by how well she embraced the perverted nature of the game. It was just wrong.

I don't know who won. I don't know if we kept score. I think the game is over when someone laughs so hard, they puke.