Help! I've locked the car and my wife is inside.

One cold February day my husband picked me up for lunch and we drove down the street to Woody's for a hamburger. As soon as he shut the door on his pickup, he knew he had locked the keys inside. In the old days one would have asked around for a coat hanger or flyswatter handle to bend into a hook, force past the top of the window and fish for the knob on the lock post. We called the locksmith who said his helper could be there in fifteen minutes.

We ordered our food. Before we were done eating, the assistant came in the restaurant with Ed's keys and pointed out the obvious. The pickup was unlocked. However, he had a problem. The bar he used to slide past the window and jimmy the lock mechanism inside the door was stuck in the passenger side door. He told us to go ahead and finish eating while he tried to get it loose.

When we went outside a few minutes later he was still wrestling with the tool. It was only 10 degrees Fahrenheit and I worried about whether I was going to have to walk nearly a mile back to work. Since the pickup was actually unlocked, I got in, started the engine and fired up the heater. It was beginning to be nice and toasty inside while Ed and the locksmith both put their minds and their muscle to loosening the slimjim.

Allow me to paint the scene for you:  A woman is sitting inside a running vehicle. Two men appear to be trying to force the door open on her side.

About that time another customer exits the restaurant. Did I mention that we are parked right in front of the entrance?  The new actor in the scene might be 19 or 20 years old. The first thing he notices are the two men fighting with the slimjim. There are more than enough hands doing that work and he doesn't ask if they need help. Then his gaze slides past them to me sitting in the passenger seat. At that point he stops and looks back and forth from me to them, then from them to me. It is obvious he is wondering why the woman in the cab doesn't just open the door from the inside. I grinned at him. A big, vacant grin that left him wondering if that woman went off her meds very often.

By the time he was out of sight the slimjim finally came loose from whatever it had snagged and I didn't have to get out of the warm cab and walk back to work.

Traveling Salesman

Traveling salesmen. They peddled everything from handy-dandy gadgets to make life simpler, to soap and magazines. Knock Knock. No, it's not Avon calling.

In a day when the majority of women stayed home and raised kids, the traveling salesman was sure to find the lady of the house when he knocked.

"Good morning, ma'am. Isn't it a beautiful day? Let me show you my wares."

Mom reluctantly allowed the man in the kitchen door where he opened his case on the lid of the washing machine. She looked at his samples and was making noises about not needing any of that product. The salesman, fearing she might not buy anything, began to compliment her.

"Are these your little brother and sister?" He pointed to my brother and me. My Mom, at 5' 1" and ninety pounds, didn't appear to have ever been pregnant or given birth.

"No, I'm their mother."

"Why, you look much too young to have big kids like these. You can't possibly be over twenty!" He confidently stepped closer to her as he troweled on the flattery.

Unfazed, my mother told him, "I got married when I was ten."

The man shied away like a horse who hears a rattler and stared horror-struck between mom and the two six- or seven-year-olds playing a game on the floor. She grinned at him, no deceit showing in her bright gray eyes and honest expression.

"Is that even legal?" he exclaimed. He snapped his fold-out sample case shut and ran out the house like the dogs were after him. 

I guess he didn't want to make a sale after all.

Rule 10.  Mom has been pranking people for years. Never underestimate her.

Steadily By Jerks

When I was in high school, my dad was employed by National Trailer Convoy. It was a little different sort of job than picking up freight in one place and delivering it to another. Specifically, he moved mobile homes. A house trailer is a pre-fab structure built on a flatbed trailer. It has a hitch and wheels making it portable. 

The home's owner had responsibilities to fulfill before it could be moved. He should have removed the skirting, unhooked the utilities and made sure the tires were sound. According to the checklist Dad went through with every owner, they also should have secured the cabinet doors and furniture inside the home.

This didn't always happen. Dad came home from one location telling about a trailer anchored in a sea of children, dirty diapers and dogs. The only adult he saw was a young woman. She did not have the trailer ready to move. Some of the tires were flat, but she had spares. He had wrestled the second tire onto the lug bolts when he heard a voice right behind him say, "That's poop."  He looked around and saw a three-year-old boy poking at dog droppings with the handle end of his tire wrench.

Once or twice, Dad was accused of damaging a home in transit when it wasn't his fault. In an instance I particularly remember, the owner showed up during the process of situating the trailer on its new foundation. The guy exclaimed that the outer wall had pulled away from the frame at the back corner. What the heck did the so-and-so driver do to his house? Dad invited the guy to take him inside so they could try to see a reason for the separation. The culprit turned out to be a Chevy engine block in a bedroom closet. The wall didn't pull away from the floor. The floor pulled away from the wall.

Moving a mobile home can be a logistical nightmare. The trailers are over-length and over-width. To be legal, the driver must purchase a permit from the state highway department. Much like an aircraft flight plan, the route and time frame must be observed. It is illegal to pull an over-width, over-length object in the dark for obvious reasons. A front escort car was required to alert oncoming traffic of the road hazard. If the trailer was over a certain length, a rear escort was needed as well.

If one didn't provide their own escort, the driver had to hire one. After seeing his bottom line suffer from paying for an independent escort, my dad decided my mother should do it for him. She drove a bright yellow Mustang. Add a roof-mounted orange, revolving light and a fold-up sign that said WIDE LOAD and what do you have? An escort car. This endeavor provided my dad with years of fodder for wife-bashing stories.

In one incident, National Trailer Convoy had been hired to move three homes for the same company when their employees were reassigned. The distance was far enough the drivers worried they wouldn't get the job done in one day. The evening before the move they readied the homes and got hooked up. The next morning they fudged a little on the daylight hours by going down dirt roads for the first few miles. When they reached the highway, it was still fifteen minutes until sunrise. Dad and the other two drivers had a brief confab and decided to chance it. Mom was driving the lead escort car.

"Okay, we're going now," Dad told her. He turned to get in his truck when the entire area was lit up with strobing orange light.

"Turn that @#$%@#% thing off," he shouted at her. "Why don't you just use a siren to announce our presence? Every highway patrol in thirty miles can see that light."

It must have been nerve-wracking for Mom to drive that escort car. Rules vary from state to state, but she needed to maintain a minimum and maximum distance between Dad's truck and her car. Dad always said she didn't have good depth perception. I expect he was right because she would speed up to get ahead of him and decide she was too far away and step on the brake to slow down. When he saw brake lights, he said he never knew if he should be shifting down or not, so it was equally frustrating for him to follow her.

When someone asked him how his wife did at escorting wide loads, he said she drove 'steadily by jerks.'

Marble, Colorado

Happy Labor Day! I hope you are doing something fun today. Here is one of my fondest memories.


Labor Day 2005

We took my parents to beautiful Colorado to see my son.  Rather, he took his dad to photograph scenery.

 
Maroon Bells is a short drive from Aspen. Even with a layer of clouds, the peaks and reflection were beautiful.

From there we went to Marble.  My mother was recovering from knee surgery. Nevertheless, she was gung ho to hike to the back entrance of the Yule Marble Quarry where some of the whitest marble in the world is mined. We walked slowly, and she held my arm. She was determined to see everything. When we got there, we had some fun. It's hard to tell from a photo, but that slab was about 5 feet tall and at least 8X8 square.

What good sports.

The good sportsmanship didn't last when we got home and printed these pictures. Mom thought they were funny.  Dad didn't.

Rule 19:  Don't out kid a kidder.

More touristy information:

Marble Mine

 This is the chunk I lugged back down the trail to the car.

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. 

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.

The Goat Who Ran Out of Gas

My grandfather on my mother's side was a backyard mechanic and ran a little shop from his farm. We're talking subsistence farming on 40 acres, raising alfalfa, a handful of pigs, a milk cow, and hens.  He rented a pasture where he had a modest cow/calf herd. 

In the mornings, when my grandma left for her job in the school lunchroom, half the neighborhood men convened at his house.  After drinking a couple of pots of black as tar coffee made in a glass percolator on the stove top, they adjourned to his shop and wasted away another half of the morning smoking roll-your-own and telling stories. (Boy, did my brother ever get in trouble for repeating a word he heard!) The shop was dark and grimy. Everything had a generous coating of black axle grease or motor oil on it. He didn't own anything modern like a parts washer, so there were dishpans of black, oily gasoline sitting on the floor for rinsing off bearings and the like. I always worried those men would burn the place down with their matches or the ash off their cigarettes. 

Each fall it was a combined effort to chop enough sorghum to fill everyone's silo to feed their cattle through the winter.  Each man had a job they knew very well and they went from farm to farm until it was done. One of the neighbors was also a first cousin of my grandfather. His name was Orle. I don't know exactly what was wrong with him. Easy explanation was that he was 'simple'. He always crowded into a persons space and got right in their face. If he asked you a question, he didn't wait for an answer, but would say Huh? way down in his throat. He kept that up until he got an answer. Once, my dad decided he would just ignore him.  Dad lost. Another neighbor was a cousin by marriage. He had a bird dog named Jack that stuck its nose in my crotch every time I got near it. Not exactly germane to the story. 

These three cousins plus two other neighbors usually filled silo together. They used an ensilage cutter much like this. One day they were taking a lunch break, sitting around on the ground under some shade, and a goat kept trying to get into everyone's lunch pail. My grandfather sarcastically asked his neighbor what he would take for that goat since he was so proud of it. He said a quarter and Orle (the simple one) reached into his pocket, threw the man a twenty-five cent piece and hollered SOLD. The joke was on grandpa, and this bunch made sure the goat went home with him at the end of the day. 

I don't know what kind of goat it was. I expect a meat breed. It had horns that curved back and seemed pretty big to a 7-year-old. It must have been someone's pet. My brother and I named him Billy. He stayed around the yard and didn't get out on the road. We tried, unsuccessfully, to get him to pull a little red wagon by tying a rope from the handle to his horns. Technically, he pulled it, because it moved at great speed when he ran off.  On the other hand, the wagon was bouncing on its side, and my brother and I were in a tangle on the ground. Not to be thwarted, we tried it a few more times and decided Billy didn't have enough training. 

After retrieving the wagon and rope, my dad took Billy by the horns and led him into Grandma's HOUSE. The goat was already upset from the wagon treatment. The results were worse than the time Dad tucked a thirty-pound pig under each arm and let them loose in the kitchen. 

My brother and I had been outside recovering from the wagon wreck. Hearing shouts, we ran to the house. When the goat's hooves hit the hardwood floor, it went spraddle-legged. The more it struggled to stand, the crazier it got. It also lost control and rained goat droppings all over the dining room floor. 

Soon we were laughing, jumping up and down, trying not to step in anything, and generally adding to the chaos. My mom screeched at my dad and took a rolled up newspaper to the goat. Dad told her it wasn't the goats fault, so she brandished the paper at him. My grandpa collapsed into a chair and held his feet off the floor as he clutched his ribs. "It's playing marbles!" he guffawed. When the over-excited animal was back outside, my grandma cleaned up the mess. She never did get mad at my father for any of his tricks. My Mom had serious words with my Dad, but he never did quit grinning.

Billy did everything that goats in children's storybooks did. It ate tin cans, for instance. We thought he was great.  He had one talent, or vice. He liked to hang out with the guys in the shop. He lapped up gasoline out of the pans on the floor. The first time I saw that I was sure he would die.

One sad day we went to see Grandpa and Grandma and couldn't find Billy. We looked everywhere. We were frantic.
 

My dad told my brother and me that Billy had wandered away from the house, ran out of gas, and couldn't get back home. 

My brother and I were traumatized by Billy's disappearance. We imagined dreadful scenarios of him getting run over by a truck, or laying down in some distant field and starving. We talked about him all the time. I mean until we were in our 30's. Really.

Several years ago, I got in my dad's face and told him I was a big kid now. I could take the truth. What happened to Billy?  He laughed and told me. I called my brother up and bragged that I found out what happened to the goat. Then I kept him in suspense for two years before I gave him the answer. Dad played along and kept it on the QT as well.

I won't be so mean to you, dear reader. A neighbor's grandchildren came to his farm for the summer, and they took the goat. From there? I don't know.

PRANKING MY BROTHER

Generally, I don't recommend playing practical jokes on people who know you well. They know how to get even.

When I was teetering on forty, a flyer from a well-known photography company appeared in our mailbox.

             FREE GLAMOUR SITTING

Free stuff.  I'm in, with my husband's enthusiastic approval. A lot of ladies I knew responded to the invitation. Students from an area cosmetology college did our hair (but only the part around your face that would show in the photo) and applied makeup. The photographer provided racks of accessories, from pearls and lace to denim and rhinestones, and feather boas.

About six weeks later they rolled back through town with the proofs where we learned the fine print. I wasn't the only one who mistakenly thought I'd get some free pictures. My husband was persuaded to purchase a framed canvas of his favorite, and we bought a couple of loose 8 x 10s and all the proofs.

I gave one to my mother and told her it was my thirty-nine and holding shot. There is something about sitting in an alluring pose with a professional photographer tilting your chin just so, and giving you a specific spot to look at that changes your entire demeanor, especially when combined with soft lighting and out-of-focus effects. Mom spent way too many words saying she didn't recognize her daughter. She said I ought to send one of the poses to my brother and see if he knew who it was.

My cousin from Denver just happened to be visiting. So we hatched a plan. At first, the idea was to anonymously mail the picture from an address he wouldn't recognize.  My cousin graciously said one of her friends wouldn't mind if we used her return address. Naturally, she would need to carry the envelope home with her and have it postmarked from the city.

Then I got the idea of messing with him. What kind of message could we write on the back that would make my brother think a strange woman had sent him a picture of herself?  We considered and discarded the idea of saying something like 'Wish you were here.'  We didn't want his wife to accuse him of something he hadn't done. Finally, we settled on 'Thinking of you.' My cousin wrote on the back of the picture in her lovely script and dotted the i's with cute little hearts. 💜 💜

Two days later it belatedly occurred to me we had excluded a vital participant from the joke. I called my sister-in-law and confessed what we had done. She promised to keep an eye on the mail. Several days went by. I had stopped imagining possible scenarios of my brother pulling that picture out of the envelope.

His wife called. In a barely audible voice, she said, "Lisa, the picture is here. How long am I supposed to keep him guessing?"
I said I thought a week or ten days would be about right.
"I can't do that. He's about to stroke out," she said.

An hour later he called.  "You got me good.  REAL GOOD."

He went on to tell me that when he opened the envelope, his first instinct was to stuff the package in the garbage disposal. (It probably had something to do with another story about strange high heels in his hotel room. He was innocent!) He couldn't destroy it because the mail was on the counter where his wife had laid it. She was sure to ask what was in the manila envelope. By that time she had sauntered into the kitchen, and he managed to choke out that someone was playing a rotten trick on him.

First, he investigated the return address. A grade school friend lived in the Denver area. He looked the address up, and it didn't match. It didn't occur to him that our relatives in Colorado would play a joke on him. Then he combed through the business cards he had exchanged with female engineers over the past few years. None were from Denver. None should be sending him enticing pictures.


Meanwhile, his wife had nonchalantly examined the picture and read the intriguing message on the reverse. "I think this looks like your sister," she blabbed.

He told me he scrutinized the photo even more closely and disagreed with her. He retrieved his family memento shoebox, and a magnifying glass, and compared every picture he had of me to the one in his hand. Through the process of comparison, he proved the glamour image wasn't me.

About that time their daughter came home from school. My sister-in-law stuck the picture in her face and said, "Quick. Who is this?"

"Aunt Lisa," she responded.

As practical jokes go, that one was a great success. I spent the next ten years waiting for him to get even. He sure knows how to keep a person in suspense.

UHT OH, ADWIAN

In Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, the title is a secret signal between a high-ranking Air Force officer at Strategic Air Command in Nebraska, and his brother back home in Florida. It is a bone-chilling warning that nuclear war is impending. When I was growing up, our family had its own code for disaster. Thankfully, we never had to use it because of mushroom clouds on the horizon. My brother was a Boy Scout. He participated in all the mysterious activities Boy Scouts do while sisters stay at home. Cool stuff like wearing a uniform to meetings, camping out, practicing interesting skills, learning to cook over a campfire. It sounded like fun. He came home from one such adventure very excited about a skit two other campers had performed for the entertainment of the troop. I should stop right here and say this skit may have been published exclusively for Scouts in a pamphlet suitable for the age group. Never having been initiated into the arcane world of scouting, I don't know that for certain. Without concrete proof I will give the credit to that prolific writer, ANONYMOUS. Despite the fact the original skit required two performers, my brother decided he could act both parts (three parts, if you counted the off-stage sound effects). He persuaded Mom and Dad to rearrange the dining room into a suitable theater. They good-naturedly pushed the table off to the side and set three straight chairs in a row for the audience, them and me. He began the skit by introducing the characters, Bobby and a goat named Adrian. Bobby couldn't pronounce his R's very well, so Adrian sounded like Adwian. Bobby was leading Adwian on a leash down a railroad track, (wailwoad twack.) You will need to use your imagination to picture my brother acting out both parts. In no particular hurry, they walked along talking about things young boys and goats talk about. Unfortunately, Adwian got his little hoof stuck between two railroad ties. Imagine my little brother bent over walking on his hands, pretending to be the goat Adrian, with his left hand caught in the imaginary ties, then Bobby pantomiming tugging on the leash, trying to get him unstuck. Adwian is a little upset and lets out a couple of half-hearted bleats. "Naa, naaa." "Don't wowwy, Adwian," Bobby says. "I'll get you out.” My brother jumped up and ran around the corner into the kitchen where he made the sound of a far-off train whistle. Back to the dining room (stage). Bobby: Adwian, the twain is coming. Adrian: Struggles to loosen his hoof. Naa! Baa Bobby: Pulls on Adrian's leg and tries to get him loose. Back to the kitchen. Whoooo Whoooo Back to the stage. Adrian: Fights harder to pull his hoof free , but it is still caught. He kicks with his hind legs to increase the leverage. NAAA! WAA! Bobby: Realizing the goat can't get free, he claps his hands to his cheeks and says: "Uht oh, Adwian." He said it with a rising inflection on the Uht and dropped his voice on the oh. Back to the kitchen. WHOOOOO WHOOOOO Chuga-chuga Chuga-chuga WHOOOO WHOOOO Back to the stage. Bobby stares back in horror at the rapidly approaching train. By now the "audience" is contributing to the train sound effects, pretending we can see it chugging through the kitchen, and shouting encouragement to Adrian. Adwian twists his head back as far as it will go, considering his hoof/hand is caught in the railroad ties. He leaps into the air with his hind legs while Bobby pulls with all his strength. BAA WAA BWAA "PULL ADWAIN, PULL!" WHOOOO, WHOOOO, WHOOOO At the last second, Bobby jumps to safety while Adrian goes SPLAT! The train rumbles past, right between my chair and the one my Mom is sitting in. Bobby stands beside the railroad track and surveys the carnage. My little brother almost managed to produce real tears as he wailed, "OH, ADWIAN!" I was mad. A funny skit for kids should have a happy ending. While Mom and Dad applauded, I strode two steps to where the imaginary Adwian lay dead, gave him a good kick and hollered for him to get up. I guess the moral of the story was to stay off railroad tracks. For the rest of our childhood and decades on into adulthood, whenever the situation looked dire, (cattle out, flat tire, forgotten homework, something on the stove boiled over, a sock with a hole in the toe, even if it was only because our move got blocked in a board game) someone in our family would say, "Uht oh, Adwian." My widowed grandmother re-married. One day at a family gathering, her husband burst out, "Who the heck is Adrian?" My brother and I fell all over each other laughing, then had to apologize because he thought we were laughing at him. Here is the link to a variety of age-appropriate skits in case you weren't lucky enough to belong to the Scouts. https://www.boyscouttrail.com/skits.asp