Closet Musical Lover

This year on Christmas Eve my husband Mickey, myself, my son, son-in-law and daughter went to the movie The Greatest Showman.  The men voted to go see this show.  My daughter Madisyn and myself,  voted to go see another movie, ANY OTHER MOVIE!  We're not musical people.  We enjoy murder mysteries and thrillers.

Because Madisyn and I were outnumbered we had to go to The Greatest Showman.

Madisyn and I are very open about our love for all things scary, hair raising and mind-bending.  Mickey on the other hand is a closet musical lover. Ty and Grant proudly make it known that they love all things musical and broadway!

All of us just before walking into the movie.
Do I look like I might panic?

We headed to the movie theater and I spent the entire ride trying to figure out the best way to get out of going to this particular movie.  Do I fake barf by dry heaving loudly like I could spew at any moment right there in the back seat or do I fake a leg cramp so I have to go home and lay flat for the next two hours or even go to the hospital.  Another thought came to mind, I could wait until I'm in the movie theater, pretend to actually be excited for the movie and when the men are all distracted by the first musical number and dip of a dancer then Madisyn and I can try to army crawl out of that theater and go next door to see Jumanji.  

We felt trapped like animals!  Tyler assured me there was dialog and not just singing and dancing.  Nope!   The movie started and it was singing and dancing.  Thats what it was.  The whole time.  

About 5 minutes in, the popcorn and Jr Mints were gone so I propped up my puffy coat on Mickey's shoulder to take a nap.  Mickey thought I was being romantic like one gets when watching a musical.  

My daughter Madisyn was sitting on the other side of me and about halfway through the movie and my nap she leaned over and said that every time a song was sung or someone did a dance move, the lady sitting on the other side of her would sigh and whisper comment something like, "Oh my!" or "This is wonderful" or "Lovely".   It was so annoying that she started to do the jiggle laugh. (When you can't stop laughing and you can't make noise). Of course her laughing got me laughing so I put my head down and tried my not to make noise or jiggle.  

Mickey looked at me and thought I was crying.  He told me he thought I loved the movie so much that I was crying.  Hi Mickey, I'm your wife Shari.  Have we met?    He leaned over and looked at me with possibly a tear in his eye and said,  "Are you crying?  I know.  Right?  This is wonderful!"  I looked up at him and he saw me trying not to laugh.  I could just see the shock in his face because I wasn't crying. My callousness angered him and right there in the theater he grabbed the top of my head and shook my head back and forth by my hair.  I still could not stop laughing.  It made it worse.

Eventually I regained composure.

I napped for the last half hour of the movie and then it was over. 

Mickey and I enjoy many things together but musicals are something we don't enjoy together.  

One time when Mickey was working out of town I called him that night to chat and Mickey asked me what I was doing.  I told him I just watched Silence of the Lambs and was reading my book Cause of Death because I love all books by Patricia Cornwell.   He got quiet for a minute.   I realized I could hear singing in the back ground....... 

We love you Conrad, Oh yes we do.....

Shari :  Mickey, what is that music I hear in the background?

Music:  We don't love anyone as much as you..........

Mickey:  What music?

Music: When you're not near us, we're blue......

Shari:  Is that Bye Bye Birdie?  Are you watching Bye Bye Birdie? 

Mickey:  Shari?  Shari?  Can you hear me?  Phones breaking up.....  Getting in an elevator.....  Going to boxing....  


Shari:  Got it.

I know Mickey loves his musicals.  I'm hoping one day he'll free himself from the closet but I still love him.

In the meantime Madisyn and I will white knuckle our way through thrillers,  brain twisters and homicides..

*Disclaimer:  Readers, please do not think less of me for not liking musicals.  I have tried to like them and I do enjoy Thoroughly Modern Mille probably because there are stunts and paralyzing darts that are shot through straws at people.  I do know of people and relatives of mine that have seen The Greatest Showman a bunch of times. I hear it was really good  but I used it for nappy time..

  

Acronyms, Technology and The Penalty Box

Mickey and I enjoying a tropical paradise prize and bacon

A few day's ago I was chatting on the phone with my husband Mickey whilst driving .   He spent about 45 minutes talking about his work.  Now I will always take an interest in his work because I realize that it is where the bacon comes from.   I feel like I need to be informed of the ups and downs of what goes on in his business so that if I'm going to win a fabulous prize to a tropical paradise I can be prepared to get a dog sitter and take off.  On the other hand I also need to be prepared just in case his keister gets canned.  Either way I like to be ready.  

 When Mickey talks about his work his uses acronyms for the names of everything business related. It's his secret man code.  So here is an example of my 45 minute chat with Mickey about his work.  

"Corporate is going to do away with DMP's and RFB programs and have them be CRV's. No Shari, not the kind you drive.  Then ABC's will take care of PFQ's and build the KVL program until they hire more SOJ's.   At that point the PKU's will take over.  No Shari, I don't have to get a blood test.........." 

And so on and so forth.   I do the appropriate yeps, and uh huh's until it's over and I can usually get the gist of how the business is going particularly when I ask at the end, "So you still have a job?"    

Mickey can correctly identify one of the these three items

After talking to Mickey about business he finished up with the obligatory  "So what's new with you?"   I replied that I had been working on a project making a family slideshow for 2017.  Anyway, I had a little glitch in the making of this movie.  I explained that my hard drive seemed to crash and my life passed before my eyes.  I realize that Mickey does not share my love for technology and does not understand the devastation of a hard drive crash. He knows how to do a couple things on a computer like email and facebook but beyond that it's all a mystery to him so I tried to keep my movie glitch story very basic and mostly very short.

Without going into much detail, I will tell you that my entire explanation lasted all of 5 minutes, possibly 4 minutes and I didn't use one acronym.  I will also say that I felt I was keeping this explanation short in comparison to his 45 minutes of an acronym spelling bee about his work.

When I paused for just a second while telling my story he jumped in and said that he had to run into a "meeting".   I know all about "meetings".  I said goodbye and I thought that was it.  

Before I had a chance to push the hang up button right there on the steering wheel I heard my dear and sweet husband say "She's boring the SH** out of me".  

Mickey aka "Mr. Bored

Yep. 

That is indeed what came out of his yapper to no one in particular but himself.......oh and me.

Mickey has a habit of not pushing the hang up button on his phone. He'll always wait for the other person to hang up first.  If you are ever talking to Mickey just don't hang up and you can hear what he does for the next few hours if you really want to know.  


You want to know what went through my mind?  Not sadness.  Not hurt feelings.  Nope.  Nothing like that at all.  All that went through my mind was,  I OWN YOUR ACRE.  

Ladies, we know that our husbands say and do stupid things and I've learned after 28 years of marriage to Mickey that at times like this you don't get upset.  You don't have hurt feelings.  You are in for a real treat. Just take a breath, do the stinky smile because you just won the lottery of  YOUR HUSBAND OWES YOU BECAUSE HE SAID SOMETHING DUMB!  I'm a Jedi at this stuff.

I knew he was in his "meeting" at this point in time, so I sent a very nice little text that said,  

     "Mickey, once again you forgot to hang up your phone.  I just heard you say these very words, "She's boring the SH** out of me.  You are officially in the penalty box for one year"  

I sent it.  Next I waited 5 minutes and texted......
          
     "Don't worry, even though you are now in the penalty box for the next year we can negotiate a settlement for correcting this issue.  It's called the SBTSOOM settlement. (She's boring the SH** out of me acronym). 

By this time Mickey was so excited to be able to see a way out of his faux pas that he was relieved and ready for negotiations.  

Mickey negotiated down to 6 months in the penalty box where he doesn't get to talk about certain subjects that BORE me and if he does all I have to say is the code letters SBTSOOM and all talk of that subject must end immediately!   

And thats how its done. 

My stinky smile when I realized I won the
"Your husband owes you because he said something dumb"
lottery

No Plumber Crack Spotted!

                                                           

I just had the best morning with my local plumber and may have a new bestie.  I now live in Duluth, MN which is in the northern mid-west.  Up here the folks are friendly and don't mind the cold.

When we were looking at houses to buy in Duluth I realized that none of the houses we looked at had a garbage disposal and since I have had a disposal my entire existence I deemed it necessary to everyday life, therefore, I called a plumber to come install one that I purchased at the local Menards.

This gentleman was quite friendly as all Duluthians are and got right down to the job of installing the disposal.  This is our conversation:

Me: So I'm curious as to why no one in Duluth has a disposal?

Plumber:  Well golly I wouldn't have one.  You just put things down there that ya shouldn't.

Me:  (I'm thinking like what besides scraped off food from dishes?  A fish, wildlife, limbs after watching the show Fargo. What?)  

Isn't a disposal for putting things down that you scrape off your dishes so it can be chopped up and washed down the drain?

Plumber:  Oh geez you'd think so but I had one lady that put all sorts of stuff down (down is pronounced more like doe-nn)  her disposal...so I was out a visiting her once a month fixing that darn disposal and drain.

Me:  Really!

Plumber: Yep!  You should never be putting big things down there.  

Me Thinking:  (What big things do people put down there.  The hole to put stuff into is only yay big)

Plumber: And never put carrot peels and potato peels and things that don't chop up down there.  And don't put meats down there ever and especially not grease.  And don't put rinds down the thing like watermelons and cantaloupe and stuff like that.  Holy Cow (pronounce with a clipped Holy and Caa-w) there's lots of stuff that doesn't need to be going down the darn disposal.

Me:  OK then.  I won't do that.

Plumber: And don't ever run hot water down that there disposal cause then it causes the vegetable and fruits to mush up and then they get stuck in the drains.  Geez, one time a woman put so many carrot peels down the disposal when she was having some type of religious party at her house, something like a bar mitzvah or some sort of religious thing, and she peeled so many carrots and stuffed them down the disposal that I had to take her whole sewer down in her basement! For cryin' out loud!

Me:  That doesn't sound good.

Plumber:  It was bad.  I spent a few day's fixing it dontcha know!

Me:  Well I'll remember those tips.  

Plumber:  If ya don't you'll just be calling me to come back!

Me:Right.  So are you from here?  

Plumber: Mostly

Me thinking:  Huh?  

Plumber:  I don't much like the heat.  It gets 80 degrees and I don't like to go out in it.  I won't even go the the cities ya know.

Me:  Do you fish?  (The minute this comes out my yapper I'm thinking to myself,  "Oh my gosh! Who would've thought I'd be living in Duluth (pronounced up here as Da-loot) talking to a plumber who is putting my first Duluth disposal in my house and I'm asking him if he fishes?  I need an intervention ASAP!")

Plumber:  Not so much anymore.  I got the lime from camping and fishing.  

Me:  You've got what?

Plumber:  The lime.  

Me:  I'm not sure but what that is exactly?

Plumber:  Oh geez!  You know that disease you get from ticks.  The lime gave me all sorts of trouble.  It made one foot swell up and it ruined my back for 4 months and it made me real sick.  Then after it went away it just came right back a year later.  The doctors said,  "This isn't the lime.  This is just something else." and I told them my foot doesn't just swell up like a balloon for no reason. You know those doctors just throw the antibiotics at you if you even say you saw a tick on you!

Me:  So I guess you don't fish or camp any more.

Plumber:  Not so much.  If I had my druthers I'd just a soon throw together a little barbecue (meaning a sloppy Joe) and watch the hockey (pronounced more like hackey) match.

Me:  That sounds nice. (That sounds nice?  What? I need help!)  Does your wife mind when you watch hockey?

Plumber:  Oh back in the 80's I bought a farm.  My wife and I lived there for a bit but then she decided she didn't like the farm and then she decided she didn't like me either.  Lost my job, my farm and my wife but I just started over. 

Me:  Wow!  That had to have been hard.  

Plumber:  It was tough tomatas but it's all good now.  

Me:  Thanks for your help.

Plumber:  You betcha!  Have a nice day and call if you see any leaks.  Don't put any stuff you shouldn't down that there disposal!"

Me:  Okey dokey!

Plumber:  Real good then!  Have a good day!

And the plumber was gone.  I realized as he left that it was me who said, "Okey Dokey!"  Well when in Daloot do as the Dalootians do!  

Bonus:  No plumber crack spotted!  This is one plumber that I will call on again!

                                                          

Bus pass anyone?

Teens are here to destroy our vehicles.  This is why my kids have to buy their own cars, wreck their own cars, fix their own cars, insure their own cars and fill their own cars with gas.  I'm also hoping that they are learning from this experience however, I'm starting to wonder?  

I can tell you that every one of my kids have been in a wreck except for 2 and I'm still waiting on those.  Usually these accidents occur in the first year of driving and in the case of my daughter Maggey she just managed to crash within the first 10 days of getting her license. This was a particularly memorable crash because of a few things.  

First, the crash occurred close to home (only about 4 blocks away) and second, the way that it happened is extra special.  Maggey was borrowing my pristine condition Explorer "just for a minute" when she rounded a corner near our home.  She saw the entire high school baseball team across the street and being the friendly gal that she is, she hung her noggin out the window and hollered a friendly "hello" to the team as she waved.  Apparently, her eyes strayed from the road and she veered to the right taking out the entire passenger side of my no longer pristine vehicle, flattened a tire and killed a trailer.
   


Maggey was in a tich of a panic and drove straight home (as any good driver should after a hit, you run)  She came inside in quite a state of panic, found me and proceeded to tell me of her little accident.  I said, "Oh Maggey, it can't be that bad.  Let's go check it out."  I walked outside to find my auto had been turned into Mater (the truck on Car's the movie).  One of the tires literally was off the rim and swiftly going flat.  The passenger side from the front to the rear was indented by about a foot and parts were missing.  The cherry on the cake of the day is that while we were standing there the axle (or something like that) dropped out from the bottom and clunked onto the driveway.  

As I watched my daughter sobbing and my vehicle disintegrating before my eyes, only two words came to mind.  I looked at Maggey and said, "Well damn".  Then I did the unforgivable......I started to laugh.  It was just so darn ugly.  Maggey let me know that it wasn't funny.  I knew it wasn't funny but do you laugh or cry?  So.........I asked a few important questions like"

Me: Maggey, so what did you hit?

Maggey: A parked trailer.

Me:  What happened to the trailer?

Maggey sobbing:  I don't know!  It was just flying everywhere.

Me: Where are the missing pieces of our car?

Maggey: Over on the road by the pieces of the trailer.

Me: And why exactly did you leave the scene of the accident?

Maggey:  Well duh! No one was driving the trailer and it was parked and no one was there so I didn't know who to talk to.

Me: Huh.  How did you get home on a flat tire that's falling off?

Maggey:  I don't know.

Me: As I look at the damage on this side of the car I'm wondering one thing....when you hit the trailer on the front bumper, why did it take two doors, a side panel and the back bumper to stop?

Maggey: I don't know

Me: OK then.

So Maggey's dad (who had just walked up and was surveying the damage) took her back to the scene of the accident to find the owner of the trailer and call a cop.   He also said he found our car parts and the trailer spread out for about a 200 yards down the street.

The ending of this story goes like this:  Maggey could no longer afford auto insurance because the car was a total loss.  Maggey went down to the drivers license division 10 days after the exact date that she got her license and voluntarily surrendered her license so that she was no longer able to drive and therefore, did not have to carry insurance.  As she handed over her license to  the lady at the DMV, this lady said, Honestly, in all of my years, I have never had anyone ever surrender their license. Interesting."

These are pictures documenting this day.

Maggey showing me the accident

Maggey after gathering a couple
of the pieces to our car

The guy that came to see if the car would drive
after I told him I was pretty sure it wouldn't

The car being towed away, never to return

Maggey did get her license back about a year after she surrendered it.  She has been a bit gun shy about driving but saved her money and purchased a 1986 Toyota Corolla for a mere $750.  It was a cherry.   She drove it around the block and it died.  

Maggey sold the car a month later to a guy who wanted to go on a date with her.  In all fairness to Maggey she told this fellow that she bought the car a month before, drove it around the block and it would start but that it didn't run well and she wasn't very happy with the car.  He bought it anyway.  She sold it for $600, lost $150 and never went on a date with him.  She was glad it was gone.  Perhaps Maggey and cars just don't mix.

As a treat I would like to give you a short pictorial tour of some of the junkers my kids have invested in.  I'm sorry to report that I am missing pictures of many of the cars I would like you to see. I couldn't find a picture of two of Whitey's trucks that I would like to show you. The first one was a truck he named "Old Blue" that he purchased for $200.  He gave it a good wash and wax and bam!  It was a cherry.  He sold it for $400 and doubled his money.  It was a real miracle.  I am also missing a picture of a truck that he named big sexy (I'm still not sure if that was what he named the truck or himself). 

Rocky also had an amazing car that had no heat so he provided warm sleeping bags for every rider to wrap up in.  It was all part of the riding experience.

Jensine's new car that could possibly be the same car as the one above that Maggey bought 6 years later.  We are not sure.  This one had to be jumped each time it was turned off so she would carry around some special battery powered jumper cables so she could start her car without assistance from anyone else.  If it killed at a light it was a bit of a problem.
  

Madisyn's new wheels.  Purchase price of $750

Madisyn's car towed 3 months later for $150. It ran from April to July?

Sid's first car that looked real nice parked in the driveway

One of several cars that Ty purchased from neighbors.
Also one of several cars Ty wrecked

Mickey and I at a state auction trying out driver's ed cars.
Are those bullet holes on the dash?

At the state auction trying to find "one owner cars"
for our kids to buy and crash.
PS These cars have an extra brake on the passenger side.
That is a real selling feature.

These guys are leaning on a car Mickey and I have our eyeballs on!
I wish they would move so I can start er up.

Maybe our kids should invest in a bus pass?

Spartanism. The perfect psychiatric disorder.

I have been officially diagnosed.  Yes it's true.  My kids sat around the kitchen table and discussed my shortcomings and mostly one in particular. They then they googled my symptoms and came up with my diagnosis.  I have Spartanism.  

I was not present for this discussion and subsequent diagnosis so I was informed of it when I returned home.  When they pronounced my disease upon me the only response that I could come up with was, "Good to know.  So?"

Let me explain what Spartanism is.  I also Googled Spartanism and found that it is a form of OCD.  It is the opposite of hoarding.  People with this type of OCD hate clutter and junk.  That's a good thing isn't it?

People, such as myself, have a tendency to throw or give away items that they feel clutter their life.  I read a case about a lady that gave away all of the chairs in her house...........hummmmm........she might be a genius.......no chairs..... no guests for dinner......no cooking......less dishes......need I go on? 

Those of us with Spartanism feel a need to rid ourselves of things we deem unnecessary in our lives.  It gives us a sense of satisfaction and we feel more in control of our environment.......DUH!  Have you not read my previous blogs!  Obviously from reading about what my life is like, it's a given that I have absolutely no control of anything and way too many people and things clutter my life.   I can't get rid of the people so I get rid of the things. It all makes sense to me.

    Spartan

When one of my daughters explained that I absolutely have Spartanism I thought, "Oh goody, I'm like those fighter guys from Greece that are sometimes mascots of schools because they are hero's and athletes and great fighters."

"Um NO mom!", she said.  "Not even close."  She then went on to explain my psychiatric problems and the symptoms of Spartanism.  (The good news is that the American Psychiatric Association has NOT declared Spartanism as a psychiatric disorder............yet.)  She also said that people with Spartanism think that other people who have a lot of junk are the ones with the problem and not them.  Well no kidding.

I then admitted to the family that I may have a tich of Spartanism but it's not that bad.  That's when they began to go back over every past incidence of junk purging that I have comitted.

One small particular event that they brought to light was the time when my husband Mickey came home and walked into our bedroom to find everything gone but the mattress which was sitting directly on the floor. The look on his face was priceless and it made me tingly to see him like that.  No matter the disease my kids diagnosed me with the look on his face made it all worth it.  (Is that a different disease?) Let me explain my side because when you hear it, you won't think I'm all that odd.

We HAD a king sized bed that HAD a big ornate headboard, footboard and sides on it that you set your mattress in.  Our bed sat about 5 feet off the floor (which made for difficult TV viewing at that height and also one time I fell out of it and nearly broke my arm.   My elbow has never been quite right since then).  But that's not why I gave the bedroom set away.  

This bedroom set also had two ornate nightstands, a matching dresser and a mirror, all very ornate and hard to dust..........but that's still not the reason I gave it away.  

My kids viewed this bed as a landing pad for tricks.  They would regularly run from our bedroom door, leap into the air, do a forward flip and land spread eagle onto the bed.  This bed was also used as the family wrestling mat.  All important wrestling matches took place on this bed.  You lost when you fell off (mostly because at that point you got hurt from falling 5 feet).  That's still not the reason I gave it away.

Needless to say, the bottom of the bed, which was supported by wood slats, broke.  No, not once or twice while we had it but once or twice a week.  We added more slats but to no avail.  

Then the joints that connected all of the bed together became loose and started to creek.  It became a loud bed. 

I now had a loud bed and this is where the real problem came in.  Let me explain the mattress.  

In case none of you know this, I now sleep on Queen Elizabeth's mattress.  Yes, it's true.  But a few short years ago I didn't sleep on the Queen's mattress. I slept on an old, dumpy mattress.  

One night while sleeping on old dumpy, I was in a deep slumber when I was jolted awake by a hard popping thing that stabbed into my brain.  It was a spring from our mattress so I bought a memory foam and covered the whole mattress up and then I slept on a memory foam with a spring stabbing my brain.  I then fussed at my mom and she decided she needed a new mattress too.  She decided that she and my dad needed one of those fancy beds that have the two mattresses and their own controls to lower and raise their heads and knees and such.  My mom said that I could have their old mattress.  She then told me that it was the exact same mattress that Queen Elizabeth sleeps on.  I was thrilled because I am known around here as the Queen Bee and it just had to be better than old dumpy mattress with memory foam and springs stabbing my brain.  

We pitched old dumpy and hauled the Queen's mattress down to our bedroom and placed it into our loud and tall bed frame and waaa laaaa.  Now we were the proud owners of the queen's bed that now stood 6 feet off the floor.  The queen's mattress is about 3 feet thick, not including the box springs.  

In order for me to go to bed I had to start running at the bedroom door take a flying leap and pray I high jumped onto the bed.  If I missed or fell out of the bed at night, it was not a pretty sight. 

This still was not the reason for my giving away the bedroom furniture.  The reason I gave it away was this.......my husband rolls over frequently at night. (girls, you know what I'm talking about).  Let me explain just how he rolls over.  First, he fidgets for a minute or two, then launches himself into the air, levitates for a couple of seconds and lands in another position.  This, in turn, bounced me out the other side (which was not good because my bed was six feet off the ground).  Here is why I got rid of the bed...the bed started to creek the minute Mickey would fidget but when he landed after levitation, this bed would literally groan and creek and crack upon his landing.  

I would wake to this special event at least 17 times a night.  What with my night sweats and Mickey's levitation's, I would get about 3 minutes of sound sleep a night.  Well, after one particularly challenging night I woke and exclaimed that there would be changes.

After getting everyone off to school and work I began to take the bed apart.  I lifted the queen's mattress out of the frame, a feat that literally makes me a Greek Spartan.  Then I  hauled the entire, gianormous bed frame up the stairs and out the door to the garage by myself.  I then hauled out the two night stands, mirror and the dresser with the marble top that weighed 500 pounds, up the stairs and out to the garage.  I called my daughter who loved this bedroom set and told her that it was all hers and to come and get it.

The Nest

After removing all said bedroom furniture from the room I then returned to my bedroom.  All that remained was the queens mattress, just laying there quietly on the floor and oddly, I LOVED it!  I flung myself spread eagle onto the mattress and guess what happened...nothing.......silence.  I was a genius!  My bedroom had become my comfy, silent, simple, lovely, sleeping NEST.  

That's the room my husband walked into that night...the comfy, silent, simple, lovely sleeping nest.  He looked shocked and then asked, "What happened?"  I told him I made improvements.  

Since this incidence, I have to say that have I improved the room a tiny bit more.  I purchased two, easier to dust, night stands and actually painted a noise and dust proof headboard onto the wall.  Some of my kids still think the headboard is real. 

I love it!  I sleep like a baby! If I fall out of bed it doesn't even hurt.  I don't have to dust, not even UNDER the bed and when Mickey levitates I don't even know it.  He can launch himself 4 feet if he likes and the queens mattress doesn't even budge.  God Bless the Queen!

Spartanism?....the perfect psychiatric disorder to have.     

Hum.....does anyone want a big sectional couch and the husband sitting on it?    I'll throw in the big screen as a package deal.



*Thanks to Shauna, Pat, and Lynn for the inspiration for this blog  (All closet Spartans)

Fishing, Diaper Rash, Laffy Taffy and Mostly Crying

22 years ago my husband Mickey and I got married.  I would love to write about our wedded bliss but just read my other blogs and you will have a good idea about our marriage.  I think it's only appropriate to start at the very beginning.  

I'm talking about the time when Mickey decided to ask my dad for my hand in marriage.  

Mickey went over to see my dad and the marriage conversation went something like this:

Mickey: Marvin, I would like to ask your permission to marry your daughter Shari

Marvin:  It's time for a fishing trip Mickey.  Get your fishing things together and be at my house this Thursday at 6:00 a.m.  We'll go fishing up in the Uintas and take the horses.

Mickey:  That would be great!  I love to fish!  

(I guess the fact that he wanted to get married to me was put on the back burner now that he was going on his fantasy fishing trip with my dad) 

Mickey came waltzing into my house later that night and said excitedly, "I'm going fishing with your dad this week.  This is going to be great."

This is not Mickey fishing with my dad cause
are no chairs allowed when you fish with him.

Considering the fact that my dad raised five daughters and I knew my dad well, I was thinking "OH MY............THIS GUY HAS NO CLUE!  What I said was.....Well Mickey, have you ever cried fishing?

Mickey looked at me with a blank stare and said, "No.  Why?"

Oh the poor naive fool.  If I was him I would just look at me and say, "Sorry, you are so not worth it."  Instead he just said, "Fishing is one of my favorite things to do and we are going to have the best time ever!  I can't wait!"

I felt sorry for Mickey because he had known my dad for years and knew that my dad was the ultimate grinder and competitor. My dad is not a normal human being.  He feels no pain.  He knows no fear.  He never says die.   Mickey knew this and yet he couldn't see what was coming. My dad was testing his manhood!  Mickey actually thought Marvin was being his friend.  

Perhaps if Mickey was so stupid then he SHOULD go fishing.  I told Mickey,  "Have a good time fishing but you are going to cry."

Let's jump ahead to the morning of the fishing trip.  Mickey pulled up to my dad's house, got out of the car, unloaded his schnife and before my dad would load Mickey's fishing gear he said, "Let's see what you've got."

That's a bad sign.  

My dad plowed through Mickey's stuff.  He threw his sleeping bag into the truck saying, I guess you'll need this, then his rain gear.......I suppose you'll need this, then ONE fishing pole.  

Mickey looked at his mountain of "fun fishing gear" left sitting in the driveway and said, "Hey Marv, what about the rest of my stuff."  

My dad walked off to load the horses and just said, "My horses aren't packing all that stuff up there."  

Mickey was toast.  Understand that Mickey loves fishing and camping but it's not Marvin fishing and camping.  For Mickey it's all about the comfort and food.  He DOES NOT FISH without his laffy taffy, pork rinds, hard tack candy, grape soda and that stinky, cheesy fish bait and fish eggs to lure in the fish.

So off they went....my dad, Bill who is one of my dads former Olympic friends who competed in the biathlon (this means that this guy is a hard core athlete  who has stamina not like regular human beings) and Mr. Laffy Taffy (my future husband......if he survived)

Now I will do a quick summary of the trip.  Mickey said that when they got to the base of the Uintas, they unloaded the horses, saddled the horses and began the journey to get to the place where they would fish.  

Marv fishing.  This is not as fun as it looks.

What Mickey didn't understand is that fishing with my dad is not just fishing but it's survival.  You have to go hundreds of miles to get to where you fish and getting there ISN'T all the fun.  You can't eat (you only eat what you catch with a fly or your bare hands) or drink or go potty or you will show signs of weakness.  (My dad skis with these rules too).

As Mickey tells it, within 20 minutes after starting the horse ride, he found out he was violently allergic to horses.  He started sneezing, then coughing, and then his eyes started to swell shut.  Of course he didn't have any benedryl because my dad's horses aren't packing that stuff.  

Mickey said he rode on in misery.  Then he said he started to get saddle sore.  Now Mickey had never ridden a horse before unless it was at a fair, in a circle for 10 minutes.  This was a whole new ballgame.  He said he was so saddle sore that after a few hours he decided to walk.  As he describes it, it was more than 20 miles that he walked before they stopped without resting but it was still better than sitting in that saddle.  

Mickey said he then got diaper rash from being in the saddle so long and that there was entirely too much chaffing going on.  

I said,  "All this happened in the first couple of hours and you were gone for three days?"  I really don't know how he survived.

Mickey said that he kept looking at my dad and Bill to see if they were drinking because he was dying of thirst and he said that they never even took a sip.  So he decided he would lag behind and sneak a sip of water.  

How pathetic.  

The first night he said they camped out under the stars which means you throw your bad out on the dirt.  He said as he was snuggling down into his bag and just about to fall asleep from exhaustion that he felt a hard little lump in his bag and dove down to get it.  It was a miracle but he found a Laffy Taffy from a previous camping trip.  He said that he couldn't even eat it because he was afraid that Marv and Bill would smell the banana Laffy Taffy on his breath.  

Coward!

I asked Mickey what they ate and he said that Marv brought onions and potatoes and they ate the fish they caught.  That was it.  

When Mickey returned home his mother told me that he walked funny into the house and kept muttering under his breath....."I don't want to be Marvin's friend.  I don't want to be Marvin's friend."

When I saw Mickey the next day he was still walking funny and he relayed the story above.  All I said to him was, "Did you cry?"

He just looked at me and muttered, "I may have teared a bit but I had every right to what with starvation, dehydration, death defying allergic reactions, saddle sores, diaper rash and do you know they don't even stop to rest or go to the bathroom!

Needless to say, Mickey survived the test and this week we celebrated our 22 wedding anniversary.  

I think my dad was just preparing Mickey for our married life.....(refer to all previous posts)

Mickey was getting prepared for fishing with this!