Hearses, Moving Trucks and Scooters. Wanna ride?

Getting a ride home from school can be a sketchy situation at our house.  The first thing you need to know is that my husband Mickey lives to tease, embarrass and torture our kids.  It's like a sport to him.  By the time our kids are grown, they no longer have the capacity to determine when they are being teased, harassed or picked on.  In some ways this is advantageous to them.  It takes a lot to hurt their feelings and they are not easily offended.

So now that you know the background, here's the scoop.  On occasion, when one of our kids needs a ride home from school then they are forced to either call Mickey and I for a ride home or walk.  This is a precarious position for them.  The walk home is a mile and the weather can be nasty but calling us for a ride can be taking a big risk. 

Many times they will opt for the walk home with a foot of snow on the ground in 20 degree weather while wearing flip flops.  In their minds it can be a better option than calling us for a ride.

You see when we get their unexpected and infrequent calls the first thing that comes to mind is "let the games begin."

Whitey called us one day from Roland Hall High school to get a ride home.  Roland Hall is one of the local private schools and it takes some serious cash to attend there.  Whitey got a ski scholarship.  That's why he went there.  Nuff said.  

Mickey and I noticed that many of the kids who attend this school drive cars quite superior to what most adult drive.  These children of affluence arrive at school driving their Range Rovers, Lexus four wheel drive things, BMW's etc.  They park their vehicles and head into school in their designer clothes with their laptops slung over their shoulders.  Now don't misunderstand, this is a wonderful school with very intelligent kids attending but it's not a cheap form of education. 

I'm sure these children are getting a fine education but my son was there to ski and learning was a side note for him.   

So one day when Whitey called for a ride home, Mickey and I were giddy with excitement.  We knew by instinct just what to do.  

 At the time, our daughter Sid owned a 1970's Cadillac hearse.  She purchased this hearse at the tender age of 15 as an investment.

Sid cleaned up the hearse, we drove it a bit, handed Halloween candy out of the back of it that year and then she sold it and made $500.  It was quite the money maker for Sid and the perfect car for a school pick up.

Mickey and I decided we needed to wear the appropriate driving attire so Mickey put on his best wife beater and some spandex shorts. (For those who live on the planet goink and are unaware of what a "wife beater" is, it is a mans tank top.)  I put on my best jorts (jean shorts) and t-shirt with cut off sleeves.  

We hopped into that bad boy hearse and because it had a front bench seat, I got to sit right next to Mickey and his wife beater.  He even put his arm around me and off we went to pick up our young son.   PS. Sid wanted to ride along in her new vehicle so she just opened the single rear door and slid right in.

As we drove down the street that runs along in front of the school, Mickey started honking the horn (just to draw a little more attention to Whitey's ride. Not that the hearse doesn't already draw attention). 

We screeched to a stop right, smack in the front of the school where Whitey was waiting ever so patiently along with the rest of the student body.   Sid mumbled something from the back along the lines of "You are the meanest parents ever and mom and dad why are you wearing that?"

The look on Whitey's face when he heard and saw us was priceless.  He didn't want to walk towards the car because he didn't want to acknowledge that his ride had arrived.  He stood there just stunned (and wishing he had walked the mile and a half home).  

Since Whitey didn't make a move toward the car, Mickey came to the conclusion that maybe he didn't hear the full minute of honking or see the hearse arrive and I'm pretty sure that no one else at Roland Hall owned a cherry hearse like we did.

So Mickey climbed out of the vehicle, walked into full view of the student body and Whitey and hollered in his best red neck, southern type voice, "White trash, you hurry on o'er here and put yo butt in this car.  We need to git back home cause yo mama has some mo cho's to do and she needs to start a fixin me some supper." 

I could see Whitey's wheels churning and could tell he was trying to decide if it was worse to let Mickey keep on hollering at him or just make a mad dash for the hearse.  He chose the latter.

He sprinted full out while trying to hide his face behind his backpack.   At this point, Sid realized Whitey's horror and flung the rear door open just as Whitey dove into the back and slid across the rollers in one smooth and athletic motion.  Sid jumped in behind him and pulled the door and drapes closed.  The handy thing about the hearse was that the back had rollers to roll the caskets into the back and these rollers came in handy when Whitey did his belly dive into the back of the hearse.  He would have gotten a bad rug burn had it not been for those rollers.   This hearse also had lovely draperies that insured Whitey's privacy during the drive home.   

Ahh good times.   

Then there was the time that Rocky was moving some things and just happened to have a gianormous U Haul parked in front of our house when Madisyn called for a ride home from school. 

Fortunately for Madisyn, I not only know how to drive a huge truck but I found the keys too!  I toodled on down to the local high school and pulled right up in front and saw her waiting for me.  I just gave her a few little toots of the horn when I realized that she didn't recognize me yet.  She just sat there staring at the truck so I tooted the horn again.   Finally when she realized that I wasn't going to go away, she came to the door and in her angriest voice asked me why I was so stupid and why I would pick her up in a moving truck just to embarass her.  I told her that she just answered her own question. 

She look like she wants to kill me.

Because of the foot of snow, she decided to climb in and ride home.  I gave one of her friends a ride home too because I'm a nice mom.  Her friend didn't fuss as much as Madisyn but perhaps that was because I'm not related to him.

The truck that I picked up Madisyn from school in looked much like this one shown below except that it wasn't hooked to a tow truck.  The truck below is actually the truck we rented when we moved to San Antonio and Mickey Sr. drove it off the rode which tipped it on it's side so that 2 or 4 tires were up in the air and we had to pay for a tow truck to pull it out.  Mickey is not good at driving a truck.

I had a nice picture of me picking up Madisyn from school in the moving truck but I couldn't locate it on my computer.  Madisyn may have deleted it out of anger.

Surprisingly Madisyn called me for another ride home from school about a year later.  She must have forgotten about the ride home in the moving truck or it could have been that she was wearing new sandles and had a couple of blisters on her toes from them.  Madisyn prefers fashion over comfort, a concept that I will never understand.

So being the good mom that I am, I hopped right on my one seater scooter and headed to the school to get her.  I even brought an extra helmut for her.  Once again I pulled right up in front of the school and started meep, meep, meeping at her with the scooter horn. 

This time she marched right at me and told me she would rather walk.   As she started walking away from me and towards home, I of course followed her because I was concerned about her new shoes blisters.  She kept walking while telling me to quit following her.  When we got to the end of the school drive through, I asked her one last time if she wanted a fun ride home on the scoot.  She turned me down and I drove off. 

Madisyn arrived home about 45 minutes later with a few more blisters.  I will never understand it.

I must say that now that Whitey is grown and has a child of his own, he is appreciating the types of rides he got from us during his high school years.  He is even looking into various ways he can pick up his daughter Sammie from preschool.  Just the other day he drove up in this nice vehicle with his wife by his side.  He was test driving it for future preschool pickups.  I think this is a milk truck but not sure.

Madisyn on the other hand, opted to buy her own vehicle and it looked real nice parked in front of the house.

But after about a month it looked like this parked in front of the house.

                   I never saw it again after this picture was taken. 

 We let Maggey drive our car once.   This is Maggey returning our car and trying to convince us that with a little wash and a little wax, it'll be cherry again. 

The car resembled Mater from the movie Cars . 

What you can't see is that the entire passenger side from the front bumper to the back bumper is missing the fenders that go above the tires, the hubcaps, the paint and the trim not to mention that there is something definitely wrong underneath with the thing that holds the tire onto the car.  

After that wreck Mickey and I took Maggey to a special auction to look at the old Drivers Education cars that her high school was selling. These cars were a steal and even had a special break on the passenger side to aid her in preventing her wrecks.  This is Mickey checking out the interior.  (Are those bullet holes in the dashboard?)

 

We never even had a chance at purchasing one of the unique drivers ed cars.  We learned that you have to go early to these auctions and if you find a car that you want then you open the hood and lean on it or sit on the engine.  If you see someone doing this then they are saying to you, "This is my ride.  Get up off my bidness and outta my grill."  Something like that.  I think they take these cars home and pimp them out.

 

I'm off now to go check out the potential "pick up from school" vehicle that I just spotted out front.  I may need to borrow it. 

Oh my! I've found another potential vehicle............

Do you think it runs?  Do I have a blind spot?

Holiday Headspin Number One

The holidays bring out the best and worst in people.  In one of my previous blogs I confessed to a holiday moment that was what I call a "Holiday Head Spinner."  These moments are the times during the holidays when our limits are pushed just too far and when we mentally SNAP.  This produces a physical phenomenon that causes the noggin to spin 360 degrees much like the girl in the  Exorcist. 

From now until the holidays are over, I plan to blog about each holiday headspinner I experience. I will promise that each spin is justified and that there can be many of these occurrences during the holidays.  Try not to judge me too harshly.  I've had 50 Christmas Holidays and many of them have been spent with eight kids and a whole bunch of relatives that can go a bit "south pole angry elf"  during the holidays.

Today marks day number one of the "headspinners."  I spent the morning running typical holiday errands.  When I returned home that afternoon I was a bit tired and had definitely had enough of people and traffic. 

I walked into home sweet home, glad to have finished my errands for the day and looking forward to staying at home to finish up laundry and other daily household chores.  

As I was putting my groceries away I noticed a feeling of annoyance creep into my being each time I tripped over my teenage son's shoes which were sitting in the middle of the floor in the kitchen.  These shoes were the same shoes that had been kicked from corner to corner for the past 3 days.   

I picked up the shoes and walked to his room where I usually just open the door and fling things in.  I opened then door and noticed a strange light (or rather lack of light) in his room.  He has blinds on his windows that he keeps closed at all times so his room is ready for sleeping in or nap taking should the need arise.  He's 17 and he's good at it.

This was a different light than just having the blinds closed, though.  It was darker.  I peered at the windows wondering and flipped on the light.  There hanging over all four windows were the blankets the family uses when watching movies etc.   (I keep the house at a brisk 61 degrees at all times.  This is a whole other blog topic.) 

The first thing that went through my mind was why does he need blankets on the windows when there are already blinds he can close and second, does he honestly think that those blankets are going to hang there while others freeze when they are sitting on the couches being couch potatoes. 

I was getting angry that he took those much needed blankets all for himself.  I mean it wasn't like he took one blanket for his man cave but it was four.  

At this point my noggin was still in tact. 

I, of course, went to the windows and was proceeding to take the blankets down when I noticed that they weren't just hanging there magically but had been nailed to the walls.  Each corner was NAILED.  ALL FOUR BLANKETS WERE NAILED. 

Oh no!  That's not the end........no head spinning yet! 

My melon didn't turn into a human top until I finally noticed that these blankets were nailed at each and every corner and that all 16 nails were "10 penny" nails!  For those of you who don't know what ten penny nails are......they are the gianormous nails used to build a house!.  You can frame with these nails!  Put on a new roof with these nails!  Hang beams with these nails!   Whole entire buildings are held together for decades with these nails!  Of course, hanging a 10 ounce blanket would require these nails, wouldn't it?  

My anger went from the pit of my stomach, out my mouth, nose and ears in the form of rude words and steam.  

As I started to pull out these nails with my bare hands I realized that this cannot be done.  The nails were too big.  I got my hammer and started to pull  the nails out of the wall.  When I saw the damage left behind I felt some rotation starting in my melon.  As each nail came out of the wall so did a chunk of plaster the size of a tennis ball and a hole deep enough to rewire the house. 
I'm not even going to mention the holes left in the blankets in all FOUR corners.

I'm certain this is the point where I achieved full cranium 360 degree rotation.

All I can say is that it was a good thing my young son was not in the building.

I finished pulling out all SIXTEEN nails, called his phone and left a scathing voice mail wherein, I'm pretty sure I uttered the words "sleep somewhere else" and "ass'.

I put on my coat and gloves, leashed up the dogs and walked for a solid hour, planning the entire time the route I needed to take in order to return all of his Christmas presents.

When I returned, I could tell by the horrified look on his face that he knew he had caused the first "Holiday Headspin of 2010".  As I walked through the door I noticed that he had an i pod player sitting on the kitchen table, ready to turn on the very moment my carcass crossed the threshold.  He cranked that bad boy on full blast and it started blaring the song............"Don't worry.  Be Happy."

He then asked me if I wanted to dance. 

I am currently sitting in my bedroom typing this blog.  My bedroom doors are bolted shut and I am wearing a neck brace to prevent further head rotation.  

Stay tuned for "Holiday Headspin Number Two". 

Fabulous Christmas Fashion

Have you ever noticed that the holidays bring out some pretty amazing fashions. 

Some people just love dressing to the nines for parties.  This means sparkles, glitter, shimmer and all that is beautiful.  It is the favorite season for many who love to dress in 5 inch heels and long sparkling dresses.  For me it is the season of food and elastic waistbands.

For my family, the holidays are an excuse to drag out the most hideous clothing they own and wear special combinations of ugliness all season long.

Christmas day for my family is a day of food, games and clothing nastiness. 

You should see the stuff that comes out of the closets at Christmas time. 

My husband, Mickey, is a pro at digging up weird outfits all year long but he is especially talented at Christmas time.

Check out this spandex outfit.  Mickey got this U of U sweatshirt, U of U turtle neck and spandex shorts as a Christmas present from my parents that year.  I don't think my parents gave these items with the intent that they were to be worn all together as an outfit but of course Mickey put on every item he received that day.  He then proceeded to strut around as if he was wearing the latest fashion statement of the season.  

I must say that my family isn't the only family guilty of dressing in weird holiday things.  I mean check out some of the Christmas sweaters that people wear.

Some are so amazingly ugly that I am actually jealous of their sweaters.

This is one of Madisyn's friends who came to school in this sweater on "ugly sweater day" and I found myself secretly envying her special holiday sweater.  

Mickey's cousin Mike showed up at our Christmas eve party in this sweater that just screams fabulous! 

But don't fear, our family holiday fashion statements don't end with sweaters and spandex.  No......we branch out to hats too.

Mickey Jr. got this really nice, hunter orange hat on Christmas and next thing I know.........

Grandma Renee is wearing it and doesn't want to take it off! 

My daughter Sid whipped up this fashionable Frauline look. She is sporting her new (perhaps old) bandana and some knotted pig tails.  Sid considers this to be a real trend setting look when worn during the holiday season.  And while Sid wears her bandana and pigs......

Her sister Jensine prefers the snowboard helmut look.

I also noticed that during the holidays there are a whole lot of muscle shows going on at home.  Mickey has even named his biceps for the holidays.  He calls his right bicep "Instant Death" and his left "6 weeks in the hospital".

I also see a lot of bare skin on the boys during the holidays.

 I must say that I prefer the ugly clothes to the bare skin. 

For some reason the season brings out the need for "coolness" with the boys.  There is a whole lot of testosterone going on in the house during the holidays and I tend to see strange things in addition to muscle shows and lots of skin.  I also get to see vests worn without shirts beneath.  It's a redneck type of  look.

                         I even get an occasional visual of a speedo   

                                 which I don't especially appreciate.

I do however, ask the boys to please cover up when company arrives and this is what I usually get........

A nice salute and bow pasties.

As a family we try to do our best to remember what Christmas is really about, therefore, we put on our special production of the nativity each year.  But as I look back on old photos of our nativity, I just realize that the outfits we used for those pagents are just as weird as the rest of our holiday attire.  I mean check this out....

What is that mustache on my sister?  Is that an old yarn hair ribbon from the 70's?  And did the wisemen really wear hippie headbands?  I guess the 3 cottonballs in Sid's hair are a sign that she is the sheep?

Did C3PO fly in on his spaceship for that very first Christmas?

And lastly..........

Was a lampshade the best we could do for the "angel of the Lord's" halo?

I give up.

Holiday fashion will never be our strong suit.

I'm off now to take the girls shopping for their holiday hats so they have something nice to wear at the next special family gathering.

PS That's the top of Jensine's holiday hat and her eyebrows there in the front. 

 More on holiday picture taking later. 



Shari's tip snippet of the week-Best Christmas tip ever! No Bat mobiles!

Ahh the holidays.  I love them but I have learned lessons from them and I am going to give you the number one, biggest lesson yet......NEVER, EVER buy any presents for your kids that you have to put together.  Trust me, if the guy at the toy store says, "We can put this bike together for an extra $25 dollars."  Your answer will always be. "Thank you and here's the $25."  I can promise you that that $25 will be the best money you ever spent.  When you are putting together some dumb ass toy at 3 am on Christmas morning because you decided to save the "assembly fee" you will, at that point, be willing to pay someone $500 just so you can go to bed and not crack another knuckle on a bolt while assembling that most special Christmas toy. 

How do you know that you are in over your head with assembly?  Typically, this is my rule of thumb....if the package says "some assembly required" just know that this means about 4 hours.  If the package says, "Assembly time: 1 hour", you can plan on 5 hours.  What ever the time given for assembly just know it's 5 times that!  I'm serious here.

Let me give you an example.  One Christmas Santa purchased a batman car tent (stupid Santa) for my son Tyler (yes Tyler again).  I'm sure you are asking yourself, what is a batman car tent?  Let me explain......it's a tent about 5 feet by 5 feet in the shape of a bat mobile.  It's really cool to look at and considering Tyler's love for cars, Santa was thinking this was the perfect present.  Santa was also thinking that Tyler could climb into that bat mobile tent on Christmas morning and not come out for a few days.  

Also, picture this......8 children, the oldest is 10 and a set of twins under one who breast feed and a two year old to boot. 

After a festive evening of food, the nativity, talents galore and the Night before Christmas, I declared that it was time for bed.  The kids went to bed but of course Mickey and I had to wait until they actually went to sleep before our next task could begin!  

At about midnight, I climbed out of bed with Mickey Sr. and we tip toed down the stairs to sneak some presents under the tree.  After we finished that, Mickey said he was going to bed and I exclaimed in a chipper voice, "I'll be right up.  I just have to set up the bat mobile tent.  I'll only be a few minutes."  (I was still a Christmas idiot.)  

I opened the bat mobile box to find 200 small pieces of tubing and a bat mobile tent cover thing. In the bottom of the box I found the instructions.  It was literally a book of 30 or so pages.  I had a sick feeling in my stomach.  If this tent hadn't been Tyler's "big" present and one of his only presents, I would have hid it and took it back to the store but NO, I had no choice.  I started putting that stupid tent together at midnight.  At 4 am I started to worry I would run out of time because I knew the kids would arise by 6 am. 

Needless to say, I finished about 5:30 am and as I lay my head on my pillow at 5:35 am about 5 kids came into my room and opened my eyeball and said, "Get up mom.  Quit sleeping in!  We want to see what Santa brought". 

Ugh!

Mickey rolled over from his 6 luxurious hours of slumber and said, "OK!  Let's go see what Santa brought!"

So I drug my carcass down the stairs to watch the chaos.  The kids were tearing and shredding paper and showing me their goods while I nursed the twins.  I was delirious from exhaustion. 

After the presents were opened, it was time for breakfast so Mickey and I went up to prepare breakfast.  The kids came up to eat with the exception of Tyler.  Where was Tyler?

I'm thinking, Tyler is in his bat mobile tent.  He loves it!  I'm a genius.  What an amazing present. 

I kept calling Tyler to come eat.  Tyler does not like to miss meals.  I'm thinking, Tyler loves this tent more than food!  I also think, perhaps I should bring the food to him in his tent.  I decided to go downstairs to check on Tyler.  Tyler was about 7 at the time.  I walked down the stairs.  I stood and stared.  I couldn't believe my eyes!  I went into shock.

There in a pile of rubble were 200 pieces of bat mobile tent. Tyler had disassembled it in less that 30 minutes.  I don't think he even went inside of it. 

My head spun around three times!  The next thing I remember was Mickey saying, "Shari?  Shari?  You have to let go of his neck.  Shari?  You have to unpin him from the wall.  Shari?  Shari? He can't breathe.  Mickey helped me up the stairs to our room to take a "nice" shower.  Pretty much,  I don't  have any other memories of that Christmas other than the fact that Tyler didn't die that year. 

I learned later that I apparently had Tyler pinned to the wall by his neck and was deliriously repeating, Why? Why? Why?

I don't think anyone ever saw that tent all put together again after that fatefull Christmas morning.

That was an ugly Christmas morning for me and for Tyler.  I'm begging, if you care at all for Christmas and your kids then heed my advice and NEVER, EVER bring home any presents with ASSEMBLY REQUIRED!   In this one area I'm am wise beyond my years.  

I'm off now to get those special "cash envelopes".  I have learned that "cash" is accepted everywhere for Christmas presents.   No wrapping either! Genius!