The Vending Machine

Yet another couch story.

After we got our sectional couch, with heat and massage and a queen sleeper and twin recliners, life was all good. It was nice to sit back in the recliner, relax, and stare at the TV each evening with a nice cup holder on the armrest.

The new sectional had a center section that was a flip-down with cup holders, and controls for the heat and massage, or a center seat. The kids loved to sit on the center seat, since they were mostly too weak to yank the recliners out and pop them open.

If the kids weren't sitting in the center section, one of our two cats (the ones that had shredded the previous two couches) would lay in this center seat, all snug and happy and purring like a buzz saw.

And Daddy NEVER sat in the center seat, because the Daddy belonged in a nice recliner, taking his accustomed throne with his many-buttoned scepter in hand, his goblet-o-tea, and his loving attendants (yeah right).

One day, not many days after the purchase of our wondrous throne of many functions, I came home and saw a strange, thick, squiggly 3-foot length of metal laying on the fireplace.

This metal squiggly item was THICK. It had SUBSTANCE. It was SUBSTANTIAL. It had PURPOSE. But, as most clueless Dads, I had no immediate idea what great PURPOSE the squiggle served.

So I summoned my loyal subjects and polled them one by one.

Daddy: "Have you ever seen this?"

Child#1: "Why no, what is it, Daddy?"

Daddy: "What is this used for?"

Child#2: "I have no idea, Daddy!"

Daddy: "Any idea where this came from?"

Child#3: "No, Daddy. I've never seen it before."

Daddy: "Wife, have you ever seen this before?"

Mommy: "No, honey, but it looks like it must have some PURPOSE."

Yes, it had purpose and function. But it took almost a week to find out what.

One day, I came home, and the CAT was in my SPOT. Yes, my throne. The sacred seat with the remote.

Not wanting a fight with the clawless furball, I decided to be a minister of peace, and I got my goblet-o-tea and took the coveted center seat. And sank to the floor.

After much struggling and quite a few invented words, I managed to get my prodigious self up and out of the hole, and inverted the couch, earning me a hiss and an ugly offended look from the furball, who had not yet forgiven me for the loss of his fingernails.

And then, AHA! There was the PURPOSE for which I'd been searching - under each seat but the center one, was a 3-foot black thick metal rod, clamped and bent into place as a spring to support my prodigious rump.

So I retrieved the rod from its place of honor on the fireplace, and with much grunting, bending, flexing of muscle, sweat, and a few more invented words, I managed to bend this heavy metal rod and place it back where it belonged. With a pair of strong pliers I managed to clamp it back in place.

Leaning over the inverted couch, breathing heavily from the strain and exertion, I assembled my loyal subjects for another gathering in the throne room.

"I found the purpose for the black squiggle. It appears that one of my loyal subjects has been jumping up and down on the couch. Now WHO has been jumping up and down on the couch!?"

It was apparent that NO ONE had been jumping up and down on the couch.

So I told them that SOMEONE was lying, and that no one should jump up and down on the couch.

Everyone assured me that they NEVER would jump up and down on the couch, and then we dismissed.

Two weeks later, I came home and there was the black squiggle on the fireplace, in its place of honor. And not under the center seat.

So I inverted the couch, and with much struggling, sweat, and a few invented words, I replaced the black squiggle, and called another staff meeting.

"Let me tell you something, I thought I made myself clear. NO ONE is to jump up and down on this couch. If I catch you doing it again, I will paddle your bottom. Is that clear?"

"Yes Daddy!" All of them gave me their brightest smiles. Nobody was jumping up and down on the couch. No one was guilty. No fear, no guilt.

Ok, so somebody was good at lying. I shrugged my shoulders, and went to pour myself a glass of tea.

Something made me stop in mid pour. I stepped backwards to look in the living room. Halfway up the steps, I saw my 3 year old son, doing a hand-stand on the balcony rail. He held the position for a moment, flipped over the rail and came flying down onto the center seat.

He sank right to the floor and the black squiggle came flying out from the bottom of the couch, flew across the room and struck the baseboard on the other side, like a vending machine dispensing a coke.

He had the most ecstatic look on his face. Just full of joy.

I stood there with tea in hand, apoplectic. I had just promised to paddle them if they did this, and it wasn't more than 5 minutes later.

It just kept playing through my mind. WHAT was he THINKING?!

I hauled him to his mother, and made her spank him. I was too angry.

All that evening, I just kept replaying it in my mind. The hand-stand, right out of the olympics. the squiggle dispensing from the bottom. His joyous look.

What could have been going through his head?? And what could I do to stop him?

I went to bed thinking about it. And somewhere in the middle of the night, a lightbulb came on over my head.

I got out of bed, grabbed a length of 3/4" plywood, and a drill and some screws. I put the board under the seat, to give support for that seat. (It's still there today)

I put my tools away and went to bed. It really didn't even occur to me to tell anyone what I'd done. I just figured I'd solved the problem and promptly forgot about it.

The very next day, I came home from work, and my 3yo son had an ace bandage around his ankle. And he never jumped on the couch again.

But later I talked to my wife, asking, what could he have been thinking?

She just said, in her matter-of-fact way, "Oh, you told him he couldn't jump up and down on the couch. He wasn't jumping UP, just DOWN."

Go figure...

Mary, Queen of Sleepers

The things you never thought you'd say to your kids, and wish forever that you hadn't...

This is a relatively old story, and it begins and ends with a couch. Actually, three different couches.

The first couch was a loveseat sleeper I inherited from my Mom when she moved in with my Bro Joe. We needed a couch, and it also worked as a guest bed, since it was a 'double sleeper'. Though, if you've ever tried sleeping on one you know why they rarely function as one.

It survived a litter or two of kittens, but the arms got ratty as the cats tended to use them as scratching posts. So eventually we decided to get a new couch, as we were having our sunday school class over and the couch was an embarrassment. (We'd tried slipcovers, they just didn't work.)

We weren't thinking rationally. Buying a couch to impress the Sunday School Class? That's a pretty big purchase. I figured it must run about $300 - $400! But we were panicked.

Besides, we had the money, so we bought a Tartan Queen Sleeper. I dubbed it 'Mary, Queen of Scots', because it was a red and green plaid pattern that I'd seen on kilts. (Shades of Bagpipes playing Amazing Grace...)

Here's a Pic of what it looked like...



Anyway, the Sunday School party went off well. Nobody commented on the couch, but I would imagine they might have refused to sit on the old one.

One month after the purchase, our two mixed breed teenage cats decided to use THIS brand new couch as a scratching post. I came home and noticed that the arms were shredded.

So the next day, the cats and I paid a visit to the local Animal Hospital, and I told them to trim their nails back behind their elbows.

I knew that declawing cats was a normal function, but didn't realize that it was to be done normally when a cat was a kitten, or a yearling.

Also, I didn't know that in those days, you declawed cats by cutting off the fingers. OUCH!!! I felt guilt for, oh I don't know, maybe a whole day.

Seriously, I did feel bad.

Anyway, we tried slip covers on this couch too, but eventually we had a windfall and decided to replace the couch. So Mary Queen of Scots went into the expandable, which I had floored in prep to make it a bedroom.

It was replaced by a huge thousand-dollar sectional that was not worth what we paid. That's another interesting story for another day.

One Day, I was sitting on our new couch and watching TV, when my two middle children (Dear Son aged 9, Dear Daughter aged 7, came wandering in and proceeded to block my view with a card table, chairs, and several blankets.

"What do you think you're doing!?" I said. "We're watching TV!"

"We're making a tunnel to crawl through."

"Well, we're watching TV. Go make a tunnel somewhere else."

So they dutifully dismantled the table and chairs and put them in the other room, and went to play upstairs.

Days later, I climbed the stairs to do some more work on the expandable, (I was putting in roll-insulation) When I noticed that Mary had been pulled out from the wall, and that the bed had been extended.

There was something dark on the floor behind the couch, So I went back there to find out what it was.

About half the back of the couch had been cut away with scissors. Apparently, the kids took me literally, and 'made a tunnel'.

They told me how much fun they had going from the back of the couch, through the body, and under the extended mattress.

I told the kids in no uncertain terms, MODIFYING FURNITURE WITH SCISSORS is WRONG.

Well, we discussed options that night. Reupholster, slipcover, or put on the curb. We eventually Free-Cycled it to someone. It was usable, It just had to be against a wall.

Sigh. It wasn't until years later that my wife told me the couch was about double the cost I thought...

Family Feud

Well, it was bound to happen. Guess I can only blame myself.

My sister and I have had an ongoing rivalry about who can give their nephew/niece the most obnoxious gift.

It all started years ago when I gave her son a phaser for Christmas. It was one of those cool guns that is clear, lights up, and makes all those cool noises. WhooooooooBang!!! WeeOWeeeOWeeeeOWeeeOh! Dadadadadadowwww!!!!

You know the sounds. They range from something out of 'Missile Command' to the machine gun sound from Dick Tracy.

Anyway, she was NOT pleased.

Expressively NOT pleased, with a glint in her eye that said 'Just you wait.'

Next Christmas, she loaded up my daughters on beads and artwork and such. We had beads and fake earrings and necklaces everywhere, and watercolor pages left everywhere in the house, wallpapering the fridge and the table and even the walls.

So, the following year, her kids got squirtguns. They all had a blast. It was great fun, I'm sure, squirting Mom with those little pistols.

So the year after that, my son got a car that plays one tune over and over.

Anyway, this has just been building and building. It's an all-out war.

last year, we loaded her kids down with the super-soaker 9000s, the pump-action ones with the tanks that strap on your back, and can shoot the paint off your car.

For some reason, my dear Sis was less than enthusiastic about bringing them home.

So this year, she found the perfect, perfect, PERFECT gift for my 13 year old son.



Here it is.

Oh my. A couple of double-A batteries, and away we go.

This nerf machinegun fires 20 rounds in the space of 10 seconds, and my son wanted to unpack it right away. Well, since we didn't have any batteries, we made him wait till we got it home from my Bro's house, where we had Christmas.

But at home, we had an ample supply of AA batteries. Too many, in fact.

Enough to keep him shooting the back of my head, the cats, the 3yo toddler, and the mirrors from the other side of the house.

This gun can stick 20 little yellow and purple suction-cup darts on a wall 30 feet away and 20 feet up in the space of 10 seconds.

If they hit you, they leave a little red circle, just the same size as the suction cup. We discovered that the darts don't stick to foreheads well.

Now, shhhhhhh. I think I've got a good answer for next year's Christmas present for her big son...



According to Amazon, Customers who bought this also bought extra rounds...

Hey, Sis, see ya next Christmas...

:-D

No Deposit, No Return

So, my Mom called, and said that they had been burglarized while they were away at work.

I really love our city. Ok, not really. Some of the people in the Memphis area are good and wholesome people, but there's a lot of crime and it's one of the most violent cities in the nation.

Anyway, I talked with her at length, and gave her info on how to post a fraud alert on her accounts, to prevent the thieves from setting up new credit cards, buying cars, etc, with their credit info.

So after I hung up, I was quite rattled. We had to go pick up our daughter from cheerleading, and on the way back I remembered I had some checks to deposit, so we drove through the teller.

I'm a programmer, so I understand that sometimes programmers don't live in the 'real world'. But the way tellers used to be, there would be a stack of envelopes at the teller, and you could pull one out, drive off, fill out your envelope at your leisure, and endorse your checks, seal your envelope and be all prepared to drive BACK through the drive-through teller, and deposit your checks quickly.

Nuff said?

Well, now, there are no envelopes out anymore, because some people thought it fun to take them all.

So, the routine is, drive up, pull out your checks, zip your atm card, enter the total amount, and it asks if you want an envelope. When you get the envelope, you have approximately 15 seconds to put your endorsed checks in the envelope, write your name, address, and account number on the front, and insert the envelope in the slot.

All while the machine is beeping loudly enough for any criminals in the nearest mile to figure out that you are depositing money.

So, like a good scout, I had us endorse all our checks first (Yes, when you are ADD, you often forget to deposit them, some of them were months old.) and total up what they all added up to.

Then we drove up to the teller. My Drivers License is in the same pocket of my wallet as my ATM card, and my hands were shaking, as I saw thugs in every other car, and sneaking up through the dark.

Yeah, I know. God has not given us the spirit of fear... Well, He wasn't the one talking to me tonight but oh well.

So, the drivers license and atm card fell out in the car, and I stuck the drivers license in my breast pocket and zipped the ATM. After entering the amount, it asked if I wanted an envelope.

Duh.

So, I grab the envelope, and an errant gust of wind blows it out of my shaking hands and under the car.

So, I had to pull forward from the ATM, and my wife got the envelope, which she proceeded to attempt to feed into the machine.

Uh, honey, the checks are in my pocket.

So, I stop her, get out of the car, (yes, it's running, but at least it's in park) and run back there to stop her. I grab the checks and stuff them into the envelope, while it's screaming to beat the band, asking if I jolly well need more time.

Grrr... so I tell it YES, and then proceed to stand there in the drive thru writing my name and account number on the envelope, seal it up and feed it through.

Not until the envelope has disappeared down the throat of the evil beast did I realize that my drivers license had gone with the checks into the machine.

And the punch line?

My wife commented "I didn't think they required ID at the ATM."

While You Were Frosting

Every New Years, we watch certain movies in our family that remind us of the Christmas and New Years Seasons.

So, last night our 19yo daughter broke out our VHS copy of 'While You Were Sleeping', a romantic comedy starring Sandra Bullock.

All of us started out watching the movie, but it couldn't hold the interest of our 13yo son or our 3yo son.

The 13yo went into the other room to play some Star Fox Adventures, and the 3yo started playing quietly with his toys.

And then not so quietly.

After a bit, the movie got to the good part, where Lucy (Sandra Bullock) is revealing the big secret that pervades the whole movie. It's a scene filled with angst and emotion, and we were all sucked into the movie.

Then our 3yo got very noisy, chasing cats back and forth across the upstairs screaming and enjoying himself immensely, so we had to put the movie on pause while we tried to reign him in and get him under control.

We couldn't hear the movie anyway.

So our 19yo daughter took over the little man, while our 10yo daughter tried to calm the kitties, and I went up to our bedroom to dress for bed and get ready for our nighttime routine (reading the kids a story).

When I got to our room, though, I was so shocked I hollered out our 3yo's name.

There must have been some note in my voice that led our son to believe he was going to get smooshed, because he ran to hide in the bathroom downstairs, holding his bottom all the way.

Well, I knew I wasn't going to spank him in anger, so when I got to him, I told him that we were going to go see what he had done before he got his spanking.

So we headed up the stairs to see.

In our bedroom, there was white cream squirted all over the dresser, the floor, my coat (flung haphazardly over a chair), and even the top of our ceiling-height curtains.

There was crumbled gingerbread house all over the floor, mixed in with the cream, and there was a bottle of Oil of Olay covered with cream.

I had a talk with the little man, asking him what he thought he was doing squirting that stuff all over the bedroom.

He said he was 'frosting cookies.'

I felt a cold chill run up and down my spine. After a couple more questions, we determined that he had eaten the cookies.

Bet they didn't taste very good.

So while my wife cleaned up the mess, I called the poison control center.

When I told her what the product was, how old the child was, and then mentioned what he said he was doing, the lady laughed so hard she practically fell out of her chair.

She said that he probably didn't enjoy the taste of that, which explains why there was gingerbread all over the floor.

Thankfully, he didn't need to go to the hospital. She said if he ate a LOT of it he would have a belly ache, and that would be the most that would happen.

But the traumatic event reminded us all of Prov 29:15 - The rod and rebuke give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.

The passage, of course, is describing a child who receives no discipline. Our little guy was left to himself for a short time, but he didn't get away with it...

Dis Mantle

So it all started with the Mantle Clock.

It was (and still is, in some respects) a thing of beauty, the only real thing of value I got from my first 'real' job there at Jostens (other than a good career path!).

The clock was sold in an employee auction because of a slight mar on one foot, a $350 mantle clock that I picked up as the highest bidder for $70.

I was real proud of that clock, and would wind it weekly, to hear its lovely chimes ringing through the house. Letting us know what time it was. Even in the middle of the night.

When we got our second home, because of the ice storm here in the Memphis area, I insisted we get a home with a fireplace, which of course came with a mantle. An excellent place for a mantle clock, wouldn't you agree?

By this time we had two children - a daughter (9) and a son (3) and one on the way.

We already knew that our daughter was ADD, due to a diagnosis when she was in the first grade and struggling a bit. But the jury was out on our son.

Well, life at work had gotten quite hectic, and I was putting in extremely long days and weeks, working weekends and quite worn out, so I forgot to perform my Monday ritual winding of the ever-important mantle clock.

Tuesday came, and my 3yo dear son reminded me to wind the clock. I said I would, but a call from work caused me to rush off without doing so.

A cardinal sin.

Dragging back home at around 7:30pm that night, I went straight to the kitchen and went to the fridge to pour myself a glass of iced tea. Something us southern folks find a necessity down here in the sweltering south.

I stopped in mid pour, with the dawning realization that something was STRUCTURALLY DIFFERENT about the home. No, not just 'I cleaned the Living Room!' or 'I rearranged the furniture, do you like it?' or 'I bought a slipcover for the couch, that's a nice color, don't you think?'

No, this was on the level of a new window, or a new door.

So I put the pitcher down and came back in the living room, looking for the cause of my concern. And suddenly, I saw it. Or rather I didn't see it.

The mantle.

It was GONE. That's right, gone. Not painted, or damaged, just completely and utterly gone. Unpainted drywall was staring me in the face.

I blinked.

It was STILL GONE.

I rubbed my eyes.

The mantle persisted in its gone-ness.

I've heard of people stealing stereos, TVs, even Tickle-Me-Elmos. But a mantle thief??

I said, 'Um, Honey?'

'Yes?' came her bright voice from the other room.

'Where's the MANTLE?' - I tried to sound as sweet as she did, but I was failing miserably.

'Oh, the Mantle?'

'Yes, the MANTLE.' There was a different note in my voice, the 'don't mess with me' voice.

'Oh, it's in the garage.' As if that settled the matter.

'Um, why isn't it on the wall?' Like where it belongs...

'Ask your son...'

Yes. It appears that my sequentially thinking son had decided to wind the clock for poor Daddy, since he forgot. Being athletic (and giftedly so) this little 3yo took a running leap, and caught the mantle. Pulled himself up and got an elbow on top the mantle, and hung there by one hand while he opened the door to the clock and attempted to find the key to wind it.

At this point, physics and gravity took over.

The professional construction crew who built our home probably didn't consider the possibility that we would be hanging toddlers from our mantle. Usually you hang stockings from this piece of furniture, and perhaps put bric-a-brac on it, with nothing much heavier than a mantle clock expected.

So the ten-penny nails began to come out and with a groan and a crash, toddler, clock and mantle came crashing down.

Luckily for our toddler, the clock decided to slide before falling, and went past him, and the rather large, rather disassembled mantle fell in front of him.

When the family came running to find out who had started the war, they all decided to hide the evidence and hope that Daddy wouldn't notice.

Yes, I'm ADHD too. But not so far gone I'd miss a missing mantle. (Well, ok, for more than the time it takes to pour some tea...)

Well, dear son and I had a talk, and he helped me glue the mantle clock back together (yes! It still works and everything!)

And I took a trip to the store to buy a box of heavy duty nails and I rehung the mantle in such a way that I could hang on it myself. (Yes, I tried this).

I'm reminded through all of this, though, that I should not hold too tightly to THINGS. Like Mantle clocks. As beautiful as these things are, everything in this life is passing away. And sometimes God has to use a prybar, or an over-helpful toddler, to open our fingers so he can fill our hands with the good things of lasting value.