Computer virus...

We’ve all become computer literate and found that we enjoy having everything from research to shopping right at our finger tips. We can purchase books, CDs, antiques, baby clothing and gourmet food without leaving the comfort of our recliners. We can research whether there were fly swats in 1919 and read the news before it hits the newspapers.

It’s all amazing until one of those virus things hits and then it’s a deluxe panic in ultra high gear. The crazy thing is that there are millions of viruses with names like dark avenger, anthraxia and amoebia mania. They are all guaranteed to gum up the works inside the computer quicker than pouring a two liter bottle of Dr Pepper through the vent holes.

The resident bad boy a while back was something called “Badtimes.” We were warned to take anyone who sent that deadly thing to us right off our Christmas card list. It was so bad that if someone sent it on purpose, “he needed killin’” was a justifiable defense in the courtroom.

Here’s how we were to deal with it if we received it.

Delete it immediately. Do not open. Do not call tech support. Do not finish your cup of coffee. Delete the sorry sucker.

It was guaranteed to erase your hard drive and delete anything on disks within twenty feet of your computer. If it did crawl into your computer and set up housekeeping it would demagnetize the stripes on every single credit card you have and not one of the numbers would work on the stop from your arm chair places. It didn’t care if you were willing to outbid the $2.99 price on genuine unbent caps from seven ounce Coke bottles. A little window would pop up and words would come across the screen saying, “Sorry darlin’, but you’ve been bitten by Badtimes and there is no tolerance.”

It could reprogram your ATM access code, screw up Netflex and use subspace field harmonic technology to scratch any CD’s you wanted to play. It showed no mercy on my Floyd Cramer CD but didn’t put a single scratch on the kid’s acid rock CD. Go figure.

It could possibly recalibrate the refrigerator’s coolness setting so all the ice cream could melt, your milk curdle and the cheese grow moldy within ten minutes time.

It could program your telephone to auto dial your mother-in-law every hour on the hour and had the ability to put antifreeze in the fish tank.

It promised that it could and would replace your shampoo with Nair and your Nair with Rogaine. It could even remove forbidden tags from your mattress and pillows and replace your skimmed milk with whipping cream.

It was a serious thing but not as bad as some of the new viruses. If anyone even mentions the idea of a new badtimes virus by any name at all, you are to go straight to your computer, unplug it from the wall, throw salt over your left shoulder, turn around three times to the left and twice to the right, kiss a black cat’s ear and burn six red candles.

And you might want to send this post to all your friends so they won’t take you off their Christmas card list for withholding important virus information.

What the kids taught me...

Yesterday I posted about the things that my mama taught me about life. Today I’m going to mention a few things that I’ve learned from raising kids.

A three year old’s voice is louder than 200 adults in a restaurant and they aren’t a bit shy about telling you what they have to do in the bathroom and how they need to hurry, hurry to get there.

If you hook a belt to the ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a forty pound boy wearing Superman underwear and a Batman cape made from a pillow case. It will however spin two kittens in the pillow case until they are very dizzy.

You should never throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on because if the ball makes contact with the ban, the glass window pane will not stop it. The local lumber yard does not give discounts on glass windows just because the ceiling fan helped the kid make a home run around the living room.

Brake fluid mixed with bleach and dish water soap makes smoke and lots of it. It takes the volunteer fire department three minutes to respond to smoke billowing out the garage door.

Certain Legos will pas through the digestive tract of a four year old. So will buttons and dimes.

When you hear the toilet flush followed by the words, “Uh-oh!” it’s already too late.

A king sized water bed holds enough water to fill a 2000 square foot house about four inches deep. If the house is smaller, it can double as a wading pool.

Garbage bags do not make good parachutes or Batman capes. Put them under lock and key for at least two weeks after taking the children to the circus.

My friend advised me that no matter how much Jell-O the kids put into a swimming pool they can not walk on water and pool filters do not like Jell-O. I did not buy a pool when the children were growing up. It took all my time to find places to hide the brake fluid and plastic garbage bags.

You do not want to know what that smell is coming from the kitchen. Just yell down the hallway that whatever the teenagers are cooking, they will have to clean up the mess. It might help to check the latest hiding place for the brake fluid before you go back to reading your book. They could be doing more chemistry experiments rather than burning macaroni and cheese.

Play dough and microwave should never be used in the same sentence around children.

Always look in the oven before you turn it on. Those little plastic dish sets you buy for your daughter will melt in two minutes at 350 degrees. It will take five ours of work and sixteen tons of elbow grease to scrub one plate and saucer from the racks and the bottom of the oven.

The spin cycle on the washer does not make earth worms dizzy. They are able to crawl quite well after five minutes of spinning around in fast circles. Sometimes the agitator will pop their tails off, though.

A six year old boy can start a fire with a flint rock and/or a magnifying glass in less than five minutes. The volunteer fire department responds to blazes in the back yard in less than three minutes.

Super glue is forever. If a child sticks his finger in it and then touches your brand new Willie Nelson CD, you can’t scrape it off, melt it off or even cuss it off. Acetone will work but it tends to make Willie sound like a soprano.

Yes, they have taught me a lot but I’m so glad that they are all grown and are now learning from their own children.

Mama's Teachings...

We are all products, in some way or another, of what our mothers taught us. My mama got it from her mother, who I’m sure we can trace all the way back to her mother and right on back to where that lady who was built from a rib.

My mama taught me the importance of logic. “If you climb up in that pecan tree you’re going to fall out and break your neck and then you can’t go to the store with me. And you can forget about a rainbow snow cone because it’ll melt all over you if your neck is in a brace.”

She taught me all about medicine. “If you cross your eyes, they’re going to freeze like that. No doctor in the world will be able to uncross them and you’ll die an old maid because no man in the world wants a cross eyed woman for a wife.”

And to remember that today wasn’t the whole enchilada. Tomorrow would arrive and we should prepare for it. “If you don’t pass your spelling test, you will grow up to be a moron and you’ll never have a good job. You will have to plant sweet potatoes and hoe green beans all your life.” The idea of picking up a hoe and working in the gardens all day sure enough put my head in the books until my eyes did almost cross.

She taught me to keep my mouth shut. “Answer me when I talk to you, girl. Don’t you dare just stand there blinking your eyes like a frog. Don’t you talk back to me or I’ll drop kick you into next week.”

And a good solid lesson in genetics. “You are acting just like your father. The Chapman side of the family wouldn’t do something that stupid.”

She taught me about my roots. “Shut that door. You’ll let he flies in and the cool air out. You were not born in a barn.”

And anticipation. “Just go to your room. You are grounded for twenty years. I may never speak to you again after that stunt. I’ll come and get you when I’ve found the temper I lost. If you starve to death before I make it to your room then remember you asked for this.”

She didn’t forget the birds and bees. “Just how do you think you got here?” That was the whole story. I didn’t know how I got here and I wasn’t about to ask. She might put me back in my room and my fat cells whined at the very thought of starvation.

The there was the wisdom of age. “When you get to be my age and when you are a mother, you will understand.”

My all time favorite was the lesson on justice. “One day you will have kids and I hope they’ll turn out just like you. Then you’ll see what it’s like.”

A few weeks ago my daughter was teaching her daughter about genetics, not talking back and being drop kicked into the middle of next week. I just smiled…history was repeating itself!

Five questions...

There are five questions that terrify the pants of all mankind. I’m talking about mankind as in the male gender, not in the business of the whole world which would include the female gender as well.

It surprised me that men were afraid of anything except dishes and losing the remote control. Just try asking your husband any one of the questions when he comes home tonight. Ask before he picks up the remote, which is a security blanket for most men. If they have it in their hand they don’t have to answer questions or be responsible for the answers they give. It’s like a pacifier for a baby. Give a baby a pacifier and he’s asleep in two minutes. Give a man the remote and he’s snoring in two minutes.

Question number one: “What are you thinking about?”

What he was really thinking about was one of the following: football, golf, how much weight you gained since Thanksgiving, how much prettier his secretary is than you are or how he’d spend the insurance money if you died.

But if he’s got two sane brain cells rubbing together in that space between his ears he will say, “I was thinking about what a wonder wife and mother you are and how lucky I am to have you in my life, darlin’.”

Question number two: “Do you love me?”

Wrong answers are: Would it make you feel better if I said yes? Define love. Does it matter? Any one of those answers and he will find his pork chop tacked to the garage door and his sweet tea in the dog bowl when he comes home for supper that night.

Right answer: “Of course I love you to the moon and back.”

Question number three: “Do I look fat?”

Wrong answers: Compared to what? I would call you fat, but you aren’t exactly model material. A little extra weight looks good on you. I’ve seen fatter women. You could loose twenty pounds. Those answers will land him in the dog house for eternity plus three days. He’d better forget how he’d spend the life insurance and prepare to be drop kicked to the Pearly Gates.

The right answer would be: “Of course not!”

Question number four: “Do you think she’s prettier than me?”

Wrong answers: Yes, but you have a better personality. Define pretty. Not as pretty as you when you were her age. One of these answers will get him drop kicked to a place where he’d better remember to pack lots of sun block.

Right answer would be: “Of course not, darlin’. No one is prettier than you are.”

And the final question: “What would you do if I died?”

Wrong answers: Buy a new Cadillac. Get married again within six months. Move back in with my mother who cooks better than you do anyway.

Right answer: I would wallow in sorrow until I was old and gray. I would never marry again and I’d keep my wedding band on until the day I die.

Five questions that can make or break a marriage. Study them, fellers, and remember the right answers, especially if the couch has lumps or springs that stick up through the cushions. And remember that the dog house is not air conditioned.

 

 

Labels...

The article in the magazine said that the whole population needs to be “label intelligent.” Yeah, right! How much intelligence does it require to see green beans on the label and know that the can is filled with green beans? It’s only when I can’t get my bifocals adjusted that I pick up those French cut things that my family doesn’t like but other than that, I do know green beans from corn or turnip greens.

I was feeling right smug until I read further and realized they were talking about the numbers on the side of the can, not the pictures. The place where the ultra smart nutritionists talk about fat and calories, sodium and fiber. Some of those things would cause my granny to leave her cloud of glory and wash my mouth out with soap if I said them out loud.

However, since I am part of the “whole population” and I don’t have a cloud of glory yet, I figured it was time for me to seriously consider becoming label literate. I tore a piece of paper from my trusty spiral back notebook, made several columns with headings and taped it to the refrigerator door.

At the end of the day I would be able to converse intelligently about fat grams, gluton, saturated fate and dietary fiber. If I met Aunt Molly in the grocery store we could talk about our dietary fiber and figure out if we should add a package of dried prunes to our grocery list.

The article went on to say that I should divide my height by my weight, add my grandmother’s age when she had her first child, divide by how many step-mothers I had (I had to take off my shoes for that one because I ran out of fingers), add in the day, month and year when I found my first gray hair and write down that number. Then take my weight, multiply by my brother’s IQ, divide that by my grandfather’s highest wage and add the bottom number of my last vision test. Subtract number one from number two and that’s how many fat grams I could have each day to maintain my weight.

I could do this. I started with breakfast on Monday morning because that’s when all things must begin if they are going to work.

Right in the middle of writing down the calories for the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I had made for my breakfast, my daughter called. I can talk and transpose numbers onto a sheet at the same time. I thought I put it in the right place but then maybe I did put the calories in the fat gram column. Oh, well, I figured it would all even out by the end of the day and I would be very healthy plus I’d be label intelligent.

Lunch was a disaster. In order to figure up a fried bologna sandwich a person need a degree in analytical geometry with a course in diagnostic algebra on the side. Chips to go with that? Sixteen chips equaled this number but I was telling a story and I think I ate eighteen, so that was the numbers from the first sixteen, plus twelve and a half percent added to it.

After supper I added the columns and found out I had consumed enough fat grams for the rest of the week, so little dietary fiber that I might die before dawn and my calculator didn’t have enough spaces to add all the calories. Who would have known that Snickers bars have very little Vitamin A and ice cream doesn’t add much iron?

The next day I got a big permanent marker and took it to the pantry. I tore off all the labels, trashed them and wrote on the cans…green beans, corn, spinach, pineapple.

Next time I see Aunt Molly and she says, “Aren’t you looking fit since you are label intelligent,” I will smile and say, “Thank you, darlin’. I’ve got the whole business under control.”

 

Banana Pudding...

My sister has been gone two years now and I still pick up the phone occasionally to call her with a funny story or to vent about something that has gone wrong. Happened just yesterday and made me think of her banana pudding recipe that she always brought to the family affairs. We told everyone it was an old family recipe and that we couldn't share it when in actuality she'd gotten it off the internet. So today, since she's been on my mind lately, I'm sharing our "old family" recipe with all y'all.

BANANA PUDDING

 

1 large pkg instant vanilla pudding, (6 ounces)

 

2 1/2 cups cold milk

 

1 can sweetened condensed milk, (14 ounces)

 

1 container whipped topping, (16 ounces)

 

sliced bananas

 

vanilla wafer cookies

 

Mix pudding and milk; add condensed milk. Blend well; fold in half the whipped topping.

In a serving bowl or individual dessert dishes, alternate layers of pudding, bananas and vanilla wafers; top with remaining whipped topping and a few banana slices. 

Refrigerate overnight before serving.

 

NOTE: It works with fresh strawberries almost as well! And someday I'm going to try it with fresh blackberries!

 

Mother's Dictionary...

Since I was talking about motherhood yesterday, I thought this might be appropriate for my Saturday Giggle blog post.

A Mother's Dictionary

Bottle feeding: An opportunity for Daddy to get up at 2 am too.

Defense: What you'd better have around de yard if you're going to let the children play outside.

Drooling: How teething babies wash their chins.

Dumbwaiter: One who asks if the kids would care to order dessert.

Family planning: The art of spacing your children the proper distance apart to keep you on the edge of financial disaster

Feedback: The inevitable result when the baby doesn't appreciate the strained carrots.

Full name: What you call your child when you're mad at him.

Grandparents: The people who think your children are wonderful even though they're sure you're not raising them right.

Hearsay: What toddlers do when anyone mutters a dirty word.

Impregnable: A woman whose memory of labor is still vivid.

Independent: How we want our children to be as long as they do everything we say.

Look out: What it's too late for your child to do by the time you scream it.

Prenatal: When your life was still somewhat your own.

Prepared childbirth: A contradiction in terms.

Puddle: A small body of water that draws other small bodies wearing dry shoes into it.

Show off: A child who is more talented than yours.

Sterilize: What you do to your first baby's pacifier by boiling it and to your last baby's pacifier by blowing on it.

Storeroom: The distance required between the supermarket aisles so that children in shopping carts can't quite reach anything.

Temper tantrums: What you should keep to a minimum so as to not upset the children.

Top bunk: Where you should never put a child wearing Superman jammies.

Two-minute warning: When the baby's face turns red and she begins to make those familiar grunting noises.

Verbal: Able to whine in words

Whodunit: None of the kids that live in your house.

Whoops: An exclamation that translates roughly into "get a paper towel."