Confession of a Syrupy Sort

I have a secret.


I'll share it, but you have to promise not to tell.

Today when I was at the market, I bought this:


Notice the key four-letter word on the front:


That's right. It's "Lite". It has 50% fewer calories. See how happy that fact makes the CEO?


So I brought it home, took our other syrup bottle out of the pantry, grabbed a funnel and got sneaky...


Voila!

'Lite' syrup disguised as 'Original' syrup to fool my family of 'Lite'-haters.


What?

What's that, family-o'-mine?

You like the syrup I usually buy?

Well, guess what...

*hee hee hee*

...I've been doing this for YEARS and not one of you has EVER complained about the syrup's taste or consistency.


(Did you never notice how ragged and worn out that big ol' bottle of 'Original' syrup was? The thing's been with us for a decade!)

Enjoy your pancakes!


*giggle*

Chagrin A La Mode

Wow.

I fell off a really high horse today.

And I still have the wind knocked out of me from hitting the ground so incredibly hard.

But it was pretty funny, so here we go...

Last Sunday, we met my dad and his wife at a restaurant for dinner. When we pulled into the parking lot, I noticed that my dad's car was parked in a handicapped spot.

"Hmmm...that's weird," I thought. "I didn't know they had a handicapped placard."

My step mom had knee surgery about a year ago, so I figured that it was because of that, but as I walked past their car, I saw that there was no

on their license plate nor hanging from their rear view mirror.

Hmmmm...

I suddenly had a few flashbacks, one of which I will share with you.

(You see, you have to understand something about my dad. He's the kind of person who likes to 'get away' with things. I'm not talking criminal activity. I'm just saying that as long as I can remember, my dad has lived by the philosophy, "If you don't know it's forbidden, assume it's not... and even if you know it is forbidden, just feign innocence and see if you can get away with it... and if it's stupid that it's forbidden, just do it anyway." Although this was lived out in front of me consistently, I did not grow up to embrace this ideology for myself. In fact, I feel a little guilty every time I sneak candy into the movie theater or take a sip of Jeff's drink at Subway.)

Okay, back to the flashback...

When I was about 5, we went to Disneyland. For some reason, my parents wanted to watch the Electrical Light Parade. (Is that still going on there? Perhaps the invention of electricity is no longer novel enough to warrant a parade in its honor.) Anyway, of course there was no where left to stand because so many other Disney patrons were lined up on Main Street to gawk at all the dancing lit-up characters, so my dad devised a plan.

We got in line for some ride that was along the parade route and just kept letting people (people who actually wanted to go on the ride) pass us. That way we had a great view of all the happenings.

Well, Disneyland is crawling with plain clothes employees who blend in with the crowds and make sure that everything is running smoothly, so it didn't take long before our minor rebellion was noticed. Some lady informed us we would have to move with the line or get out of it. My dad refused. This apparently elevated us to a higher threat level (orange, perhaps) and some other lady appeared. (She had a walkie talkie so she was truly official.) She told us to move on or move out.

I remember my dad staring ahead blankly at the parade in progress (a twenty foot high blue fairy in an illuminated gown like this



was passing by) and obstinately informing her that she'd have to get somebody to move us. She promised she would and stalked off, barking into her walkie talkie.

In my little child's mind, I thought that a police car with flashing lights was going to pull up any second and haul us all off to jail. Seriously, I felt so sick with worry that I'm surprised I didn't hurl all over the happiest pavement on earth.

I started begging my dad to just get us out of there, insisting that I didn't care about the parade.

Well, I don't exactly recall how that all ended. I have no recollection of being hand cuffed or even tossed out of the park, but one thing I learned that night was that sometimes my dad was a rebel...

...with a very lame cause.

Fast forward to last Sunday...so I went into the restaurant thinking, "Is he just trying to see if he can get away with it? What if a genuinely handicapped person needs that spot?"

All of Monday it gnawed at me and by Tuesday I made the decision to address it.

My dad is not the type of person who is talked into anything he doesn't want to do nor someone who is talked out of anything he does want to do, so I felt I needed to choose my words very carefully. I wanted to prove my case irrefutably and concisely so I planned everything out, almost word for word. (I even wrote some prompts on the back of my grocery shopping list so that I wouldn't forget to include anything in my passionate plea for reason.)

After practicing my speech a couple of times (no, not in front of the mirror), I got him on the phone. Our conversation went something like this:

Me--"Dad, I need to talk to you about something and it might be difficult."

Him--*deep sigh* "Alright, let me adjust my chair so I don't fall over." *shuffle, scoot* "Okay, my elbows are firmly planted on my desk and I'm anxious to hear what you have to say." (I wish you all knew my dad so you could appreciate the subdued humor with which all of this was said.)

Me--"You did something on Sunday that really bothered me.*

Him--"Oh? Tell me what it was."

Me--*furiously scanning my list while taking a deep breath* "When someone who has two perfectly healthy legs parks their car in a spot designated for someone who does not, it embarrasses his wife and sets a bad example for his grand kids. It is illegal and it makes him look foolish, arrogant and inconsiderate. You..."

Him--"Wait, wait. I'm still listening, but I think I should tell you something that might change everything you're thinking...It's not illegal."

Me--*still convinced of the importance of my preaching* "What do you mean it's not illegal?"

Him--"Donna's knees are hurting her so the doctor got us a placard to hang on our rear view mirror."

Me--*my resolve begins to crumble* "Dad, I looked for a placard and didn't see one."

Him--*pausing thoughtfully for a moment* "Oh, that must have been the day that we came back to the car and saw that it had fallen onto the floorboard."

Yeah.

You can only imagine how incredibly stupid I felt.

There I was, thinking that I was going to school my dad in "considerate parking" skills and it turns out that he not only had every right to park there, but that he did so out of consideration for his poor wife.

Yeah.

I'm an idiot.


(Awesome illustration courtesy of Natalie Kocsis's website: www.natty.org)

To make a long story short, I began to apologize profusely for several moments and then I started to laugh harder than I have in a long time.

Not once did he shame me for being a presumptuous goody-goody nor even seem offended at my ill-founded disdain. Rather, he thanked me for being willing to talk to him about it because if he had done that then he would need to be chastised for it. He then complimented my "well thought out" speech and cracked jokes about how it's true that he is arrogant, inconsiderate, an embarrassment to his wife and a bad example to his grand kids, but at least he's not being all those things illegally.

*sigh*

Dad, thank you for dealing so graciously with a pious, ninny such as my self-righteous, imbecilic self.

It's very nice that when you have to eat humble pie, the person serving it to you includes a scoop of ice cream.

Rodents I Have Loved (Or Tolerated Anyway)

Recently, Delaney's friend bought two hamsters at the pet store. By the time she got them home, she had seven. (Okay, so that's an exaggeration, but only a slight one.)

Fearing the exponentially multiplying capabilities of her new pets, she wanted to give the babies away as soon as they were weaned. So, a week or two ago, Delaney adopted Kiwi. I took a bunch of pictures, but the wee spastic creature is nothing but a blur in all of them, so here's a fairly accurate representation of her, courtesy of google images:

Thus continues our long history of rodentesque companions.

Several years ago, both Tobias and Delaney declared their desires for domesticated rodentia.

Tobias wanted a rat. This made sense because rats are supposed to be the craftiest of rodents. He wanted to walk around with it parked on his shoulder, scaring the pellets out of people. (People like you, Jo Anna H. :))

Delaney, of course, wanted a cute, cuddly hamster to hold in the palm of her hand so she could rub its little silky ears.

As Jeff and I pondered the reasonableness of their requests, I well recalled the overwhelming desire I had as a child for a furry little pet. I also recalled the nasty job of cleaning out a cage and the unpleasant accompanying odor of urine. (Ugh. That stuff packs a punch.)

After much deliberation, we informed the kids that they could purchase their coveted pets, but they were required to clean the cages once a week (or more often if the smell proved to be too much) and they would have to pay for all the food, bedding and other needs of their newly purchased friends.

Off to PetsJunk we went: two elated children and two parents wondering how long before the reality of pee-soaked bedding stuck to the bottom of a cage would set in.

Tobias purchased a Russian Blue rat and appropriately named him Boris.


Delaney selected a black and white Syrian hamster and named him Panda.


(Pictures posed by models.)

The kids both wanted females, but unfortunately the only available rodents were male. Quite blatantly male. (I won't go into embarrassing details.)

It didn't take us long to realize that just as every village has an idiot, so does every pet shop, and unfortunately we'd brought him home in a box with air holes. I don't know if Boris had too much vodka on the boat ride over from Russia or if he fell out of the rat nest on to his head or what, but he was certainly not an intellectual credit to his species. He just sort of sat in the corner, not looking nervous or even aware of the world around him. Even his little nose seemed to twitch at a retarded rate.

Boris lasted two years and not once did he utilize the exercise wheel in his cage. I don't know if that was due to his lack of intelligence or if laziness could be added to his list of unfortunate traits. Tobias bravely hid his disappointment and determined to be a good rat owner regardless of his pet's complete and utter lameness.

His final months were quite...well, hmmm...the most apt word that comes to mind is 'disgusting'. He had a tendency to scratch himself until he bled and his hair began to fall out. Also, one of his legs swelled up to frightening proportions due to some unidentified disorder. Ewww.

So there he was, huddled in the corner, a scabby, bald, bloated imbecile. However, Tobias remained faithful and tended him well to the very revolting end.

Panda's presence was a bit more heart-warming and rewarding. He astounded us with his incredible cheek capacity as he stuffed them nearly to the bursting point with various objects. Delaney delighted in offering him tastes of unfamiliar goodies. He rolled along happily in both his hamster ball across the floor and on his cage's exercise wheel. He was soft and sweet and elicited many an 'awww' from Delaney and her friends.

He also lived about two years. His end was far less repulsive than was Boris's and far more dramatic. You see, Delaney found her little friend dead in his cage and we promptly gathered as a family in the front yard (not wanting the dog to dig him up in the backyard) to bury him. Delaney told her tiny pal goodbye and gently placed his furry body into the shallow grave. Jeff nearly threw a shovelful of dirt over him when it happened...

...he moved! The poor little thing was nearly buried alive! Apparently he was in some kind of a hamster-coma, a state of being with which we were unfamiliar. (Hey, it's hard to check a hamster's pulse, okay?)

So Delaney retrieved him from his not-so-final-resting-place and put him back into his cage where he could expire peacefully. By the next day, we were convinced that he was truly, completely and totally dead, so the rain-checked funeral was carried out.


Now some of you will want to suspend your reading of this post because I'm going to go back further in history and tell a rodent tale from my own childhood and trust me...it's revoltingly foul. If you are easily made quesy, stop here and go check Woot.com or some other pleasant webpage.

You have been warned.

When I was about Delaney's age, I had a hamster of my own named Sammy the Hammy.

One day before school, I found Sammy still and silent in her cage. I dolefully assumed she was dead but I knew she'd have to remain untended to until I got home from school.

While at school, I told all my friends about poor Sammy's demise. One girl suggested that Sammy was not dead, but instead was hibernating.

'Ahh,' I thought. 'Yes, hibernating, of course!'

Upon arriving home, I examined her more closely and decided to try to rouse her from her hibernation. For some reason, my childish mind thought that the best way to do this was to...
(Okay, this is going to get really gross.)

... place her on a heating pad.

So I did.

I clicked the pad's setting from 'off' to 'low' and waited several minutes, anxious for my little friend to be restored to me.

There was no fluttering of Sammy's eyelids.

I elevated the setting to 'medium' and waited, hopefully.

She did not stretch nor yawn, refreshed from a deep slumber.

I set the pad to 'high', longing to again see the delicate twitchings of her nose and whiskers.

After several moments, I was finally convinced that the furry little object on the heating pad was nothing but a corpse.

Sorrowfully, I removed it from where it lay, repulsed by the sensation of its belly, hot and squishy from my witless attempts to restore it to an active state of life. Trust me, that's not a tactile sensation to be envied.

Yech *full body shiver*