No Good Deed Goes Undone

            Yesterday I needed a box for a large gift.  In a nearby community there’s a self-storage place that also sells boxes, so I motored on over to buy one.  And while I was there, a frantic woman came in and asked if I had a hanger.  She had tossed her keys into her car, they landed on the “lock” button, and now she was locked out—right in the middle of moving and trying to unload her storage unit.  The two guys helping her had told her to call roadside service, pay the sixty bucks, and get the doors opened.  Easy for them to say, right?

            “Oh, no,” I said, seeing at once that this was a plan for spendthrifts. “You can’t be spending sixty dollars for that!”  I didn’t have a hanger, but I was happy to drive her to a nearby shop where they might have a spare hanger.  “It’s just down the road,” I said, “no trouble at all.”  Granted, today’s cars are not as easy to pry open with a hanger as they used to be, but to save sixty dollars, it was worth a few minutes to find out.

            We arrived at the store and my new friend explained her predicament.  The clerk was more than happy to help, but couldn’t find a hanger—it turned out this was a consignment store that only sold jewelry.  “But,” said the helpful clerk, “the police will come and unlock it for free.”

            What? They do that?  Fantastic!  My friend and I were thrilled.  The clerk offered to call them for her.  As she was dialing I assured her that this made perfect sense because that town has such a low crime rate that people read the police ledger for laughs.  “You are moving to a wonderful community,” I said.  Not only was this entire area filled with helpful neighbors but a bastion of law-abiding citizens as well.

            We could hear the clerk telling the police dispatcher that a lady’s car doors were locked and she needed a squad car to come and help her.  There was a pause and then the clerk said, “No, she is not inside the car.”

            (sigh)  Are you kidding me?  The dispatcher asked if the woman was still inside her car?  What did she think—that the woman jumped out to report being stuck inside, and then hurried and hopped back in to await rescue?  Who asks the cops to get them OUT of a locked car? 

            It is so lucky that I was not the one making the phone call because I might—might—have said, “Tell me the name of the high school that allowed you to graduate.”  Or, “Yes, she’s in there, alright.  I can see her waving.  Now she’s holding her throat like she’s choking—I guess to show that she’s running out of air.”  Here I am, demonstrating this predicament:

            And what am I to tell this woman, now?  You’re moving to an area where people are nice and trustworthy, but some of us are imbeciles?  Here I am with my friend, Cynthia Horst, demonstrating how awful this would be if it happened in her CONVERTIBLE!

            Well, it turns out that this town’s police force doesn’t even provide this service, so we were back to hunting down a hanger, which we did find and all was well.  Better than well, because the box store guy said if I could do a good deed, he would, too, and gave me the box for free.  Just another perk of living in northern California, where niceness, at least, abounds. 

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Joni's Rules of the Road

            My daughter says I drive like Cruella DeVil.

 

            My best friends refuse to get into my car.  And I hung onto the family mini-van long after the kids were grown so it could be my stealth vehicle, a car virtually immune to the attention of cops.  So I would never write a blog criticizing other drivers.

            Okay, just this once.  Can someone please tell me why they let people drive 40 mph on the speedway?  I mean the freeway?  How is forcing other drivers to swerve around you not a hazard worth a $200 ticket at the very least?   I seriously doubt that these people are paying one fraction of the attention to their task that I am.  In fact, in Joniopolis, you would have to qualify to get on there, the same as you qualify to be in a race.

            And why aren’t we testing people’s reflexes when they renew their licenses?  If you lack the skill to avoid accidents, aren’t you now in the category of causing them?  Driving is not something everyone should do, despite the outcry that even the sleepiest among us should be able to steer tons of metal at high speed so they can get themselves to work.  Let’s face it: Not everyone is qualified to perform surgery, not everyone is licensed to practice law, and not everyone should be hurtling down the highways without a brain in their head.

            I admit I go a wee bit faster than I should.  I once raced the family mini-van at the local speedway, and sold an article about it to Woman’s Day magazine.  It was the Fourth of July (hence free admission—I am nothing if not a tightwad), and we had just come from the annual church pancake breakfast in the park.  I had heavy wrought iron griddles in the back, a carload of family members, and a Jack-in-the-Box ball on my antennae.

            When I got in line for a white number to be painted on my windshield, I discovered that 9009 looks great from outside, but spells “Poop”  for those of us sitting inside.    I noticed the other drivers (all the ages of my children) had their hoods popped up with ice packs on their engines to cool them.  They were wandering around looking at each other’s engines.   I popped my hood open as well.  Nobody came by to look at mine, so I busied myself by reading a Bon Appetit magazine as I waited for my turn.

            And finally it was time to screech my silver van through the bleach troughs and out onto the quarter-mile straightaway.   It was glorious!  I think I beat a Mustang next to me.  Then I was told the idea is to duplicate your speed a second time, so I hurried around to do it again.  Only this time the meanest woman in the known universe came up and demanded that I empty my car of passengers.  Apparently this is an un-posted rule (where was she earlier?) and unless I complied, I couldn’t race.

            It was all about safety, she said.  Aha.  Forcing my husband and two of my kids out into the middle of the race track, to run for their lives towards the bleachers, was obviously safer than letting them stay in the car.  Incredibly, they made it to their seats before getting run down.

            But now the weight of my car was thrown off; how could I possibly duplicate my score?  Well, I’d simply have to try my best.  Once again I watched for the green light and went zooming out ahead of the car next to me.   And again I was given a slip of paper with my time on it.  At this point my 19-year-old son, who raced there all the time, came jogging up to see how I had done.  I, of course, had no idea what any of the numbers meant, but I knew victory was mine when his eyes narrowed with jealousy and he said, “Let’s see you do that again.”

            But no further demonstration was needed.  I had raced once, then twice, and had a nearly perfect performance.  No need to dilute the waters of success; my score was as good as a trophy.  Even the teenagers were giving this mini-van mom a thumbs up.

            So I’m just saying it might be a good idea to include a similar exercise before licensing people to get on the freeway.  Those who fail can take surface streets, enjoy public transportation, or ride their bicycles to work.  The world—and the freeways-- would be a safer place.

Taking Over the World, Sort Of

I have to confess another obsession.  It’s my Clustr Map, which shows every country where someone has read my blog.  Every time I go to the home page I see red and yellow dots all over the U.S., and a few others sprinkled around the globe.  Just like when I played RISK as a little girl, I simply must get a wooden bead on every country. 

You have no idea how this goal has consumed me.  I call my husband at work and shout, “We have Pakistan!” as if I’m Genghis Khan reporting his latest acquisition.

            But seriously, Pakistan!  And Hungary!  And Italy!  I don’t even know a living soul in these countries, but someone there is reading my humor columns.  In English!  Okay, that’s humbling because I don’t speak Urdu, Hungarian, or Italian.  And that’s not all.  I have readers in China, Canada, the U.K., Spain, Finland, Norway, Sweden, the Philippines, Bermuda (where I have always wanted to go), Brazil, Argentina, France, Australia, Guatemala, Mexico, the Russian Federation, and India.  All joined by a twisted sense of humor. 

            And, of course, I cannot look at this map without seeing the vast array of countries where I have not one reader.  Whole continents are missing, here!  Africa, hellooo?  Not a single dot, seriously?  What does a girl have to do?  And not one Middle Eastern country has hopped on board this laugh wagon, either.  Ditto the whole of Greenland.  Okay, I don’t expect too much from Greenland, but it still bugs me.  

I started this blog three months ago, and nearly 4,000 readers have visited.  For that I am uber grateful.  But surely these folks have friends in other countries who could use some entertainment; why aren’t they telling them to subscribe?  Don’t even get me started on the nations that could certainly use some levity in their lives; it’s pretty much everyone.  So I have a proposal.  If you know people in other countries, could you please email them the link to my blog?  In return, I will--okay there is no return.  But are you telling me there isn’t some satisfaction in sharing joy around the globe?  Must we always have a tangible reward instead of the intrinsic contentment that comes with doing a good deed?

Look at it this way.  You are keeping me from hurling RISK beads at my monitor, or worse, gluing them onto the screen and becoming another blonde joke.  That’s a community service, right there.  Don’t say I didn’t offer you the chance. 

Man Cake

           Okay, we all know the upcoming holiday is a Manly Man one:  Father’s Day.  And we all know it’s a pain to shop for men because they have a particular electronic or power tool or sporting good item that only they can pick out, unlike women who are simple.  Not simple-minded, mind you-- simple to shop for. First of all, we love everything— home decorations, clothing, jewelry, handbags, cosmetics, flowers, gourmet stuff—the list is endless.  Incidentally, guys, this is why you’ve been getting nothing but neckties for the last few years.

            But I have solved the dilemma this year and created the perfect Father’s Day gift!  It’s a MAN CAKE made from all kinds of handy tools and gadgets men love.  It looks festive, it’s clever to the tenth power, it’s inexpensive, and your guy will receive items he actually wants and will undoubtedly use.  Here’s what it looks like:

            And here’s how to make one.  Let’s start with the shopping list of just 5 “ingredients” (all available at the Dollar Store, by the way):

            4-6 micro fiber towels, depending on thickness.  Mine were 16” by 24” and fairly fluffy.  Guys love these for their cars, sporting goods, you-name-it. Any color works.

            3 bungee cords-- again, any color you choose

            8 batteries

            One package of zip ties, 6 inches or longer

            6-8 small tubes of Super Glue with red caps

            Here’s how you assemble the cake.  Fold each towel into halves or thirds, whatever it takes to make them about 5 or 6 inches wide.  Roll the first one up, like this:

Now roll the rest around it to create the body of the cake, like this:

Hold them in shape with bungee cords.

Nestle batteries into the top, to resemble frosting roses—ha!  But you get the idea.  (Little kids will love making this, by the way)

Tuck zip ties in the outer-most space between towels, looping them over in a scallop design to dress up the cake.

Now tuck tubes of Super Glue in as well, to resemble lit candles.  The red caps are the “flames.”

Place your cake on a tray or platter and it’s ready to present to Dad.  This is also lightweight enough to ship to Grandpa. It comes together in just minutes, but will provide a lifetime of memories!  

Pin this on Pinterest and you can win a fantastic prize:  A one-year FREE subscription (worth $25) to Cooking Contest Central, the premier one-line website for information about cooking contests!  This site has been around for 15 years and I’ve won dozens of cook-offs and recipe contests I’ve learned about through CCC.  Let me know that you’ve pinned the MAN CAKE, and I’ll put you in my drawing!  Post it on your Facebook page and I’ll put your name in a second time, doubling your chances of winning.

And They're Off!

There are three things in life that I consciously—and wisely—avoid: Cookie dough, jigsaw puzzles, and horse racing.  Cookie dough is self-explanatory.  If it’s in my house it’s soon in my stomach, and then finds its sneaky way to my fat cells.  Jigsaw puzzles turn my focus knob to “fanatical” and once caused me to miss an entire Thanksgiving.  And horse racing, well, that’s what this post is about.  (“Post,”I might add, is also a horse racing term.)

Last Friday my husband took me to the races.  Literally.  Okay, first we went to a business meeting, but enough about that.  He THEN surprised me with an afternoon at Golden Gate Fields.  Now here is something almost no one knows about me: I secretly follow the Derby and cry and go crazy whenever I see a horse race. If I were a gambling woman, which I am not, I’d be staggering around like a floozy at the tracks, betting on every race and talking about horses with all the other addicts who play the odds and have their bookies on speed dial.

For 26 years Bob has had no idea.  Oh, sure, the kids know my big parenting regret is not teaching them how to ride, they’ve seen me cry at War Horse and Secretariat, and they know I had horses as a kid. But they have no idea that I’ve deliberately avoided the tracks because I am totally obsessed with these majestic creatures.  Even without gambling, I could become a race horse junkie.  So I limit it to the Derby and I swoon watching them head into the stretch.  And then I put it away for another whole year.

Until now.  This year I was already in bed when Bob came into the bedroom reading the news on his smart phone and said, “Guess who won the Kentucky Derby?”  He caught me with my guard down and I said, “Orb!  And he came from behind and won by two and half lengths—you should have seen it; everyone was covered in mud!” Oops.  Now Bob was staring at me.  “Do you know who the jockey was?”  I did.  “Do you know who came in second?” I did.  Bob was thunderstruck.  My cover was blown. 


“You like horse racing?” He was stunned.

I nodded, and happy tears fell down my cheeks as I described how Orb was on the outside, yet took the lead in the last few seconds.  What I didn’t know was that Bob (St. Bob, remember) began immediate plans to take me to a race in person.  And that’s how we found ourselves dining in the Golden Gate Fields restaurant and watching race after exhilarating race, mostly on dirt, two on turf.

At one point Bob went to the restroom and came back almost shouting, “Best View From a Men’s Room!”  I figured this couldn’t possibly be the name of a horse, and, thankfully, I was right.  Instead it was a fact, as Bob had captured on his cell phone:  A sweeping vista of San Francisco, the Bay, and the Golden Gate Bridge.

After our meal we headed to the elevators to get a closer look at the horses.  Along the way we encountered lots of women in dresses and hats, and several young men who fancied themselves fancy in fedoras and sunglasses.  We found the paddock where the horses parade by, almost close enough to touch. One horse, in particular, caught my eye.  “Look at Number Nine,” I said.  “He’s going to win.” 

Bob scoffed.  “You can’t tell that.”

“Look at his gait,” I said.  “Look at the energy, how he keeps jerking his head towards the track.  He can’t wait to get out there.”  His name was Frank and Go, and he was an exquisite thoroughbred, the color of dark caramel, his muscles gleaming, his proportions perfect.  I asked Bob to snap some photos.

We watched from the railing as the race began and my heart started pounding.  The cluster of horses rounded the curves in perfect unison, as if on wheels.  And then as they neared the finish line the crowd was screaming and it was clear: Frank and Go was leading out.  Frank and Go won!

That night I spoke to one of our sons and told him Dad had taken me to a race track that day.  “Wow,” he said, “That’s random.”  Yep.  They still have no idea.

Here's a race anyone can win-- race your mouse over to the box on the right, where you can subscribe and keep these posts winging their way into your inbox several times a week.  Odds are you'll laugh yourself silly.

Numb and Number

            My eldest son is wildly in love with… numbers.  From the time he learned of their existence, he ascended (descended?  side-scended?)  into a happy little world of ratios and logarithms, even sharing an elaborate equation with me one time, including lovely arcs, to prove the uselessness of cleaning his room.

            I, on the other hand, recoil mentally whenever a digit appears.  I think it started with story problems in elementary school.  Well-meaning teachers would hand out preposterous questions, I assumed, to see who could go the longest without screaming.

            “You have one apple and you want to share it equally with seven friends,” such questions would begin.  And that’s when I would stop and imagine such a ludicrous situation.  Who planned so poorly as to have only one apple when seven friends arrive?  My solution was ultimately to make a small Waldorf Salad, though I didn’t know its name at the time, and wasn’t convinced this would be anywhere near enough food for a total of eight people.  And why can’t “applesauce” be considered a correct answer?

            “You found one grape and want to share it with nine friends,” one question said.

Immediately I would try to picture this—and what are these people—street urchins from the Dickens era, covered with soot, who find one grape in the gutter, that even the dogs won’t eat, and decide to share it with nine friends?  Sounds like they ought to spend less time socializing and more time working, so they can buy everyone a grape.  I wrote, “I would not do this” for my answer.  What was next—dividing a pea into twenty pieces with a scalpel?  Were we going to be given microscopes for the next batch of story problems?

            And then along came fractions, criss-crossing operations, long division, and ultimately algebra.  Which, if you haven’t pictured a bra made of algae yet, means you haven’t given enough thought to that word.  Worst of all, they were now mixing letters with numbers, a sacrilege if ever there was one. (See my “Open Letter to You Math Types” blog of April 17^th.)

            My daughter inherited my distaste for things mathematical.  But in her case, it’s because she’s an artist.  When given a long equation with a little two elevated above the other numbers, to indicate “to the second power,” all she could think of was how stranded that awkward two looked, like a lone painting hung too high on a giant wall.  When she finally solved the equation, that’s all that was left—that little two floating up like a lost balloon.

            Numbers people have other amazing abilities as well.  They’re like savants of a sort, for whom musical training is a snap.  I have yet to meet a math wiz who is not also a gifted pianist.  And juggling!  Who would have thought juggling went along with this, but it does.  I know of an AP Calculus teacher who tells his students that whoever masters juggling will get an A in the class, and he’s invariably right.  Evidently the same gymnastics your brain goes through in order to juggle, are the same processes it needs to understand calculus.

            And all I can think about are the bruised oranges that will result as folks try this at home, dropping the fruit time and again until it cannot be shared with one friend, let alone forty-nine.

Portions of this blog post appear in “Funeral Potatoes—the Novel,” published by Covenant Communications.  There’s Jewish humor, Catholic humor, and definitely Mormon humor. Round out your collection with a bunch of my LDS books; click on their titles right here on my blog’s home page!  They’re usually much cheaper than my mainstream books (not that the content is cheaper) and you gotta like that.

Simon Says

            My cat is an assassin.  I know what you’re thinking—all cats are born hunters, blah, blah, blah.  No; this cat is different from other cats the same way Jason Bourne is different from you and me.

            We got Simon from a box of free kittens not realizing that solid charcoal cats with amazingly soft coats and gold eyes are not your basic cat.  They are trained killers in cat suits.  Here’s how I know. Now, not every husband will watch CATS 101 with his wife, which is one more reason why I call mine St. Bob, but we were watching it recently when the show began to describe an unusual cat which was bred by French monks to rid the world of mice.  Evidently these clever monks devised a gene pool that resulted in a cat with superhuman (supercat?) abilities, which—and I am a witness—include defying gravity.  It’s called a Chartreux.  Great Scott—we adopted a serial killer!

            I was in the back yard gardening when I saw a dark flash zip by, heard a thud, and then saw Bob dash into the bushes. Soon Bob came out, sputtering, “How does a cat run faster than a bird can fly?”  Simon had kept pace with a flying bird, leapt into the air to smack it sideways into our fence, and then pounced on the stunned creature once it hit the ground.  Bob rescued the bird and released it as soon as it regained consciousness.  I’ve had cats all my life and I have never seen one that zig zags through the air to follow his prey as if tethered to the actual bird.

            And mice have no chance whatsoever.  Even though Simon’s front paws are declawed, it's as if we have merely installed a silencer on his gun.  It has not impeded his hunting ability one iota. He climbs trees and jumps over 8-foot fences as if they’re toys he ordered on the internet.  The other night we decided to dine with dinner guests on our patio.  No sooner had we started our meal than Simon came jogging around from the side yard with a huge mouse in his mouth, the rodent’s tail swinging from his jaws.   Just what you want to delight visitors.  So, amid squeals of disgust from our company, he proceeded to place the mouse on the lawn and lay on it, holding it beneath him.  Then, eager for a literal game of cat and mouse, released it, at which moment it dashed up our 9-foot arbor, which is covered with a lush grape vine this time of year.  Simon kept pace and climbed right up the arbor after it. 

            Oh my gosh; this is like Hickory Dickory Dock.  Only worse. I tried to distract our guests from the unintentional entertainment, but their jaws had dropped as they watched Simon scale the iron arbor in one second flat, then perch on top, wild-eyed and bloodthirsty.

  

            And heaven help any birds who build nests in our trees and then try to boot out their youngsters.  Those poor things will fall right into the waiting jaws of Simon, who has learned to bide his time under vines frequented by hummingbirds, and branches frequented by everyone else. 

            Disgustingly, like all cats, he brings in his catch as if it’s a gift.  But how is it a gift if all that’s left are the beak and some feathers?   If we lived in an agricultural area, he’d probably be dragging in the remains of goats and pigs. 

            Years ago Bob said to me, “If I hadn’t married you,” and paused.  I was sure he would then say, “my life would have had no meaning.”  Or “I’d have missed out on the best woman in the world.”  Or some other romantic ending.  But no.  Here is what he said in total: “If I hadn’t married you (pause), you’d be one of those women with forty cats.”  Nice.

            And maybe it wouldn’t have been forty.  Maybe four or five, I’ll admit to that.  But not if they were Chartreux’s.  One is definitely plenty.