Preparation H anyone? Bio to Bs

A few years ago when Barry and I were shopping at our favorite grocery store, we had a not fun thing happen. They had just installed a new check out system that announced each product as they scanned it. The volume was up pretty high, probably so people could hear it over the chatter and noises of a large grocery store.

Allow me to backtrack for a moment. At the time, we had the sweetest dog ever, a beautiful Bearded Collie named, Lacy. Unfortunately, through no fault of her own, she had an addiction to Pup-peroni treats.

Back to my story...so Barry and I go to one of the checkout stations with our basket of groceries. In order to help feed Lacy’s addiction, we had a ton of dog treats. When the checker started scanning the treats, it kept saying Pup-peroni…Pup-peroni…Pup-peroni…the more times that the computer said it…the more people started looking at us. At first I think people thought that the computer had gone into a loop.

 

Eventually, everyone in the front of the store had stopped talking, the other checkers had stopped checking and all you could hear was PUP-PERONI…PUP-PERONI…PUP-PERONI… Everyone was looking at us, like we were the proverbial “cat lady” or in this case the “dog gentleman” and “dog lady.” Finally, our checker entered the last one. We quickly paid and hurried out of the store.

When we got to the car I said, “That was embarrassing. Should we start looking for another store?”

Barry replied, “I love that store, maybe we could just start buying our Pup-peroni somewhere else. It could have been worse, we could have been buying Preparation H.”

To that I replied, “We should probably buy that somewhere else too. Maybe we should start a list of things not to buy here.” I have a feeling we weren’t the only ones humiliated by the talking checkout system because the next week when we went back, the volume was so low, it was barely audible…and a few weeks later, there was no talking checkout.

So now, we can proudly march to the checkout station with our cart of Pup-peroni, Preparation H, super absorbent tampons, roach spray and generic gallon bottles of wine. Okay, we don’t drink, but we might have needed to start if they had kept the talking check-out system.

We're not crazy...or are we? - Bio to Bs

 Do-do, do-do...do-do, do-do...think TWILIGHT ZONE MUSIC.

Once upon a time, Barry and I went to Panama City, Florida. It was in early October, the temperature was great, the water was perfect and we had the beaches and hotel mostly to ourselves. One night we were driving back to our hotel which was out on a peninsula and we spotted a tiny red dash in the sky. It blinked off and then there were 2 dashes in a line. Those blinked off and then there were 3.

Barry pulled off the road so we could get a better look. A forth dash appeared and then all of the lights disappeared. These were not tracers. They were too exact and the lines were too straight. We both stared at each other wondering if we had just seen what we thought we saw.

A few seconds later it started all over again, but they were now in the southern part of the sky. Barry decided that he should turn the car lights off since we were beginning to get a little afraid and were feeling very alone and exposed. We sat in the dark for about 15 minutes watching the red dashes appear and disappear and then it was over. We talked about the lights for hours finally deciding it must be some military experiment.

The next morning we grabbed a newspaper on our way into a pancake restaurant. After ordering, we scoured the paper...no suspicious light stories. We chatted with the waitress trying to get info out of her without sounding like "those people that believe in little green men," but she shed no light on the matter.

Years have passed and now, from time to time, we bring up the incident. It seems like if it were a military experiment, we would have heard about it by now. We're still not "those people that believe in little green men," or are we?

TWILIGHT ZONE MUSIC fades...

Zen to Disaster...Bio to Bs

A hundred years ago, when Barry and I were first married, we went to the Japanese Botanical Garden in Fort Worth. It's really beautiful and there is a type of calm that comes over you. Of course I was with Barry so the calm was soon shattered. We were walking across a pond on the little round stones when

Barry pretended to "fall" into the pond, but the joke was on him. I will never forget the shocked look on his face when he hit the water and realized it was about 4 feet deep. I decided not to get angry since we were trying to have a fun stress free afternoon.

As we toured the garden, everyone that we saw seemed happy and peaceful. It was about the time we entered the Zen Garden that we heard the announcement, that the park would be closing in 15 minutes and we needed to make our way to the exit.

We left the Zen Garden and realized that we had no idea how to get out. At first we were casually walking in the direction we thought would lead us to the exit. After we passed a building for what we thought was the third time, we started to pick up our pace. And we started to argue since I was beginning to get hot and he couldn't understand why since his clothes were still wet from his "fall".

Then we had the brilliant idea to follow all of the other visitors to the exit. But we soon realized that the only people left had that same look of panic that we had. Where were all of the "you are here" signs? What had happened to that feeling of calm...why did my blood pressure feel as though it had shot up 4o points? We started thinking about where we were going to sleep if we were trapped for the night and I was thinking that our "till death us do part" might be coming a little sooner than planned.

Then all of the sudden Barry spotted the way out. My hero...and I think the Koi were pretty happy too, since we had been thinking we might have to eat sushi for dinner.

Humorous Ode to Mardi Gras (Bio to Bs...look for a version of this story in an upcoming Emma Wood novel)

Who doesn't love the New Orleans French Quarter? It's like visiting a foreign land without the hassle of showing your passport or the likelihood of dysentery. And when you add in Mardi Gras, it's like heaven on earth. Well, if heaven was about drunkenness and debauchery. I'm more of a jewelry girl, so for me, it's all about the beads! What is it about useless plastic beads that gets me so excited? I wait all year for the opportunity to catch these ugly bobbles and obviously…I’m not alone.

 

A few years ago, we were in  New Orleans for one of the parades. We waited on the street, eyes glazed over in the anticipation of  catching colorful trinkets. Finally, the mayhem ensued. Beads were flying everywhere and I wasn’t above elbowing children, tripping grannies and crawling on my hands and knees,  in order to add to my loot.

Covered in beads we reached the apex of the frenzied pursuit, when the Nike float arrived. They were throwing out all sorts of fun Nike paraphernalia. As I was jumping for a wrist band headed my way, I saw a bigger object hurling towards me.  When I landed back on earth, after an amazing LeBron James type of jump, I realized I had caught a shoe.  Wow, that had to be the holy grail of parade trinkets. I was so proud of my prize that I didn’t even wonder, what I would do with ONE size 13 shoe.

Above the shouts of the crowd, I hear this guy yelling, “She’s got my shoe, she’s got my shoe!” Everyone in the general vicinity turned to stare and I realized the one shoed guy was talking about me. It seems that in his exuberance to catch Nike stuff, he had kicked off his shoe. I looked down at my prized shoe and for the first time realized it wasn’t new. It wasn't even a Nike and there was a not-so-pleasant odor emanating from it. Even then, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to part with my prize. But finally, I came out of my bead frenzied haze and handed over the shoe.

As Barry and I trudged back to our hotel room weighted down by tons of beads I realized that in my heart the count down had already begun until once again, I could jump for the beads or... even an old shoe.

Thanks to all of the Etsy shops for loaning me pictures of their wonderful Mardi Gras creations!! I hope you will check them out. Support Handmade...go shopping on Etsy!

My Grandparents are spawns of the devil... Bio to Bs

My grandparents came to visit us, when I was six. When they got ready to leave, they invited me to come with them to stay at their house for a week. My first road trip without my parents...I was practically an adult.
As we motored through the rural lands of east Texas, my grandfather pointed out different types of birds and trees. Suddenly excited, he said to my grandmother, "Lois, look at those cat tails." Naturally, my head whipped around. I couldn't see them and yelled, "Pappaw...where?" He told me they were all along the fence. I looked back, but I still didn't see them. Through the rest of the trip I kept wondering why there would be cat tails on a fence. Who would put them there and why weren't my grandparents upset about this? The way my grandfather pointed them out, he actually seemed happy about the cat tails. How could these people that I adored, be happy that there were cats walking around without tails...or worse, maybe they had been killed for their tails. And now, I was about to be spending a week alone with these depraved people. How could my parents let them take me?

Later that night, when we were having dinner at my grandparent's house, my grandmother mentioned that she wished we would have stopped and gotten some of the cat tails so that she could add them to her collection. I said in a stunned voice, "You have a collection?" My grandmother replied nonchalantly, "Yes, I can't believe you never noticed them, they're all over the house. Come on, I'll show you." Morbid curiosity getting the better of me...I got up from the table and followed my grandmother into the living room where she pointed to several dried flower arrangements. You can't imagine my relief in finding out that cattails were plants and my grandparents weren't...spawns of the devil.

The three-bite-rule loophole - Bio to Bs

Back in the dark ages, when I was growing up, my mom had the three-bite-rule. We had to take 3 bites of everything on our plates. I can still remember several meals where I sat at the table, for what seemed like hours, staring at those cold lima beans. The thought of them made me nauseous. In my six-year-old mind, it was a scene right out of the Joan Crawford biography, Mommie Dearest. Of course in reality, it was nothing like that, but I still don’t like lima beans.

Years later, my sister was sitting at the table, staring at her English peas…she told my mom that she would throw up if she took a bite. We all smiled at my sister, knowing she was exaggerating. My mom politely said, “just take three bites.” My sister then slowly put the fork up to her mouth and took a bite. She immediately threw up all over her plate of food.



Needless, to say, that ended that meal for the whole family.

From that point on, whenever my mom tried to enforce the three-bite-rule, all my sister had to say was, “remember the peas.” My sister had found a way to beat the three-bite-rule. That was decades ago, and I still wish I had had the foresight to go ahead and put those lima beans in my mouth and just let nature take it’s course…then I could have been the one to discover the three-bite-rule loophole.

Look for a version of this story in one of our upcoming Emma novels!

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