Category Archives: A Story

Aug12

Deuce Part Deux — Laura-Lou Got Married

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Laura and her mama, Connie.

So for several years, Laura (Deuce), Budge, and I pretty much hung together non-stop. Laura had many other friends from the school district and Starbucks. She even kept in touch with a good many of her high school friends who moved away from Ware Shoals. She has one high school girlfriend named Shaye Hall whom I am quite ready to meet and ask a question or two about a certain New Kids on the Block concert, but that is a story for another time.

We were together a great deal, but not exclusively. We would usually eat together on Tuesdays and Thursdays through the week and at least once, if not twice on the weekends. We also had long stretches when we didn’t get to see much of Deuce. She’s a pretty amazing actress (but what else can you expect from Drew Barrymore’s bestie?) and a member of the Laurens County Community Theater.

Some members of the LCCT. Laura is the cow.

For about a month each fall and spring, we’d be lucky to see her once a week because she’d have to sandwich rehearsals between two jobs. The shows have always been worth it. Her portrayal of Olene Whiffer is especially memorable. Think Steel Magnolias meets Gypsy Rose and you’ll have a pretty fair picture of Ms. Whiffer.

The last four years, we’ve also had the ritual of sitting with Laura while she was dead panicked about having a job at the school district, which has been her main source of income and benefits. With all the cutbacks since the bottom fell out of the economy in 2008, she’s never been sure if her job was next on the chopping block or not. So far though, she’s always managed to have a spot. It probably doesn’t hurt that the superintendent and the high school principal — as well as most everyone else in District 56 — loves her almost as much as we do.

The Gang from Starbucks

Work kept us apart, the theater kept us apart, and football season kept us apart. Once Laura started working at the high school, she took over the Spirit Club. As a “perk” of this office, she got to be at EVERY football game, fair weather or foul, home or away, heat or cold. When I was still at Bell Street, I’d come to a few games as well, but I never made the trek to Union or York. For the record, Union, SC is impossible to get straight to. It’s one of those “you-can’t-get-there-from-here” places.

But I digress.

One issue which never kept us apart, however, was Laura’s dating life. Without putting too fine a point on it, she didn’t have much of one. Now you might ask, as I did when I didn’t know her as well as I do now, how such a beautiful, classy, and outgoing young woman could NOT have three dates per weekend. The answer lies in which Laura shows up for the evening — Ware Shoals Laura or Simpsonville Laura.

See, Simpsonville Laura went to etiquette classes and knows which utensil to start eating with at the most swanky restaurants and receptions. Simpsonville Laura is demure, very sweet, kind, and forgiving. Simpsonville Laura drinks Blue Moon with an orange wedge on the lip of the glass.

This is Simpsonville Laura dangerously close to morphing into Ware Shoals Laura.

Ware Shoals Laura shoots tequila. Not often, but she does. Ware Shoals Laura is the slightly less refined and considerably more dangerous alter ego of Simpsonville Laura. Ware Shoals Laura also went to etiquette classes but she mostly remembers which knife on the table is sharpest and will cut a heart out best. The funny thing is, you could be sitting next to Simpsonville Laura one minute and someone — often me — would say something stupid and when you’d look over, you’d be sitting next to Ware Shoals Laura.

Simpsonville Laura has always loved men with dark handsome looks; Ware Shoals Laura has always loved men with barbecue sauce, Texas Pete, and a side of green beans. Not every guy, not even most guys, had what it takes to deal with sporadic outbreaks of Ware Shoals Laura. Thom didn’t, Eric didn’t, some guy from Greenwood who ate one dinner with us at Wasabi’s didn’t, and poor Pete (Pete the Dude, not Pete the Cat. That’s another story) CERTAINLY didn’t. He’s still got a few things to learn about himself I do believe.

But one did, and that’s where the buckeye comes in.

Laura and Mr. Dick, giver of the sacred buckeye.

Now why in the name of all that’s holy a MICHIGAN WOLVERINE fan would have a BUCKEYE in her possession was somewhat lost on me until I heard the story. Laura’s grandfather, Mr. Dick, had given Laura a genuine buckeye when she was but a wee lass and told her it was because she was greatly loved and very special and when she finally met a boy she loved as much as Mr. Dick loved her, a boy as special to her as she was to Mr. Dick, she should give him the buckeye and he’d be hers forever.

Deuce kept that buckeye a long time and might have kept it forever if it hadn’t been for the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Now this particular group of which Laura is but a junior member is worthy of a blog all their own, but for the sake of time I will summarize. The Ya-Ya’s are a group of young ladies and older women who regularly visit one another, but once a year, they have a Ya-Ya convention at the Beach. It was during one of these annual maritime rendezvous when one of the top ranking Ya-Ya’s mentioned she had a son she wanted Laura to meet.

Some of the Ya-Ya's in the Caribbean.

His name was Cameron Hall and his mother, Elaine, introduced the two of them later that summer. The rest, as the old story goes, is history.

Budge and I knew Laura was going out regularly with Cameron and I figured he had to be at least a decent guy because he was willing to drive up an hour and some change one way from Columbia every time they went on a date. I didn’t know HOW well they were getting along until Laura, Budge, and I were on the way to supper one evening last summer and she ended a cell phone call with “I Love You!” I automatically asked her how her daddy was doing because Mr. Ray Davis was the ONLY person Budge or I EVER heard Laura say “I love you” to on the phone. She was quiet for a minute then said, “Um, That wasn’t Daddy, that was Cameron.”

Wow. This was SERIOUS.

It was so serious she introduced him to Budge and I, which was something she’d only done on one other occasion and only because she wanted some good excuses to dump the Greenwood guy from Wasabi’s. It was SO serious that the night we went to meet Cameron and Laura for dinner at TGI Friday’s in Greenville, I not only traded my normal T-shirt and basketball shorts for khakis and a collared polo, I also wore BIG BOY SHOES instead of my neon colored Crocs.  Laura noticed immediately and later told Cameron that was a fairly big deal.

The minute I saw him I didn’t like him. He was handsome in just the slightly rough way I knew Deuce loved. He was a football fan and he liked USC and . . . well, he was just about as perfect a match as is possible in this fallen world of ours. I didn’t like him because I knew he was probably the one who was going to break up the band. Once I saw him look at Laura though, I had to get over it. He loved her and the way he looked at her proved it. What’s more, he’s a good and gentle man. Hardworking and kind and he treats Deuce as if the Sun and stars spun around her hair on a halo.

This Christmas, after a little more than a year together, Laura gave Cameron Mr. Dick’s buckeye.

The shoals that give Ware Shoals its name.

I started waiting for the inevitable call.

It came this past May after the Ware Shoals Catfish Feastival (and NO that is not a misspelling). Cameron had gotten Big Momma’s 100-year-old diamond ring from Connie, Laura’s mama, and had it reset for her. He, with some timely help from young Jacob, gave her the ring on the rocks of the shoals in sight of the house where Laura grew up near the middle of town she loves like no other place on Earth. My Deuce was getting married.

Cam's beard wasn't that grey when he and Deuce started dating. Just saying.

So, just a tiny bit more than one month ago today, I dusted off my wedding manual, checked over the procedure for properly endorsing a marriage license, and sat going over the vows and ceremony as Budge drove following Laura, Cameron, and Jake, Cameron’s son, down to the Isle Of Palms near Charleston. There, in a simple white dress and Cam in nice khaki slacks repeated after me in cargoes and purple Crocs their vows and “I do’s.” I made it through almost the entire ceremony without crying, but my voice caught just a bit during the prayer.

Last week, they moved in to their new house together in Laurens, SC and tomorrow night we’re gathering in Ware Shoals for a swanky reception. Hopefully, Cameron will let me borrow Deuce back long enough to show me which fork to use.

It hurts a little knowing I won’t get to see Deuce as much as we did, but I look forward to seeing what kind of beautiful love grows from that small brown seed from the Aesculus glabra 

It’s common name is The American Buckeye.

Love y’all!

Aug10

Deuce, Part I — An Unlikely Alliance

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Um, Laura's the big one.

My first day as a librarian at Bell St. Middle School in Laurens District 56, I met Laura. She was in charge of teacher IDs and email passwords so at lunch on the first day of the new teacher orientation, I fell in with the rest of the newbies and trooped down to the IT Department’s basement outpost in what was then the District Office to have my ID made and get a login for the computer network.

Now, when I am nervous, I talk very fast. Think of an auctioneer and double his speed. When I am excited, I also talk very fast. This was my first day as a school librarian AND I was in a new district, I was extremely nervous while being incredibly excited. Think of an auctioneer with Tourette’s Syndrome, Asperger’s Autism and severe ADHD standing in a nest of fire ants with his hair ablaze and you’ll have a close approximation of what Laura received that hot August day.

While,  in line I noticed a Michigan poster on the wall with a photo of Laura and another girl (later I found out it was Ho-Hum Amy) in front of “The Big House” in Ann Arbor. I also saw a photo of an ankle with a crescent moon tattooed on it. In my nervously excited state, I was bouncing on the balls of my feet taking in everything around me and checking it off against info in my head. I was last in line to get my stuff so as soon as Laura spoke to me, I started talking.

According to Laura, the conversation went somewhat thusly (with my part approximating how she says I answered her):

Laura: “Hi. What can I do for you?”

Me: “Hi-my-name-is-Shannon-ShannonWham-W-h-a-m-Wham-just-like-George-Michael’s-old-singing-group-Wham!-before-he-got-weird. Is-that-you-outside-the-BigHouseinMichigan? DidyougotoMichigan?Are-you-a-Michigan-fan-it’s-hard-to-tell-’cause-you-have-a-USCposterontheotherwall-soIthoughtyoumighthave-goneto-USC-but-I-need-to-get-my-idandlogin-Imthenewlibrarian-over-atBellStreet-do-you-have-a-tattoo-is-that-the-tattoo-in-that-picture-ofyourankleisthatyourankle-you-have-a-nice-office-it’sgoodandcooldownhere-it’ssohottoday-that’sareallyprettyplantwhatisit-oh-you-already-got-myidandloginbutI-didn’t-tell-you-my-social-didyou-lookitup-wowyou’refast-well,Igottagoeatlunch-thenextsession-startsinthirtyminutes-thanksalot-itwasnicetomeetyou!

And I left.

She never looked at me after her initial greeting, but over a year later I found out as soon as I left, she went back to where the IT guys ate lunch and announced, “The new librarian over at Bell Street is certifiably insane. I mean, he SERIOUSLY needs medicated,” and she proceeded to recap my entire spiel.

Little did she know how right she was . . .

Among her other multitudinous talents, Laura's a very accomplished actress.

I didn’t see much of her that first year. Of course, the year pretty much passed in a blur anyway. I emailed her when one of my little monsters forgot his or her password so she could fix them up a new one and we’d chat a bit here and there but with no premonitions of what was to come.

The next year started off pretty much the same way. I’d call if I needed something IT-ish and every now and then she’d stop by to drop off something. Laura is a wildly engaging person and she’s hysterically funny to talk to when she gets going. That fall, I found out she loves college football and is a die-hard Michigan fan. As the fates would have it, Appalachian State scored a monumental, historic upset over Michigan in the opening game of the college football season so I downloaded the App State fight song and sent it to her as her ration of crap about that fiasco. Then right after Christmas, I blew a disc out in my back and was laid up and out of work for most of January. She emailed me a time or two while I was out of commission and she was one of the first to call me up and welcome me back once my discs finally healed.

Still, at this juncture, she was a colleague from work who had some similar interests to me and I never dreamed she’d be anything else. Then I called her the Monday afternoon after spring break. The day had just ended and I was feeling spring feverish and blithering on like I do when I’m nervous or excited.  I didn’t know it at the time, but Laura has something in common with my Budge — they are both “Stuffers.” Anything bad that happens to them gets shoved in a huge mental trunk and stuffed away to be dealt with a some indeterminate time in the future. She wasn’t answering like she usually did and that’s when I caught a note in her voice that told me something was very, very wrong.

Since she is such a proficient “stuffer,” anyone would have difficulty discerning anything out of the ordinary was amiss in her voice, but — as I said — I just caught a hint of something not right. Now Laura also has in common with Budge being a VERY private person. Neither one of them “do their business out in the street,” so just casually asking “what’s wrong” wasn’t very likely to get any sort of accurate answer. I suppose I’ll never know why I asked or why she answered. I just know the Lord truly does work in utterly mysterious ways to bring extremely special people into our lives when it’s time.

Turns out her spring break had been HIDEOUS — absolutely hellish. She told me all about it in an hour-long conversation. Out of respect for her privacy, I won’t divulge details but suffice it to say it involved loved ones dying, betrayal, car problems, unexpectedly moving houses . . . just think of the worst week you could have then double it and you’ll get close to Laura’s spring break. She was living in a commercial for Murphy’s Law. I was blown away by how wounded she was and I just wanted to be some comfort, so I think I said something profound like, “Wow. I am so sorry. Can I do anything? If I can help, let me know.” That’s what we Southerners do. “If I can help, let me know” is right up the list with “Bless her heart!”

Two of my favorite people in the world: Budge and Laura, Ace and Deuce.

I talked to her off and on that year but I really got to know her well over the summer when I was volunteering as an IT tech at the DO. The group of us would eat lunch almost daily at El Jalisco,  a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant in Clinton. At the end of the summer, she was moving again and asked if I could help out, so one hot, muggy Saturday afternoon, we moved her from Ware Shoals to Simpsonville.

That next day was the first time I mentioned to Budge we should take Laura out to eat. She had just started working a second job as a barista at Starbucks and hardly ever had time or money for herself. She was making it on her own though. Laura is tough and proud that way. Anyway, Budge was glad for a chance to meet this “Laura” I had been fretting about so we took her to Anita’s Mexican Restaurant. Within a month, Anita’s on Tuesday was a weekly ritual.

As we hung out more and more, I realized Laura was my lost baby sister. She and Budge were like twin sisters and became best of friends. For the next few years, we were inseparable. We’d eat out or I’d cook two or three times a week; Dana and I would take supper to her at Starbucks; we’d go to movies; we even did a few holidays together . . . Laura and Budge used to joke that we were Mormons. Budge was Ace and Laura was Deuce — my two sisterwives.

I have never met a stranger, but a plethora of quirks hinders me making close friends. I haven’t had a friend anywhere as close as Laura since college or before. She could even deal with me during a meltdown. Mama, Budge, and Laura are the only people who can calm me down once I go off the deep end. It helped Budge out more than anyone could understand knowing Laura could help when I was spiraling. She’s one of two people Budge can call and say, “He’s having a bad day,” and Laura would know exactly what was going on and how to help. It gave Budge someone to lean on and another pair of hands when I became more than one handful.

For example, last summer Budge went to Hawaii with Ki-Ki for four weeks. I don’t do well when Budge isn’t around, so Laura called every day to make sure I was out of bed. She even forced me to go out so I didn’t sit in the house like a cabbage while Budge was gone.

So over the last few years, Laura has gone from a casual acquaintance to an adopted sister. For my part, it would have suited me just fine for things to rock and roll on forever and for a good long time, it looked like that’s how it was going to be.

I liked it. I was content. The three of us could take on the world.

However, I didn’t know about the buckeye . . .

TO BE CONTINUED . . .

Aug8

So It Goes . . .

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In an absolutely perfect world, I would go to Bell Street Middle School and spend the day getting ready for my 8th year spreading library love amongst my students and teachers. In a slightly less perfect — but wildly-superior-to-the-present — world I’d be headed back to Woodmont High School for my 17th year teaching lit or history– preferably to sophomores or juniors. In any iteration of a good and righteous world, I’d  be going somewhere to educate some kids.

Instead, I will spend the third consecutive first day of school sitting home or helping Budge prepare her room. Barring an unforeseen parting the Red Sea or feeding of the 5,000, I will never set foot in a classroom as a teacher or librarian again.

When a plummeting economy, archaic policy, my complete lack of tact, and Wayne Brazell’s disingenuous ineptitude cost me my librarian’s position at Bell Street following the 2007-2008 school year, I should have seen the handwriting on the wall. I had been offered a position in the District’s IT department at a third of my salary for twice the hours worked. Faced with this unpalatable scenario, I spent March through early May taking home my office, hounding friends in other districts, and chasing leads to find a new place to land. When I didn’t get a call back from any of my three interviews, I chalked it up to competition and cuts.

I was wrong.

One night in May, an HR staffer I knew risked his  job to tell me the assistant principal I thought I had at least a civil working relationship with had BUTCHERED me in a reference. My buddy called it the worst reference he’d ever seen.  Well, anyone who knows me can guess how I responded to that revelation. I went into a fine rage and, while extremely angry, had a FaceBook chat with a “friend” about this odious person, said “friend” felt the need to print said conversation and give it to Bosslady. That got me into a gorgeous shouting match with D.O. people and I ended the year suspended with no contract.

I managed to get her damning reference deleted, but the milk was thoroughly spilled. I have always burned my bridges behind me fairly well on my own, but this woman started a conflagration AHEAD of me. I never knew or even suspected such animosity. When no position came up, I sat out the school year and hoped unemployment insurance would stay funded. I couldn’t even sub because districts within reasonable driving distance had hiring freezes on subs.

I took a fresh shot at the resume circuit last summer. I was called for one interview, then called back a day later and told the job was being filled and not to bother coming in. What was costing me was what any accurate reference about me would show, even from people who think highly of me. I have a tremendous work ethic, drive to get things done, and a boundless love of young people accompanied by a complete disregard for idiotic policy red tape and no patience with stupid people who think a title, a suit, and a big desk give them some special power.

Another year started and ended without me teaching. The black dog started making a tremendous din and the clouds rolled in. Around Christmas, I started looking into other avenues to income if I couldn’t get back into a school. I tried public libraries, private schools . . . anything. In the end, with little hope this summer — or realistically any summer — being any better, I bowed to the inevitable and on the advice of my therapist, I consulted a lawyer and filed for Social Security Disability.

With the OCD, BPD, GAD, and SRDD, the United States Government feels I have enough issues to prevent me from working.  I now have a small but steady income to supplement Budge’s salary, but — at the age of forty — the game is over for me. I have ceased to be a contributing, constructive member of society. For any of my readers who are devotees of the Tea Party or Rude Limburger and Company, I am now one of the “entitlement” parasites on our country’s economy you hear lambasted with unmitigated passion on talk radio and Fox News. I am — barring the aforementioned miracle — permanently “on the dole.”

Please let me assure you that no political pundit will ever despise me more than I despise myself. I never had a great plan, but being a washed up nervous wreck at 40 wasn’t part of ANY plan. No one has ever loved being a teacher any more than I did, and still do. Then I got a chance very few people ever get — I got to work my all-time dream job. I got to be a school librarian. Unfortunately, some demons who have plagued me since late childhood just kept rearing up and causing me to wreck my career track. I had help going off the rails, but the blame for my plight must lie finally at my own feet. It is a fearful thing when your greatest asset (in my case, my mind) turns on you and becomes your worst enemy.

My attitude and behavior cost me two jobs and the root of those problems has now cost me a career. I’d try again, but I just don’t have the emotional strength and I can’t bear to put Budge or Mama through any more seasons of drama and despair than I already have. Budge told me she feels like a weight has been lifted off her back now that she no longer has to worry about getting “the call” from me telling her what fresh hole I’ve dug myself into this time. I’m trying to think of her and not myself.

I never claimed I was a particularly good teacher, and I wouldn’t claim to be more than a mediocre librarian. I couldn’t care less about copyright issues. I think Wikipedia isn’t even a minor devil, much less the offspring of Satan. I think every scrap of paper with a bubble on it should be taken to Iceland and dropped into the gaping maw of Eyjafjallajökull along with the people and politicians who believe testing is the be all and end all of education. I didn’t learn any of those traits in library school; I just feel that strongly.

I will also be the first to admit that, despite my dreams, I was never in any danger of being  Teacher of the Year or holding an office in SCASL. I don’t play with others well enough. I WILL say without hesitation what I lack in tact and judgement, I tried to compensate for with passion for my craft and undying love for my students. I can’t count all the run-ins and heated exchanges I had with administrators, professors, and other “higher ups” in 12 years in schools, but I can tell you the number of serious altercations I had with a student in those 12 years — ONE.

But none of that matters anymore.

The book of my education career is closed. I try to keep a spotless house for Budge. Mama says I make the best cheesecakes. I have this blog and other writing I dabble in, but honestly, I don’t know where to go from here. I never figured on things turning out like this. I can’t say how I expected them to turn out, but I know it wasn’t like this. How this will go from here, I don’t know. I know it makes me sad. I miss my library. I miss my kids. I miss being strong and steady enough to enjoy both of them.

So all my teaching colleagues and librarian buddies, this is where I leave you. Please pass this along the grapevines to my acquaintances and friends who do not patronize “Granny Beads and Grocery Store Feet” so they will know I have not died or joined a monastery. Should either of those events occur, Budge has instructions on who to call, what to post, and how to make news of my demise or decline known to anyone who cares.

In any event, I still love y’all and hope you’ll stick around — clean feet or grubby.

In the words of the late Kurt Vonnegut, “so it goes.”

Aug3

15 Down and a Lifetime to Go!

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I love you, Budge 🙂

Fifteen years ago today, I hit the lifetime lottery. Hopefully, Budge feels the same way even if she’s had less of a reason to rejoice than I have all these years. We celebrate our 15th Anniversary today. The traditional gift for the fifteenth anniversary is crystal. I’ve thought about that some lately and I’ve come up with some thoughts about the Crystal Anniversary.

Crystal is fragile — just like a marriage. Now by that I don’t mean marriages (especially Budge and I) are about to fall apart anymore than I mean an expensive crystal vase is going to shatter just by sitting it on a table. When I say fragile, I’m talking about easy to break. No matter how good a marriage is, it’s easy to break. Break trust, break hearts, break a whole lot of things. Just like crystal, you can glue it back together but it won’t ever be the same. No, it’s much easier to keep things together in the first place rather than having to try fixing it. Thankfully . . . VERY thankfully, Budge and I haven’t had to reach for the glue.

Crystal comes in all shapes and sizes and crystal is useful for a plethora of different things. HOWEVER, crystal isn’t meant to do everything. Some jobs need steel. Some need paper. The important thing to remember is not to try forcing something onto an object that isn’t meant to take the stress. A marriage is wonderful. It’s an opportunity for love and warmth and intimacy that cannot be found ANYWHERE else. HOWEVER, a marriage isn’t meant to take the place of everything in the couple’s life.

Way too often, people marry and expect their spouse will NEVER change and will ALWAYS provide EVERYTHING necessary for happiness. Going into a marriage like that is begging for trouble and ultimately a divorce. Marriage isn’t the be all and end all. Couples need each other but they need friends and family too. Most of all, they need God. Remember, I’m a Christian and make no apologies for it so all my atheist friends will just have to skip this part. Trying to make a marriage fulfill a role in life that only God can fill is a disaster waiting to happen. Budge has told me more than once that she loves me, but she’s known all along that I can’t make her happy. It took me a few years before I understood what she meant.

Crystal has to be cared for to look its best. Put a crystal plate on the mantle and leave it. It’ll sparkle for a long time. It’ll look good even longer, but if you walk up to the mantle and look closely, you’ll see dust and dirt. Marriage is just like that. Leave it unattended too long and the dust and dirt start to accumulate. It’s much better to take the plate down and rinse it off with clear water and maybe a spritz of cleaner to keep the plate shiny. To keep a marriage shining, it takes regular cleaning and care.

Speaking of cleaning, here’s a little known and somewhat unpleasant fact. Vinegar is a great cleaner for fine crystal but it has a harsh smell and isn’t really fun and pleasant to work with. Marriages do better if they have a little “vinegar” every now and then. When everything is sugar and teacakes, you don’t really know what your spouse can handle. A good dose of vinegar sets your teeth on edge and shows the true mettle of the matter. My Budge and I have drunk our fair share of vinegar . . . and part of some other couple’s allotment as well — I’ve BEEN the vinegar in Budge’s glass more than once. Thankfully, the sour times have made the sweeter times just that much sweeter.

Finally, remember this if you remember nothing else. Someone will ALWAYS want your crystal. That vase you were once so proud of? Now it just doesn’t sparkle and you’ve gotten tired of it. SOMEONE WILL TAKE IT IF YOU LEAVE IT OUT. What you may be tired of is exactly what someone else is searching high and low to find. Something else I’ve figured out along the road . . . the BEST way to DESPERATELY need something is to get rid of it and see it in someone else’s possession. Hopefully, we’re all adults here and I don’t need to draw you a picture. Keep your crystal safe and clean and shining. Don’t start yearning for other vases and glasses and knickknacks. Yes, the grass does always look greener on the other side of the fence but that’s because it’s got more cowsh- well, you know what I mean. If you want a good marriage, work at it. Be where you are and quit wishing to be somewhere else.

When Budge and I started dating, our relationship was very complicated for a multitude of reasons. I can’t tell you how many people, including members of our families, didn’t give us a chance. A good many people claimed we’d never make it. In fact, within 18 months of our wedding, eight other couples in our church at the time married. Of the nine total couples, only four of us are still married to the same spouse. Budge and I are one of them 🙂

No matter what people said, we’re still here. Still standing. Still together.

Still crazy after all these years.

Happy Anniversary to my best friend, my biggest cheerleader, and my favorite snugglebunny.

I love you, Budge.

Jul21

Overheard In Target

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Tuesday, Budge and I made our weekly sojourn to Target for Jack’s favorite Jumbones and to pick up some cases of Dasani that were on sale. While we were shopping, I was forced to answer a call of nature requiring time and concentration. Because of my aforementioned irritation with public restrooms in general, I wasn’t very happy with the situation . . . until I heard the door open and somebody walk in. Actually, it was TWO somebodies and by the time they left, I had nearly bitten the blood from my right pointer finger to keep from laughing. You can’t make stuff this good up!

The conversation went like this:

Little boy voice: “Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?Daddy?”

Daddy’s voice: “Yes, son, yes. What is it?”

LB: “Daddy? Daddy? Daddy? Is this the girls’ bathroom or the boys’ bathroom? Huh?”

Dad: “This is the boy’s bathroom, son.”

LB: “But I don’t ever go to the boys’ bathroom I always go to the girls’ bathroom, why are we in the boys’ bathroom?”

Dad: “Because you are usually with Mommy when you are out of the house and mommies with their little boys use the girls’ bathroom, but today you’re with Daddy and we use the boys’ bathroom. Someday soon, you’ll use the boys’ bathroom even when you are with Mommy ’cause you’ll be a big boy and can go on your own.”

LB: “Daddy? Daddy? Daddy? Are you finished yet? Huh?”

Dad ( just the TINIEST bit tense): “No, son, I haven’t even gotten started yet. Now close the door.” At this point, “Daddy” gets seated and situated.

LB: “Daddy? Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?”

Dad: “Yes, son?”

LB: “I wuv you a lot.”

Dad: “I love you a lot, too, son.”

LB: “Can I lock the door?”

Dad: “Yes, son, you may lock the door.”

LB: “Daddy? Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?”

Dad: “Yes, son?”

LB: “I wuv you a lot.”

Dad: “I love you a lot, too, son.” The next sounds I hear are CLICK . . . CLICK. . . clickclickclickclickclick and then

Dad: “Son! Stop, now. That’s enough.”

LB: “Hee, hee, that’s a funny sound, Daddy. I like funny sounds.” One final CLICK then “Daddy, are you finished yet?”

Dad with a heavy sigh: “No, son, not yet, but it won’t be much longer.” Then I hear Daddy start rolling off some Charmin which leads to

LB: “Daddy? Daddy? Daddy? Do you need more, Daddy, can I get you more Daddy? Do you need me to help you? Mommy always helps me with the TeePee, an’ an’ an’ when you finish can I push the button (for flushing), can I, Daddy?”

Dad: “No, son, I can manage my business, thank you, and yes, you may push the button.”

LB: “Daddy? Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?”

Dad: “Yes, son?”

LB: “I wuv you a lot.”

Dad: “I love you a lot, too, son.” At this point I hear the rattling sounds of change and keys as “Daddy” gets adjusted. Then I hear . . .

LB: “Wooowww! Daddy! That’s A LOT! Wait’ll I tell Dusty! Can I push the button now, Daddy? Now?” but before Daddy can answer, tragedy strikes — this toilet is an automatic flusher and I hear a little wail as the water whooshes away.

Dad: “Hang on, son, hang on. It’ll fill back up and you can push the button then . . . see. Go ahead and push the button.”

Water whooshes again and the stall door clicks open . . .

LB: “Daddy! Daddy! You didn’t wash you hands! Mommy says always wash you hands!!

Dad: “Son I know what Mommy says and Daddy doesn’t always DO what Mommy says, now come on.”

LB: “But I always have to do what Mommy says, right?”

Dad: “Yes, you must always obey your Mommy. Now come on.”

LB: “Cause it makes Jesus happy when little boys obey their Mommys?”

Dad: “That’s right, son. That makes Jesus happy. Let’s go, come on, son.”

LB: “Daddy? Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?”

Dad: “Yes, son?”

LB: “I wuv Jesus a lot.” Steps start out and then

Dad: “I’m glad, son. I’m glad you love Jesus a lot. He loves you a lot, too.”

LB: “Daddy? Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?”

Dad: “Yes, son?”

LB: “I wuv you a lot to though, Daddy.”

Dad: “I love you . . .  Then the outside restroom door closes.

Nothing quite like daddies, is there?

Love y’all. Keep your feet clean and your bodies cool!

Jul18

They Aren’t Loaded, They Just Smell Bad

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My Engine looked like this.Lately, I have taken to perusing the classified ads gathered on Craigslist.com. Yesterday, I found that the car of my dreams could be mine for $25K or the best offer. The car was a 1969 Chevelle SS 396, and it was hauntingly similar to Marilyn, the ’69 Chevelle SS 396 Daddy bought for me after I wrecked my beloved ’79 Mustang.

Like the car in Craigslist, Marilyn had a Chevy big block 396 cubic inch engine under the hood bolted to a racing transmission. I loved that car. I miss that car every day. I sold her to help pay for my last semester of college and to take care of some debts I owed. If I had it to go over with again knowing what I know now, I’d have kept the car, endured the bad credit, and dropped out of college. By now, the car would be worth more than my degree is anyway.

Marilyn looked like this only with white SS stripes on the hood and trunk lid.

Looking at that Chevelle in the classifieds then looking at the weatherman promising a week of sweltering days ahead led me back in my mind to the summer when I was 17 and had just gotten Marilyn on the road with her newly rebuilt engine. At that time, gas was hovering around $1.25 for the premium her engine required, which was good because Marilyn would

pass anything on the road but a gas station. I used to joke with my buddies that she got 60 mpg, then I dropped the engine and transmission in and the mileage went down to about 7 mpg . . . downhill . . . with a tailwind . . . and no passengers.

She was NOT an economy car, but I was a teenage boy with a job and no bills, a girlfriend, and what at that time looked like a great life full of promise ahead of me. In short, I was pretty much like every one of my guy friends. Life was good and it was summertime.

The day I remember in particular was particularly hot. I believe it was somewhere between “blast furnace” and “sunlit side of Mercury.” Unlike the complete restoration in Craigslist, however, Marilyn didn’t have one nice luxury — AIR CONDITIONING. Now, she had the vent system, controls, and spot on the firewall where an A/C unit had been when she left Detroit, but in the 20 years between that day and the one in question, the unit had disappeared. I had every intention of replacing the climate control right up until I found out doing so would cost $2000 . . . and this was around 1987, remember. On my $3 per hour stocking job at Community Cash, the likelihood of me getting that kind of lettuce together was somewhere between slim and none and slim had saddled up and left town.

Since I didn’t have the factory A/C, I made use of an aftermarket system called the 2WD70MPH model. That was short for “2 windows down going 70 miles per hour.” As long as Marilyn was moving she stayed cool. You did NOT want to be stuck in traffic though. In addition to the scorching ambient heat, it is amazing how much heat aluminum headers on a 396 ci  engine generate as they pass right under your feet. My car was HOT in more ways than one.

Due to this lack of climate control, it was my custom in those days to drive shirtless and shoeless. At the time, I could still take my shirt off without some crazy man with a peg leg and a harpoon trying to stab me while shouting “Thar she blows!” Now, did you know that in the state of South Carolina, it is illegal to drive barefooted? Guess what?

Neither did I, and thereupon hangs the rest of this story.

I was on my way to Gray Court from Laurens running about 75 up Highway 14 with my AC/DC “Back In Black” CASSETTE TAPE (!!!! remember those anybody? !!!) cranked to 11 when I passed the old fruit market in Barksdale. Did you know that stretch of road happens to be a 55 mph speed limit zone? Guess what? NEITHER DID I! However, the nice man in the grey car with the blue lights who pulled out behind me would inform me of that once all the excitement died down.

So, Smokey Bear was behind me and the road was too straight and the day too bright for me to out run him, so I pulled over, cut the Marilyn off, and waited. Trooper Douglas walked up beside my the car and said, just as I’d heard so many times before, “Son, get your license and registration and step out of the car.” Remember how I said I drove barefooted? Remember how hot that asphalt had to have been? I needed to get my canvas Nikes and put them on. Guess where they were?

Under the seat.

But there was just one of him. Of course, he was PLENTY.

Friends, a word of advice, should need ever arise to retrieve something from under the seat of a hot rod car in the middle of July with a very large and somewhat aggravated member of law enforcement standing beside your open window . . . tell the man (or woman) what you need and what you are about to do before you move. I didn’t say anything; I just nodded, reached down between my legs, and stuck my hand under the seat. At that point, the day got interesting.

Trooper Douglas took exception to me reaching under the seat and, being a man of action, reached through the open window, seized me under the left armpit, with ONE ARM drug me bodily through the open window, flipped me — shirtless and spreadeagled — across Marilyn’s hood, drew and thumb-cocked his .357 magnum service revolver, then placed said revolver’s muzzle right against my left temple with his hand still pressing me firmly into the sheet metal of the hood.

As a matter of fact, that hole DID look this big or maybe a mite bigger.

Time stood still. Somewhere off in the distance a bird sang. A lone dog barked. I heard a radio across the meadow playing Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried”. My nose was filled with the smell of chest and thigh flesh roasting on the superheated sheet-metal of a car hood. I remember thinking, “Well, Mama, wearing clean underwear whenever I went out presupposes the underwear that was clean when I left will be clean once they examine my body.” It wasn’t.

After an eternity, Trooper Douglas spoke and his voice rolled down like Moses commanding the Red Sea to part for the Children of Israel, “Son, just what in the hell (pronounced in the Southern 2 syllable way “hay-yill”) do you think you are reaching for?”

Somehow or another, a primitive part of my brain realized my survival depended on the careful wording of my answer so I said, with somewhat of a sob, “Um, my canvas Nikes, Sir. They are under my seat and I promise they aren’t loaded; they just smell real bad.”

Love y’all. Stay cool and keep your feet clean.

 

May10

The End Draweth Nigh

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Okay, forget the craziness surrounding 2012 and the Mayan calendar. Don’t pay any attention to all the folks blathering on about Nostradamus’ final predictions and such. Ignore the prophetic signs abundant in the Middle East. Don’t even worry about the guy on the corner with the sandwich board proclaiming “The End of the World is Near.” These petty predictors pale in comparison to the omen I received yesterday morning that our days on this planet are truly drawing to a close.

Before you ask, I didn’t receive a divine visitation or some ESP related premonition. My source is much more reliable than either of those . . . well, depending on WHO the divine visitation is. I mean, I would consider Angelina Jolie or Scarlett Johansson dropping by unannounced as a divine visitation, but I wouldn’t give much credence to any prophetical statements either might make (even though Angie does have that whole “weirdness” thing going on sometimes.)

No, my wake up call, literally, came from the radio beside my bed. I know that the end of the world is coming because NPR — that’s National Public Radio for the Dittoheads out there, you know who you are — aired a full segment interview with (cue ominous music) . . . THE BEASTIE BOYS!

No worries, mates. The show won't last that long!"

Yep, Ad-Rock and Mike-D chatted up a new project they have coming out with one of the erudite and hyper-literate NPR hosts. MCA was sadly absent because of his ongoing fight with cancer. Let me run that one by you again in case you missed it the first time The Beastie Boys — yes, THOSE Beastie Boys — were being interviewed on N.P.R. As Bugs Bunny once remarked in his Bronx accent, “Now I’ve seen everyting!”

I could understand when Pearl Jam started appearing on my local Classic Rock station. It was hard at first because I was like, “Pearl Jam?! What gives? Vedder rocks forever! They just had a HUGE tour in 2000! Oh, yeah, um, 2000 . . . that was like  eleven ye-. . . *heavy sigh*.” So yeah, that was harsh, but I could deal. I deluded myself into thinking some things are just “instant classics”, you know?

I was even able to handle the crushing blow of seeing one of my other favorite bands — Foreigner — have their Greatest Hits cd on sale — not at somewhere like Record Bar (if you don’t know what Record Bar is, PLEASE, don’t ask. I feel bad enough already) or even Target or Walmart. Foreigner, the whole “Hot Blooded” bunch of them was on sale at HALLMARK. Right between the stationery with puppies and kittens and the new Vera Bradley releases sat one of the iconic rock bands. HALLMARK. I could just barely hold my composure until I got to the Element where I could give full vent to my sorrow. Budge was extremely worried and asked me what was the matter. I sobbed out, “Foreigner is on sale at Hallmark!” and erupted into another bout of misery.

She just looked at me with that look of “Someone tell me again why I hitched my wagon to this horse?” I have a picture of that look. I really want to put it up in a post on here but I’ve been promised grievous bodily harm should that ever happen.

"I'm givin' 'er all she's got cap'n! She cannae ta' much more!"

I managed to survive the revelation that Steve Tyler — the rock god frontman of Aerosmith (and father of Arwen Evenstar) — was going to be a judge on American freaking Idol. When I read that news on MSN, I couldn’t help but start quoting from Shelley’s “Ozymandias”. I didn’t realize I was speaking aloud until Budge asked my why I was quoting

Romantics and I told her that Steven Tyler was to judge American Idol.

I got The Look again for my trouble.

The Beastie Boys on NPR though? That’s it. I am officially PAST old and well on my way to ancient. When one of the first groups you ever headbanged to trade in “Brass Monkey” for Perrier, the Apocalypse cannot be too far away. All that is left is for The Rolling Stones to finally disintegrate and fall into dust right in the middle of a live performance of “Satisfaction” for me to know that it’s all over but the crying. After all, once The Beastie Boys do NPR, what’s left? I guess I could hear Def Leppard playing as elevator Muzak. Of course, once that happens, I’m just taking that elevator on up to the ceiling and jumping off. I don’t want to be around for the earth-rending events that are sure to follow!

Love y’all! Keep those feet clean and if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go read my Easton Press copy of W.B. Yeats’ poems. I think I’ll start with “The Second Coming.”

Apr26

I Coulda Been A Contenda’

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Right about now I should be on the last leg of my homeward trek from Orlando, Fla after completely dominating all comers in the Jeopardy! interview and tournament, thus assuring myself of a chance to show both “Watson” and one Mr. Ken Jennings just who’s the smartest one of all.

But I’m not.

This guy who, speaking for him and his mates, once claimed to “be more famous than Jesus” once said, “Life is what happens while you’re making other plans.” That’s pretty much what happened to my Jeopardy! tryout. My Budge is still a lot dizzy, even though she has returned to work. She cannot possibly drive, nor would I even consider leaving her if she was in less than perfect health.

In the interest of complete transparency, however, I confess that she and I had decided I was not going down to Orlando anyway about three days before she had her run-in with the vertigo gremlin. I actually had emailed the contact in Orlando to let them know I wasn’t coming not too long before Budge called me to her side and proceeded to get so violently sick. Her vertigo was just proof positive to me that I wasn’t meant to be in sunny central Florida today.

The main reason I bowed out of the selection process was a simple one — money, or rather the serious lack thereof. Even before being presented with a preposterous $12,000.oo hospital bill (which will be the subject of an upcoming RANT, believe me) the fuel cost was a big roadblock to the trip. See, Disneytown is somewhere between “that’s a long ride” and “good lord, what was I thinking?” in distance from our home. We had figured it would take three tankfuls of petrol – at minimum – to make the round trip. With the current obscenely greedy speculator driven price of gas hovering around $3.50 a gallon, one tank in my beloved Element costs nigh on $50. Even my mathematically challenged brain can figure out that’s $150, and that’s just gas. By the time we tacked on a hotel room, since Budge and Mama both put the kibosh on me driving down and turning right around to come home, and food — well, it just wasn’t happening.

Then there’s the part about the tryout that the television executives don’t tell you when you pass the online test, but rather wait until you are all pumped about getting on the show. If I had aced the tryout and the interview (and I see no reason why I shouldn’t have) and been invited to the show, I would have been solely responsible for getting myself out to Holly-weird where — per Jeopardy! emails — I would be required to remain for five days WITH NO GUARANTEE of being on the show AT ALL.

Let me run that by you again. I’d have to get to one of the most expensive cities in California and stay for A WEEK paying for a hotel, food, and the occasional excursion to fend off hotel cabin fever to MAYBE get a shot at POSSIBLY being a contestant. So what would have happened if the five days came and went and I didn’t get on the show? I’d have to get back home — somehow.

Gentle readers, if I could afford to get out to LA for a week and come back home, I wouldn’t NEED to be on Jeopardy! because I’d have a boatload of money. I mean, have you SEEN the cost of an airline ticket from South Carolina out to the Left Coast? With the way I hear most people talk about flying, I’d probably have to go to Boston, then Rio, then back to Dallas, and finally get out to California. Apparently, no one ever pointed out to these airline people the whole “shortest distance is a straight line” thing. Oh, and all this is predicated on the fact that I could even get the nerve up to get on a plane. My widebody butt doesn’t belong on a widebody jet.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not afraid of flying. I am, however, mortally terrified of crashing. Of course any time I bring that up, someone wants to blather on about flying being statistically safer than driving a car. That may actually be true, but I would like to point out that I personally know several people, including Budge, Mama, my brother Nick, and even myself who have survived one and sometimes more car crashes.

I don’t know anyone who fell out of the sky in a big flaming aluminum cylinder and lived to tell about it.

Even the Bible speaks warns against flying in an airplane. If it didn’t then why does Scripture say, “and Lo, I am with you always,”? Get that? LOW. Nothing about some 30,000 feet in the air. Who am I to gainsay Holy Writ?

So, I guess the world will just have to wait a while longer before I make my triumphal quiz show debut. Even though I’m certain it would have been glorious, I’ll have to rely on the thought that carried Papa Wham and I through the dismal decade of the 1980s as Atlanta Braves fans, the same thought that has sustained legions of Cubbie faithful since 1903 —

There’s always next year!

Love y’all!

Be good to each other and keep those feet clean.

Apr20

Of Birds, Bees, and Frogs

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Amsterdam, Paris, Vegas . . . they got nothing on the Country Walk Lane Froggy Bordello.

I am a pimp. Not in the “how I dress flamboyantly” sense of the word (but with all my purple, who knows?), but in the “male who handles prostitutes” term. I am running a brothel for frogs. My backyard and pool have become a red-light district for amphibians.

Even as I am typing this, outside my living room window, the sounds of illicit frog romance is filling the night. If I were to gently pad to the back door, ease out onto my deck, pick up my spotlight, then flip it on and point the beam at the pool’s surface, I would witness a veritable tsunami as forty or fifty froggy “johns” dive into the green water to escape the penetrating light of “the authorities.”

I did not intend to be the owner of such a den of amphibian iniquity and vice. Unfortunately, I failed to buy a cover for my above ground pool and its new liner at the end of the last swimming season. I wasn’t overly worried about debris because I don’t have many trees in the back and none of them overhang the pool. All winter, the pool weathered the weather like a champ. Once or twice I took some GI Joes I found in the front yard (courtesy of the hellions next door) and sent them ice skating on the coldest days. (Okay, I’m from a small town in the sticks, it doesn’t take much to entertain me)

Another satisfied customer waiting for the party to crank back up.

Then came the spring. As the weather warmed, the pool greened. Since my deck doesn’t circumnavigate the pool, I cannot clean it with the vacuum until the water warms enough to get in it. Unfortunately, it’s plenty warm enough for the diatoms, euglenas, and algaes long before I feel comfortable subjecting my mammalian nether regions to the water. As a result, I don’t have a pool so much as I have a wonderfully symmetrical pond — probably for the next month or so. Then the fun part starts.

Not only do I have to get the pool chemically balanced, vacuumed, and cleaned out, but I also have to find a way to clean up the Times Square of the anura order. Maybe I can get Rudy Gulliani to come down and “clean up” around here?

Anyway, if you know how to encourage these wonderfully cacaphonic bufoae and anurae to look for love in some other places, please let me know! Otherwise, I’m afraid that the chlorine from the pool cleaning in a few weeks is going to cause a massive infanticide among the nascent tadpole population. Ah, such is life. The parents do all the loose living and the children bear the brunt of the punishment.

Circle of life, indeed!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Apr16

My Beautiful Blue-eyed Baby’s Got the Busy Bouncing Eyeball Blues

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If you need one of these for a post, you can be pretty certain things did not end well.

Normally, I don’t have much of an excuse when I don’t put out content on a regular basis for my one adoring fan, (Hi, Mom!) but this quiet stretch is different. For the last week and a half, I have been helping Budge as she recovers from a blindsiding and vicious attack of vertigo of unknown origin. Here’s how it’s all gone down.

Last Wednesday, she and I were shopping in Target. We were near the Outdoor Living section and it is a very good thing that we were because one second she was fine and we were chatting away like normal and the next second her face went ashen and she informed me she HAD to sit down. She said she was uncontrollably dizzy and felt like she was going to vomit at any minute. We sat for about ten minutes before we managed to slowly and painfully make our way to the checkout. At the checkout line, another wave of dizziness and nausea overcame Budge again so she crept over to the in-store Starbucks and sat down to wait on me.

After another ten minutes of deep breathing and panic, we were able to get to the car and start home. I had to pull over once because she was certain she was going to hurl, but nothing happened and we made it to the house. I put her to bed immediately and went on taking care of the daily chores thinking it was just a bit of nausea and she’d wake up in an hour or two just as well as ever.

I got it HALF right.

Two hours later, Budge woke up in a panic and yelled for me to bring her a bucket. I took one step towards the bathroom to get the requested item when my poor Budge erupted. She tossed up her entire baked spaghetti lunch from her favorite Italian restaurant. Then she tossed up her breakfast bar. Then dinner from the night before. This Krakatoic output continued until she expelled Christmas dinner from 2003 and she finally subsided into a miserable bout of dry heaving.  She and I have been together for sixteen years and we’ve endured more than our fair share of upchucking. We’ve dealt with food poisoning, stomach flu, and good old fashioned nausea bugs, but in all that time, I’d NEVER seen my wife as sick as she was for that restless hour. The strangest symptom was her eyes. They were vibrating from side to side like a bubble level on a rodeo bull. It was disconcerting. I later found out this affliction is called “nystagmus.” I guess that is Latin for “wildly vibrating eyeballs.”

Look at this for about 30 seconds and youll have some idea of what Budges eyes were doing.

It was a lot like this only with more orange, more smell, and sideways.

It took about an hour, but by breathing through my open mouth to blunt the effects of the hideous smell of stomach contents, I was able to get the carpet cleaned up, the bed cleaned up, and the Budge cleaned up. She drifted off into a fitful sleep and I figured she’d miss the next day of school and the bug would run its course and all would be well.

That plan hit the bricks at 3:00 AM when Budge sat bolt upright in bed and groped for the bucket again. After ten unbroken minutes of dry heaving, she weakly asked if we could go to the ER and I was in full agreement. We rolled in to Hillcrest Hospital in Simpsonville at 3:30 AM and immediately got a bay. Then the wheels fell off the wagon. At some point in the dim past, Hillcrest was a good little hospital. I was born there when it still had a baby ward. Several members of my family died there for one reason or another. Of course, that was back when the medical profession was run by doctors and not accountants and the emphasis was on helping people and not making money. Such is not now the case.

I know several doctors, my own physician and psychiatrist among them, who are justifiably proud of graduating in the top five percent of their medical school class. By definition, if a “top five” percent exists, a “bottom five” percent also exists. For years I wondered who would hire such and inept group of doctors. Now I know. The Greenville Hospital System must have held a job fair in the “Just Barely Doctors” dorm at every medical college in country and sent the new hires to the ER at Hillcrest.

We were in the ER for 17 HOURS. Seventeen. SEVENTEEN. HOURS. For twelve of those hours, Budge was the guinea pig for a Yankee woman doctor with a tree trunk sized chip on her shoulder who knows as much about medicine as I know about piloting the space shuttle. My beloved got an MRI, a CAT scan, a full blood panel, and several more tests all involving pointy things jabbing into my wife’s tender flesh. Brunhilda found nothing. Am I relieved that Budge didn’t have anything serious? Yes, very. Do I think she needed to be subjected to every test in the last medical textbook this sawbones read? Not so much. So after hours of fruitless testing, Brunhilda finally realized she had no clue what she was doing and decided to let the adults have a turn.

As a result, Budge was transferred by ambulance to Greenville Memorial Hospital. We stayed from Wednesday night to LATE Saturday night in room 2328 racking up charges only to have a bottom fiver neurologist and a pretty fair ENT look Budge over and say her symptoms were “idiopathic.” That is doctor-ese for “danged if I know what’s wrong but let’s run some more tests because the mark up on supplies is so good!”

I you have been reading this blog for any amount of time, you are well aware that I do not suffer fools gladly and I am quite liberal in my definition of “fool”. With Budge laid up and unable to contain my baser instincts, I very untactfully let a lot of people know what my opinion of their ability to practice medicine was. For example, I told Brunhilda in no uncertain terms exactly what she could do with that stethoscope hanging around her neck. It won’t surprise anyone that, by the time we left on Saturday, the nurses, orderlies, doctors, and security guards were very excited to see me go.

Today marks a week that we have been home. Budge is still suffering from dizziness. We have been to three MORE doctors this week as follow-ups from the hospital debacle and the upshot is we know a ton of things my love DOESN’T have. She missed all of last week at school and with standardized testing coming up, that has here in a tizzy. Next week is Spring Break, and we have a couple more appointments scheduled then. For the moment though, a ton of tests and around $25oo worth of co-pays later, we still don’t know what’s wrong with her. The best we’ve gotten so far is “whatever it is, it’ll run it’s course, probably.”

So keep your feet clean and keep us in your prayers.

Love y’all!