Tag Archives: Budge

Aug19

Breakdown in Communication

Posted on by
Standard

You just have to wonder what's coming when this is the opening picture!

In honor of the first Friday of the new school year around these parts, I want to share with y’all my FAVORITE story ever from my beloved Budge’s teaching career. She just started year NINE, which is hard for me to believe and she gets better and better each year. I’m not saying it just because she’s my wife and I love her, but as a former teacher, I know awesome when I see it.

So this particular story took place early in Budge’s second year. Her first year had been a typical first year. It was stressful, but not terrible. This second year group, however, was proving to be a little more of a handful than her first class. Still, they were a neat bunch and one of the most memorable was a young lad named . . . well, let’s call him “Sydney” since Budge has his baby sister this year.

Young master Sydney was performing the role of “bathroom reporter” during the morning potty break. The most important part of his job was to enter the boy’s bathroom first and return with a report on anything out-of-place or order so none of my lovely’s children would be unfairly blamed. The fun started when Sydney returned from his reconnaissance foray into the toilet. Upon his return, Budge asked for a report. The report went a little something like this:

Budge: “Okay, what’s the deal, Sydney?”

Sydney: “Mrs. Wham, there’s piss on the seat in one stall.” Now it’s important to note that the boy gave his report in an even, conversational, matter-of-fact tone. He was not cracking up or goofing off. Budge, however, wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.

Budge: “What did you say?”

Sydney: “I said, ‘Mrs. Wham, there’s piss on one of the seats.'”

Budge, now a little distressed and a little louder: “WHAT did you say?”

Sydney, by this time wondering why this strange woman was teaching: “I said, “Mrs. Wham. There. Is. Piss. On. The. Seat.” He never raised his voice. He was never disrespectful at all. Truth be told, the poor little guy was at a complete loss as to what he had done wrong.

Budge was fairly well discombobulated by this time so she hustled the class into the room, shut the door a little harder than she meant to, and — once everyone was seated — began one of the first, and to date, strangest dressing downs of her career.

Budge: “Class! We do not use the word PISS in this class?! Does everyone understand me?!”

Budge is MUCH prettier, but I have seen a similar look.

She told me the class stared back at her with a reptilian haze dulling their eyes. Sydney was in the back looking absolutely bumfuzzled. Apparently, at his house, the yellow liquid one’s kidneys produced, which then exited the body via the bladder and urethra, was called, appropriately enough PISS.

Now as an aside, I like to think of “piss” as one of those good old Anglo-Saxon words that cut straight to the core of the apple so to speak. When someone uses one of those ancient words, no one has much of a chance to doubt his intentions. Unfortunately, those words have fallen out of favor in polite company. My Budge was about to offer a substitute in its place.

Budge: “Instead of PISS, we will call it “TINKLE”! It is not pee or pee-pee or anything else, and it IS NOT PISS! IT. IS. CALLED. TINKLE!! Got it?”

According to her, twenty-seven of twenty-eight heads, including Sydney’s, bobbed up and down in affirmation probably thinking, if we go along with the crazy woman, maybe we can get away during recess.. The lone dissenter was another lad named Johnathan. Instead of nodding his acquiescence to the new status quo, Johnny had his head buried in his arms on his desk and Budge said his shoulders were shaking violently. When she called his name and asked if he understood, he looked up with a terrible grin on his face and tears squeezing out of his eyes as his whole body shook in a spasm of suppressed laughter.

Budge: “Something funny, Johnathan?” To his everlasting credit, the boy didn’t crack. He regained control of himself and managed to squeak out, “No, ma’am.”

Budge then gave the class a withering look and one more expulsion of “TINKLE, okay?” Before she went on with the lesson.

And the moral of this story is . . .

Sydney and Johnathan are seniors in high school this year, but Sydney came with his mom and sister to “Meet the Teacher Night” on Monday and as soon as he walked in the room — all six foot plus handsome young man of him — he smiled and said, “Mrs. Wham, I’ve already told Sissy here that we use the word TINKLE in your class.”

Budge said she couldn’t help but laugh at what she wouldn’t let herself laugh at eight years ago. Since then, she’s learned to pick her battles and “Piss on the seat” probably wouldn’t garner a second glance. However, to a still-green teacher, she had to stand firm against the onrushing tide of PISS and other monstrosities.

I still love her though!

Love you all too! Keep those feet clean and good luck in school.

Aug10

Deuce, Part I — An Unlikely Alliance

Posted on by
Standard

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 . . .

Apr16

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

Posted on by
Standard

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!

Feb24

Yes, As A Matter Of Fact, It IS Mine!

Posted on by
Standard

The wallet I carry every day. Why, yes it is a Vera Bradley.

Hello, my name is Shannon and I carry a Vera Bradley Zip-Around Wallet in the “Simply Violet” pattern given to me by my plural wives.

WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT!?

Apparently, I am single-handedly bringing about the demise of Western culture and the downfall of our civilization because I carry a “woman’s” wallet. Well, I’ve checked both eyes for tears and, finding none, have to assume that the care bears that live in my tear ducts have decided to stay mute on this fashion point.

My favorite pair of Croc Caymans. Color: Grape.

At least once a week, when I take my Vera Bradley out of my left leg cargo pocket of my favorite brown cargo pants to pay for something at a restaurant or store, I get an incredulous look and some smarmy, snarky comment from a salesman or a waiter like “Cute wallet? Does it match your shoes?”  Of course, if I’m wearing my favorite pair of shoes, I point down and say — with as much scorn and vinegar-laced honey as possible — “Only when I’m wearing these, Sugar.”

Budge hates it when I do that.

Now if we are being served by a waitress or checked out by a lady, the comments aren’t nearly as vilely undertoned. It is more of a “That’s a nice wallet there. Is it yours or your wife’s?” I seldom go out in public without Budge or another of my handlers like Mama or Deuce, so one of them is usually close enough to warrant the comment. The sweetness usually turns to apology laced surprise when I unzip my wallet and show her my oft-washed and well-worn wedding dress picture of Budge. Then I’ll usually smile and say, “Do I look like I’d marry someone so vain they would carry around a picture of herself in her own wallet?”

The odd part is, if this same pattern of wallet had a metal zipper and was cast in cowhide or some dull colored canvas instead of cutely stitched cotton, I wouldn’t have this constant questioning. Well, what can I say? I like a little color along with my functionality. Of all the evils foisted upon our collective American psyche by our overly dour and legalistic Puritan forbears, the abhorrence of brightly colored clothing — particularly MALE clothing, is possibly the worst.

The story behind my decision to carry this particular stripe (or paisley as the case may be) of accessory is very practical and simple. I was tired of carrying a regular guy’s billfold in my back pocket. With the ton of loyalty cards, a debit card, a driver’s license, and one or two other sundries, the billfold my wallet replaced was three inches or more thick. Sitting on that monstrosity not only made my right butt cheek sweat too much, but it was also like sitting on a boulder. Added to the fact that my chiropractor warned that sitting on a billfold is a leading cause of spinal misalignment and associated back problems and my choice was clear. I needed a better system.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned cowhide or fine leather “manly looking” wallets cost more than the cow from whence they originated. I fail to see the logic, humor, or even irony in paying so much for a wallet that one has no money left to place therein. Enter Budge.

Budge was changing out her old “Simply Black” Vera Bradley zip around for her new monogrammed clutch. I saw what all she took out of the old wallet and realized I had found my solution. I asked her if I could have her old wallet and she handed it to me with that usual look that says, “You’re going to do something that will embarrass me, aren’t you?” I ignored the look, took the wallet, found it carried all my “stuff” in a much more orderly fashion, and so carried it until it almost fell apart. So for Christmas, Budge and Deuce bought me my new purple wallet. End of story. It’s what I carry.

So I like purple?!

WANNA FIGHT ABOUT IT!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Feb16

But They Were Both Green!

Posted on by
Standard

God's gift to men-children everywhere. For some reason, all mine were green elephants and purple hippos. Coincidence? I think not.

I’ve had some people ask me if I had personal experience as my guide for my last post. To that, I can only answer “Of course!” I am still amazed by the amount of knowledge I lost on January 7, 1995. (That would be the day Budge and I started dating, in case you aren’t keeping up!) For the last ten years, I had been a passable driver, notching only one wreck in that decade. It was a GOOD wreck, but still, it was only one and, to set the record straight, Budge had TWO wrecks in the six months before we met. More importantly, I had managed for the previous 20 years to dress myself in clean and decent fashion. I admit that when I was younger, I benefited from the miracle that was the original Granimals line of clothing, but even after I outgrew my mix and match zoo, I still looked presentable.

In one day, I not only lost the ability to drive, it seems I was no longer competent to dress myself either. Strangely, the only thing different from 1-6-95 to 1-7-95 was that I had become joined at the heart, if not the hip — at first at least, to She-Who-Was-To-Be-Called-Budge. Now, to get everyone just joining us up to speed, Budge was a student where I was a first year teacher. We met. We clicked. We became the worst kept secret in the school district and the fact I didn’t get fired has always warmed my heart because people must have thought I was a good enough man to have a relationship like this without taking advantage of a poor, lovestruck teenage girl.

Yeah, RIGHT! If they ONLY knew!

Anyway, when I started teaching, I was a bit strapped for clothes fit to wear in front of a classroom full of students. Four years of college will do that to a guy’s wardrobe. I did, however, have ONE outfit that I thought was, to use the student vernacular of those days, “Da Bomb!” It was a nice, heavy cloth Duck Head button up shirt that I wore with Duck Head cargo pants.

Now, if you aren’t familiar with Duck Head, you didn’t go to college in the South in the late ’80s or early ’90s. They were a ubiquitous brand of khaki pants and pastel shirts in solids, plaids, and stripes. Some of us called them “the poor man’s Polo” since they were better made but lacked some of the cachet of Mr. Lauren’s little red horsey. They certainly were a great deal more affordable, especially when every dollar one saved on clothing was money that could be put towards paying down student loans! Yeah, I know and you’re right, whatever we saved went to beer, but it’s nice to think about what might have been had we been a bit more responsible.

But I digress.

This is pretty close to what mine looked like. Snazzy, right?

I had this one well-made, well-maintained and — to my eye anyway — STYLISH outfit. Since I am a firm believer in the old adage, “If one guitar string breaks in the middle of the set, play harder on the other six” I wore this particular outfit once per week, every week, from the time I got my job at the school in October until the outfit’s untimely demise six months later. Now, I’ve noted the cut, construction, and origin of this outfit, but what I failed to mention, and what apparently is SUPREMELY important, is that both the shirt and the pants were green. Apparently, that presented somewhat of a problem.

This would be a good time for me to reiterate one fundamental difference between men and women that happens to be most germane to this recollection. Men, to use computer terminology, are 4 bit color depth beings. If you’ve ever hooked up a monitor to your computer that wasn’t quite compatible and it reverted back to the lowest color setting, you’ve seen color through a man’s eye. We have red, blue, green, white, black, grey, and beige (and we’re not to sure about beige.)

Mine were a little lighter, but this is reasonably close. Does anyone else see a problem? I certainly didn't!

Women, however, are 256 XVGA HD 1080 color compatible. They do not have “beige.” They have eggshell, off-white, candlelight, old lace, ecru (which I always though was a bird from Australia), flat champagne, and at least ten other “shades” for what men call “beige” and which no being in possession of less than two X chromosomes could discern a difference between even if held at gunpoint.

So, I thought the shirt was green and the pants were green. No problem. To Budge, however, I discovered that the pants were “olive” and the shirt was “dark lime.” Here I thought I was supposed to wear the clothes and she’s making it sound like I need to eat them. The very first time I brought her home to meet Mama, before I had revealed to Mama that Budge was — in fact — a student which is a story for another time, Budge went into my room — later to be our room — took out my “olive” pants, brought them into the kitchen, and threw them in the trash. She then told me that I could wear THE shirt with jeans and nothing else.

Life would simpler. I might even get to buy my own clothes again!

When I pointed out to her that I had worn that same outfit once a week for six months and she had NEVER said one word about it, she had a ready reply: “I know that, honey, and I told ‘the girls’ when we first started dating that once I found out I was coming over here the first thing on the agenda was to GET RID OF THAT OUTFIT!”

That, beloved, is how I found out that green actually doesn’t “go with” green and from that day to this, I have not bought an item of clothing to be worn in public without my Budge’s express approval.

I want my Granimals back!

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Jan24

Being Unemployed Isn’t for the Fainthearted

Posted on by
Standard

It’s just twenty minutes until tomorrow so I’ll start calling Monday yesterday, as in — yesterday, I spent a little over four HOURS at the unemployment office. I filed my paperwork for the final extended benefits plan. If I get approved, I’ll have fourteen more weeks of unemployment insurance checks then I’ll become a “Ninety-niner” that some people are talking about. Ninety-nine weeks unemployed.

It’s hard to believe just how clueless some people are about being unemployed. I was reading the comment section of an article in the local newspaper on the stagnant job market and some of the commentators were HORRIBLE. I didn’t know I was such a lazy, useless bum who is attempting to be a parasite on the backsides of hardworking people.

I’ll tell them what they can do as far as backsides are concerned.

The unemployment office was packed today and I saw all shapes and kinds of misery AND con-artists. I know out of the room of about 500 people, more than one really has no intention of ever finding a job for longer than it takes to accrue more unemployment. Any system is going to have people who take advantage of it. Mostly what I saw today though was people hurting. One lady broke my heart. Her company abruptly shut down last week and when I say abrupt I’m talking “note on the door” style. She was about my age and she was just in tears because she had no idea what came next.

I’ve seen that several times when I’ve gone to file this or that paperwork. Mixed in with the lip ring wearing, saggy pants, hats on backwards crowd who’ve never worked an honest day in their lives are seriously decent folks who have ALWAYS worked and now they find themselves in their fifties and, in too many cases, sixties with no job, no insurance, and — increasingly — no hope.

You get to talk A LOT to a great many people in four hours of sitting and standing in line. I heard several common refrains like “overqualified,” “no experience in X field,” and the ubiquitous “it just looks like no jobs are out there.” In the comments I mentioned earlier, one self-righteous gentleman said with great pride that he’d “NEVER been out of work and if he ever found himself unemployed he DAMN SURE wouldn’t take 99 weeks to find another job.”

Oh really? My mama taught me a long time ago, NEVER say what you’ll NEVER do. You just might be surprised.

People not in the situation LOVE to say things like, “Go get a job at McDonalds or WalMart — they are always hiring.” Um, no, their not. It is an employer’s market right now. Businesses can pick and chose because they know how desperate people have become. The worst thing is, education used to be a bulwark against unemployment, but now, it’s a hindrance to finding another job. For example, I have a Masters Degreee AND all my recent work experience is in education. Someone takes one look at my resume’ and realizes I’m a teacher. Well, they aren’t stupid; they know that I’ll be looking for another teaching job and as soon as I find one — hasta la vista, Baby.

I’ve actually had an HR interviewer tell me that I’m almost unemployable outside of my field because no one wants to invest time or effort training someone who has an established career. I could LIE and say I have no intention of looking for another job in the schools, but I’ve found lying is a pretty low percentage game most of the time. The fact is, yes, if I’m a sales clerk at Target and a principal calls me and says, “come be our librarian,” I am GONE. As Lynyrd Skynyrd put it so eloquently, “Call me the breeze.”\

Unfortunately, the longer I’m out of the library, the rustier and rustier my skills get. I’d love to still be able to look through VOYA and SLJ, but my budget didn’t have room for $120 subscriptions. I sat down the other day and pulled up some the YA section on Amazon. I didn’t recognize much. When you aren’t talking with other librarians and students and teachers about books and computers and research and stuff . . . well, the edge starts to go.

So. What’s the answer? No clue. I’ve got a final fourteen weeks to figure it out before I become one of those people who help artificially inflate the “unemployment recovery rate” by falling off the job seeking roles. If you aren’t getting money anymore, you aren’t counted as unemployed. Go figure.

In any event, keep me in your thoughts and prayers. I’m not panicking because that won’t do anyone any good — especially me. Sorry about the short rambling post — it’s been a trying day and I wanted to vent a bit.

Love y’all and keep those feet clean!

Jan20

Food Fight

Posted on by
Standard

This is a pretty long post, but stick with it, thanks!

Yesterday was Budge’s first day on her medically supervised six-week weight loss plan. This isn’t the first time she’s attempted to lose weight, but it is the first time she’s gone to this careful extent. My job is to fix the shakes and provide moral support and encouragement. I plan to eat a bigger lunch and forgo supper to avoid cooking and eating in front of her and hopefully that will make this easier on her. I don’t trust diets like this, but she is under an excellent doctor’s care AND — more importantly — she’s promised me this is for HER not ME or anyone else. She’s my Budge no matter what she weighs and that’s all that matters, but her mama fought the battle of the bulge her entire life before dying at 46 of complications from pancreatitis and a final stroke. With 46 looming large in life’s windshield, Budge told me she didn’t want to go out that way so I told her do what she had to do and I’d have her back.

Needless to say, I’m insanely, stupefyingly proud of her.

With Budge starting this diet, many people are pressuring on me to join her and want to know why I’m so resistant to adopting “the healthy lifestyle.” As I’ve mentioned before, I am not a small man. I am slightly south of six feet tall and slightly north of 350 pounds. I believe the medical term is “morbidly obese.” I prefer the much cuter sounding euphemism of “as big around as I am tall.”

Lately, my glib put-off has been “I’m going for the heart attack before the diabetes has a chance to get me.” That statement is anchored in a grain of truth. The men on Daddy’s side of the family die of massive coronaries. Granny Matt had ten children who lived and that included six sons. Of the six, five died at 78 or slightly before of the aforementioned coronary. Uncle Jack was the lone dissenter, but that’s another story for another time. Daddy had HIS first heart attack about nine or ten years ago. Many of Daddy’s male blood related first cousins have already had one or more heart attacks or have perished from the sudden squeezing of the chest.

On the other side of my family tree lurk diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease. More of Mama’s kin than I can count have fallen victim to “The Sugar” and the lucky ones died quickly. The unlucky ones left the world a piece at a time. Many dodged diabetes only to succumb to Alzheimer’s and left the world not knowing themselves or their closest loved ones. I have no intention of going out like that if at all possible. Given the choice between slow piecemeal death and quick heart exploding death, my decision is clear.

As I said, that is my somewhat humorous glib smart-ass answer. The pure and simple truth is, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, not so pure and definitely not simple. Fact is, obesity and I are old and bitter foes and after many bloody engagements fraught with pain, sadness, and disappointment, I have bowed to the stronger will and chosen not to fight my weight anymore.

See the oh-so-pinchable legs?

I was BORN fat. I weighed 10 lbs and 5 ozs the day I came into the world and I was born hungry. The story is I slurped down an 8 oz bottle in two minutes and started crying for more. After 8 more ounces, I was still hungry so the nurse asked Mama what she wanted done and Mama, probably glimpsing the future, told her to go ahead and get me full. I was over 14 lbs by the time I came home from the hospital with rolls of fat on my thighs that my beloved great-Aunt Pearl delighted in lovingly pinching and patting.

I never looked back.

I think I topped 100 pounds by fifth grade. I may be off a year, but I do know that all my clothes came with the “HUSKY” label. I suppose that was the clothier’s way of trying to salvage the self-esteem of  a fat pre-teen. From almost the start, the family was worried about my weight. I was placed on a few diets by Dr. Monroe, our long-time family physician, but they all required keeping track of calories and such. I wasn’t clear on the concept of “serving size” or “portion control” so I figured a bowl of cereal was “one serving” of “180 calories” when a true serving size was 3/4 of a cup of cereal meaning my punch bowl of Cocoa Crisps with whole milk actually contained about SIX servings.

One of the greatest ironies of my saga with obesity lies in how Granny Wham tried to help me lose weight. She was THE most concerned of all my family, Mama included, when it came to my being — in her words — “a little too heavy.” She would constantly admonish me about eating too much at supper or cutting myself too big a slice of pound cake (Granny Wham made the greatest pound cake this side of paradise), but at the same time, SHE was the one asking me if I’d had enough to eat and did I want more chicken or rice with gravy or roast beef or whatever delicious dish she or Papa had prepared that night. It was like living in rehab with a drug pusher!

God bless her precious heart, it was confusing as all get out when I was a child, but looking back, I understand a little better. Granny couldn’t stand to see me fat but she couldn’t stand to see me sad either and not getting enough of that wonderful food would always make me sad so the doting grandmother in her usually won out over the concerned for my health responsible adult and I’d get another piece of pound cake . . . with ice cream on top . . . and Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup . . . and Cool Whip. You get the idea.

All through elementary school and junior high, I just got bigger. Of course I got picked on and bullied because of being

Mama LOVED to dress me in horizontal stripes. Michelin Man anyone?

fat. I was called “fatty,” “lard-butt,” “two-ton,” and — my all time favorite — “The Great White Marshmallow.” I tried to shrug off the barbs as much as I could. I was dealing with other stuff. Unfortunately, one of my earliest and most cherished coping mechanisms was “escapism eating.” I’d get to Granny and Papa’s after a day at school enduring the shark tank of junior high, grab a book and a bag of Oreo cookies and go hide in the yard until supper. That kind of emotional eating did wonders for my waistline.

That’s the way things rocked on pretty much until my first year of high school. I was a nonathletic 225 pound blob when I went out for wrestling to try to get a date with Kim Robertson. The date never materialized, but I fell in love with wrestling, even if I was getting creamed twice a week at heavyweight. Funny thing is, the more I wrestled, the smaller I got. Who knew?

Then, right after wrestling season, I got braces to fix my crazy teeth. Now, I didn’t get the cute little “invisible brackets” glued to my teeth. I got the full monty of railroad track bands all over my mouth. My head, jaws, and mouth hurt so much that I couldn’t eat. I did good if I could sip some Cream of Chicken soup through a straw. I endured that pain for two months and when summer came and my teeth had finally moved enough for the agony to ease up some a funny thing happened. I looked in the mirror and a skinny kid was staring out at me.

Junior year of HS. This was the best it ever got. Skinny AND hair.

For 24 blessed months — a brief, shining moment — I was svelte. I dropped from 225 to 160. I could shop in the regular men’s section for the first time in my life. My inseam was actually longer than my waistline was round. My acne cleared about the same time and another odd thing happened. Without all the lard in the way, girls began to notice my crystal blue eyes and thick strong blond hair. Oh, and the straight white teeth — shout out to what made it all possible! It seemed like overnight I was being favorably compared to guys like Rick Mathews, our class’s resident Adonis, who played football and wrestled the weight class right above me. I was actually kind of a big deal.

Of course it went straight to my head and turned me into the exact kind of insufferable douche I’d always hated. Not to worry though. As Pony Boy is fond of reciting, “Nothing gold can stay.” Senior year came. My foibles and mistakes caught up with me. My head started filling up with thoughts and voices I couldn’t fight back. I was entering the worst depression I’d ever encountered and starting what was to become a desperate lifelong battle with my mind and emotions — but I didn’t know it. I had no idea what the hell was going on.

The final straw came when wrestling season started and the weight classes had changed. The 167 class was gone. I was now in Adonis’ weight class and Adonis was a better wrestler than I had a prayer of being.  When our 154 pounder went down early in the season with a blown out knee, everyone looked at me to cut the 15 pounds, take that spot, and make us an even greater team. I took a shot at it. God knows I tried, but the more water I drank and the harder I exercised, the bigger I got. It seemed I gained instead of losing. So I became a senior riding the bench when I should have been a captain. I gave up the fight.

I went into a headlong spiral and started drinking whenever I could, but mostly, I started eating whatever I wanted to again. It’s not like I had to keep my weight down anymore anyway. I was a three-year letter-man in wrestling. The only year I didn’t letter was my senior year.

But I’m not still bitter or anything. I’m just saying.

In college, I skipped the freshman fifteen and traded it for the freshman 50. I went from a 34 waist as a high school sophomore to a 40 waist as a college sophomore. I’d look in the mirror in disgust and I’d go on the fat wagon for a week. I’d work out every day down in Fike Hall gym. I took up tae-kwan-do. It helped a little, but in the end, the weight always won.

I was to be skinny and handsome one final time in my life. It would come after college and brought about a similar “senior year type” downward spiral with nearly identically disastrous personal results. A sordid, sad tale — for another time.

I’d started gaining back my weight from that episode when I met Budge. She married me fluffy and has stayed with me fat. I can’t thank her enough for that. These days, from time to time, I’ll contemplate hitting the fat wagon again and trying to get healthier. I don’t keep chips and dip or things of that nature in the house — fleeing temptation and all — but I watch too much Paula Deen and cook like her too much as well.

I gave up pill popping, driving fast cars, hanging out with my Five Favorite Uncles, and chasing crazy women. I started taking meds to try to quiet the cacophony in my head. All of that draws heavily from my well of willpower. For Budge and Mama’s sake, I have to concentrate my energy on what’s going to make me the most endurable. Losing weight, no matter how important I know it is, would take reserves I don’t have.

Fairly recent picture with a good view of the booth-busting belly.

Don’t get me wrong — it’s not like I revel in being fat. I haven’t bought clothes in over two years because I can’t stand the disappointment of the fitting room. I’m reminded of what, to quote from Full Metal Jacket, “a disgusting, flabtastic piece of fatbody filth” I am every time I try to sit in a restaurant booth and have to ask for a table because of my size. It isn’t like this is a high-ho bunch of fun because it ain’t. I just have to pick my battles and this is one I know the outcome of all too well.

Dr. Lopez — my primary care physician — stays on me about losing. He WANTS me to lose down to 200 lbs. I haven’t seen 200 lbs since my junior year of high school. That’s a little over 150 lbs. THAT IS A PERSON! THE MAN WANTS ME TO LOSE A PERSON. He can’t understand how a former wrestler and wrestling coach who knows so much about nutrition and exercise can be so blase’ about dropping the 10% body fat that produces measurable health benefits. Unfortunately, he also doesn’t understand something else — nothing good has ever come of me being skinny.

Sorry for the book length post.   Keep those feet clean, okay?

Love y’all.

Jan7

Signs, Signs, Lots of Purple Signs

Posted on by
Standard

 

Crude approximation of the first sign we saw that made me think Budge was off in the head.

 

Today marks 16 years since my Budge and I went on that fateful Hummer ride up the mountain at Camp Awanita. We’ve been together SIXTEEN years! That’s only four years less than half my life!

Wow.

We married the NEXT August, so God willing, this August will be our 15th anniversary. We almost didn’t make it past the honeymoon, however, because by the time we reached our destination, I was certain I had married a lunatic.

To understand the humor, irony, etc of this story, you need to know that Budge and her family were very well traveled. They took vacations all over the country. Most importantly, they went to Walt Disney World at LEAST once a year from the time she could walk until she was in the ninth grade. She and her dad went together the year her mom passed then they skipped a year, then she and I went there on our honeymoon. Walt Disney World is my beloved’s most happy place. I cannot stress enough how much she loves the place. It is VERY germane to the story.

I, on the other hand, have only left the state of South Carolina a bare handful of times. We just didn’t travel much due to lack of money, lack of time, or both. Then, and pretty much now still, I hadn’t been many places. I had been to Disney World with the National Junior Honor Society from GCO when I was in the seventh grade, but by 1996, that’d been a while.

So, we get married, clean the goop off the car, go to Mama’s, pack some last minute stuff, eat supper, and spend the night in the Greenville Hilton. The next day, we got up, ate with Dana’s dad, brother, and my dear niece Kayla. Then we headed for Orlando and “The Happiest Place on Earth.” I drove the whole way. This was before I learned not to CARE what other people think about a man having his wife drive him around. It was also before I learned that Budge is a MUCH better driver than I am. She has a lead foot and needs a 3 painted on the side of any car she drives, but she is a fantastic driver.

But I digress.

We got to Orlando / Kissimmee after dark and went to the Holiday Inn Express to check in. This was when we discovered that Kissimmee was home to about 1,500 HIEs and ours was the absolute most remote from all humanity. We drove another hour to find it, wrestled the bags up the pee-stained elevator to our room . . . and crashed.

The next day, at the butt-crack of dawn, Budge gets me up. It was time to go to Disney World! We ate breakfast, piled in the car, and joined the rest of the United Nations in driving to the Magic Kingdom. Now please realize that back then, I was MUCH more intense than I am now. I was in the middle of the biggest crowd of traffic since Moses led the Exodus AND I had no idea where I was going. I was piano-wire tight.

By following another “Just Married” SUV, I managed to find the entrance to the park. Still, the traffic was stacked up on either side of me. I was sweating in the August Florida heat and was beginning to feel like a complete failure as a husband only three days into a marriage when it happened. My wife LOST HER FREAKING MIND.

I’m listening to her talk and am intently concentrating on the bumper of the balding guy in his midlife crisis Corvette when my sweet, quiet, and meek little wife ERUPTS beside me with a high pitched elephantine bellow of “I SEE PURPLE SIGNS, I SEE PURPLE SIGNS, I SEE PURPLE SIGNS, I SEE PURPLE SIGNS, I SEE PURPLE SIGNS!!!!”

 

Another Crude Representation.

I snapped my head up so fast I felt the vertebrae pop, banged my head on the ceiling, bit my jaw, and whipped around incredulously to find Budge bouncing up and down in her seat pointing to a purple sign with Mickey Mouse’s hands on top of it. I thought the girl had gone around the bend.

 

It was then that she chose to point out “THE PURPLE SIGNS” evenly spaced along the road. Each one revealed a bit more of the famous rodent while letting all we lemmings know how far it was to the parking lot. The final sign showed Mickey’s smiling face, ears, and clapping hands and announced “You’re Here!” The look on my new wife’s face was one of complete rapture. We pulled in to Sleepy lot A, row 6, I think, and made our way to the shuttle.

As I took her little hand (she has THE daintiest hands), I realized then — after I had a moment to recover — that I had not, in fact, married a lunatic. I had married a precious young woman with a child-like, but not childish, spirit who could enjoy three days of purple signs as much as some would have enjoyed a three week cruise. We had a wonderful honeymoon in “The Happiest Place on Earth” and it saddens me to no end that we’ve never gotten to go back. Hope springs eternal however and I hope we’ll get to return to the land of purple signs soon.

Until then, know that I love y’all and keep those feet clean for this newly old man!

Oct17

On Outdoor Nuptuals

Posted on by
Standard

Yesterday, my exquisitely multi-talented wife reached back for one of her former professions and created two beautiful bouquets for one of her fellow teachers who was getting married. Budge attended the wedding; I did not. I have told Budge — and anyone else who would listen — that it was all I could do to endure my OWN wedding, 35 minute marathon that it was, much less sit through someone else’s ceremony. Don’t misunderstand me, my wife planned a gorgeous wedding for us in a very short time on a even shorter budget, but the fact remains that am not a wedding fan. Of course, that is one of the few areas I am like many other males. I’m not certain I’ve ever heard anyone in possession of  an unsullied Y-chromosome say, “Oh wow! My buddy Glenlivet is getting married!! I’m not in it, but PLEASE let’s go!!”

That is not to say we of The Brotherhood of Men will not, on occasion, be dragged kicking and screaming from our spot on the sofa in front of The Game to be shoehorned into our most uncomfortable set of clothes, forcibly shod with shoes designed as medieval torture devices first and footwear second, then marched, nearly at bayonet point, to some relative or friend’s wedding.

But we don’t have to like it!

Yesterday, though, I was excused from the ceremony. I will say, however, that for someone having an outside wedding as this couple was, yesterday’s weather was hard to beat. The sky was a radiant azure with nary a cloud to mar the canvas of heaven and the temperature was quite mild, even if the ladies were obliged to leave off the shawls originally planned for the occasion. It was verily the perfect day for an intimate backyard hitching up.

This meteorological perfection stands in rank contrast to the only OTHER outdoor wedding I attended, and that against my will. That marriage ceremony, early in Budge and mine’s own tenure of wedded bliss, provided the single, solitary time in — to date — fourteen years of marriage when the two of us very nearly had “words.” It is also the only one of a veritable plethora of  incidents of my being an ass for which I have steadfastly refused to apologize ONLY because I STILL maintain that I was in the right.

Allow me to present my case and ye may judge.

First of all, I barely knew the bride as one of Budge’s college classmates and I had nary a clue as to the groom’s identity. Next, the wedding was scheduled for 3:00 PM on a Saturday. The hours of 2:00 to 4:00 PM on Saturdays have been marked out on my calendar as dedicated time for studying the backs of my eyelids for structural imperfections at least since I was in college. I was being dragged to a wedding when I was supposed to be sleeping.

Then was the matter of the time of YEAR for this debacle. Yesterday’s wedding was in the relatively mild weather of an Upstate October. The wedding to which I refer was in AUGUST. For those of you who may live in other parts of the world than the Blessed Land of Dixie, allow me to explain — AUGUST in South Carolina has two temperatures: blast furnace and Hellish. Sane people do not leave the safety of air conditioned houses in “The Burning Month” except to go to an air conditioned car and drive to another air conditioned location.

Which brings me to my next point. This wedding was not only outside on an August afternoon that would have melted car tires on green grass, it was in the middle of a church lawn. NO SHADE. NONE. NOUGHT. NADA. NO TREES. Not even a canopy. The heat was only broken by the breeze generated when one of the BLACK TUXEDO clad groomsmen fell out from sunstroke and made the air move by his descent. Finally, the wedding lasted nearly AN HOUR and these people were NOT Catholic. No Mass or other sermon was involved.

So, allow me to sum up. For over an hour, I was standing in slip-on toe-pincers with WOOL socks under a pair of navy pants topped by a royal blue polo in the middle of a forty acre pasture on the hottest day since the Earth cooled from it’s fiery formation watching someone I didn’t particularly know or like get married. For those who don’t know, I am NOT a small man. I am large. I am fat, nay I AM OBESE! Fat men were never meant to endure those types of conditions. Within five minutes of leaving the comfort of the car’s excellent A/C, I had an Amazon Rivulet of perspiration running from my bald spot, through my hair, down my back, cascading in a cataract of sweat around my nether regions thence to trickle down into my toe-pincers and form two puddles of lukewarm misery.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I was HOT as the HINGES of HADES and my body was literally rendering into lard as I stood there watching this slip of a girl in her WHITE, SLEEVELESS, BACKLESS wedding dress get married.

Then we had the reception, which, thanks be to God the Father of All Things, was indoors. Of course, the A/C was having all it could do to pull down the temperature from somewhere near boiling since, as I think I’ve mentioned before, it was the HOTTEST FRICKING DAY OF THE YEAR and 400+ people were packed into the space somewhat smaller than the Apollo command capsule. Didn’t matter to me, though. A stroll through the depths of Mauna Kea in Hawaii at full eruption would have been cooler than outside.

It was at that point that the final straw was applied to this dromedary’s spine. A caterer waitress set a plate of GRILLED EGGPLANT down in front of me. Turns out the bride was a VEGAN.

I am not a vegan.

I was hot, I was hungry, and I had missed my nap. This was not going to end well.

It was at that point that I looked — just looked — at my lovely wife and something on my face made her run to the ladies’ room, friends in tow, to cry about how mean I was and folks, at that point and for the only time in our marriage, I really DIDN’T CARE!!

We laugh about that day now, as much for the reactions of our friends who were with us as anything else, BUT that also remains the LAST outdoor wedding I ever went to with Budge.

Now, as you go to wash your feet I ask you, “WAS I WRONG OR NOT!!!???”

Love y’all!

Aug3

Happy Anniversary, Budge!

Posted on by
Standard

Put a diamond next to a lump of coal and it shines that much brighter. Wasn't she gorgeous? She still is!

It’s been 14 years today since Budge and I married; I have a hard time remembering much before August 3, 1996. I know it sounds clichéd and sappy, but it seems like Dana has always been with me. She found me a long time before I found her. To hear her tell the story, she knew I was coming nearly a year before I did. I’m going to try to explain that last sentence, and I hope I don’t mess it up or she’ll have my hide. This story is the last remaining reason I cling to the little faith I have left. Without exaggeration, it’s the most important story in our marriage.

Dana’s mom, Faye, passed away unexpectedly in July 1993, the summer between Dana’s freshman and sophomore years of high school. The next two years were a dark time for my Budge. See, Dad is a great guy, smart, funny, but he is fully capable of overlooking important stuff right in front of his face. To complicate things more, he was trying to get his new business off the ground and, after about five months, he was seeing Dana’s future stepmother, Sandy. (She and Dad met in the waiting room of the hospital ICU where her husband was dying with the exact same illness as Faye. That’s a tremendous story too, but it’s for later.) Her only other close kin was Rich, her brother, and he was in the Navy moving around constantly.

Without going in to the gory details, Dana was alone. She was alone A LOT. I can’t describe the intensity of the loneliness she felt because every time I think about it — every time we discuss those days — I end up in tears for an hour or so then I want to go strangle someone because she had to endure such. Just to give you one tiny snippet, if EVER in 14 years I have had to be away from Budge at suppertime, I make as many phone calls as it takes to guarantee she has someone to eat supper with. It might be one of her friends, it might be Mama, but frost will form on the hinges of Hell before my wife eats another meal alone without choosing to. She does choose to sometimes, but she doesn’t HAVE to and as long as I’m above dirt, I’ll make damn sure she never has too again.

But that’s just a side note. Here’s the real story.

First of all you have GOT to know, by the time Dana and I met, I was engaged not once or twice, but SIX times. I was actually, technically engaged to another girl when Budge and I got together. Now before anyone brands my dear heart a homewrecker, you MUST understand my “Rules of Engagement.” Except for my first fiancée’ who was my high school sweetheart and first real love, I never intended to marry ANY of the girls I gave diamonds to. I was skittish of females in general after the aforementioned sweetheart shattered my heart into a gadjillion tiny shards and then stomped those shards into dust then swept the dust into an incinerator to be completely consumed (I’m not bitter or anything, just saying). I simply realized that at some point in a relationship, the girls started to want to, as Emeril says, “Kick things up a notch” in the commitment department. I then discovered if I gave them a diamond, they considered us to be engaged and started planning a wedding and left me the hell alone. (Did I ever mention I hate two things above all else? Turnip greens and emotional confrontations.) So, the diamonds bought me a lot of peace and sooner or later the girls always decided I wasn’t the prize they had taken me for so they’d hand me back the diamond and break up with me . . . which was totally fine, because it was THEM doing it, not me. Worked like a champ . . . until Budge.

Budge handled that particular strategy a wee bit differently, but that’s another story entirely.

(Just as an aside, if any of y’all other five former diamond bearers are by some miracle reading this , don’t start hating. I’ve clandestinely kept up with all of you and you’ve done just fine without me.)

But I digress.

Dana was alone a lot and she hated it, so she’d often ride up to her old elementary school and sit on top of the slide in the playground and think . . . and pray. She’d do this day or night, didn’t matter. Well, one night, she was in a particularly sad and lonely mood and she looked up at the stars and prayed for the Lord to send her someone to take away the loneliness.

Now, if the story ended there and we got married, it’d be a nice “Awww” moment but no big deal that couldn’t pooh-pooh away by appealing to coincidence. It ain’t like that. Here’s where things go from a Hallmark moment to hairs standing up on my arms like they are doing now. See, Budge didn’t want just anyone. She’s always been awesome that way. Sure she was lonely, but she didn’t plan on settling for any old yahoo. Then, as now, she knew EXACTLY what she wanted and she asked the Lord to send her this exact person.

She wanted someone older, definitely not her own age. Dana has always been an “old soul” and boys her age were just too immature. She wanted him to be stocky, just a little bit taller than her, and have blond hair and blue eyes. Still, not too much to keep the faith by, but I’m seven years older than Budge, I do happen to be stocky (well, I was stocky then. I’m a little rounder than stocky these days), I’m 5′ 10′ to her 5′ 9′ and I’ve got blond hair and blue eyes that she tells me change shades of blue with my mood and the lighting.

Well, then she wanted a guy who had been “around.”

Now, watch me dance around this subject with all the grace of a bear in a ballroom. Budge and her circle of friends were very good girls. With an exception or maybe two, they graduated high school and in most cases, college with their virtue unspotted. They didn’t drink. They didn’t party. The didn’t smoke, and they certainly didn’t sleep around. Wasn’t any of this modern-day “hooking up” crap where so many teen (and tween, sadly)  girls and boys seem to run around with mattresses tied to their backs. The bases hadn’t been moved up like they are now.

With that in mind, Budge — ever the levelheaded practical minded amazing lady that she is — figured it would be best if someone knew exactly what to do on their wedding night and honeymoon and since it wasn’t going to be her, it would have to be him. Okay, this one hit a bit closer to home and I was a little indignant at the implications, but it would be pointless to lie. While I was certainly not a manwhore in my younger and less judiciously minded days, I had accumulated enough “experience” to meet her criteria. Now, moving right along.

If you still aren’t convinced, don’t worry, neither was I until Budge dropped the A-Bomb. She had been friends with one of the most popular guys in school. He was the guy who could sit at any table in the lunchroom, be it Jocks, Goths, Stoners, Preps, anyone. He and Dana were never romantic. She just liked him as the cool and kind person he was. He was such a tremendous part of the school that his death in a one car wreck caused massive emotional devastation to everyone from the teachers on down.

Now, I told you that to tell you this, when my Budge was sitting atop that slide, asking for her future husband in such exquisite detail, she remembered him. She always adored the sound of his name and figured — as long as she was asking — she wanted her husband to be named Shannon. If Paul Harvey was still alive and telling this, he’d say, “and now you know the rest of the story.”

How I ended up with a wife like her God knows because I’ve done nothing to deserve her. In 2 years of dating and  14 years of marriage , I’ve asked Budge thousands of times what she could have possibly seen in me to make her want to risk all she did and give up all she did to marry me. She’s consistently given me the same answer, “I asked for you by name, Silly Goose, and you can’t not marry the man you specifically asked for when he shows up.”

And that’s why I still believe in miracles.

Happy 14th anniversary, Budge! I still love you muches.

Love all y’all too, don’t forget to wash your feet!