Mom Enforces Hygeine; Hilarity Ensues

Given my lack of inspiration for this blog as of late, I decided to ask my friend and fellow blogger, Annie, for her favourite stories of my childhood. She picked, among others, the Hygeine Wars.

I know what you're thinking, and no, I was not an unclean kid.

Well. Not usually. Not abnormally, anyway.

My hygeine habits are not what we're here to discuss, okay? >.>

Moving steadily onward -- For the better part of my childhood years, my oldest brother and my mom were engaged in an epic battle of cleanliness. It was a constant war, but my brother had the greater ammo.

"John, brush your teeth."

"In a minute."

"John, take a shower."

"In a minute."

"John, do your laundry."

"In a minute."

By employing the "in a minute" technique, John could weasel his way out of almost anything. It didn't work out so well for me.

"Anna, clean your room."

"In a minute."

"NOW!"

But I digress.

There was one thing that this tactic would not work on, even for John. And that was his smelly, God-awful, ozone-depleting shoes. John's shoes were a matter of public health. They were feared by children and small animals. The smell permeated through the house even as they sat by the back door.

Mom tried everything. She washed his shoes. The smell persevered. She bought him thicker, sweat-obsorbier socks. The smell persevered. She bought him new shoes. The smell, once more, persevered.

The house became unlivable. Mom decided more drastic measures were in order.

John would have to do something.

From that moment on, John's shoes were moved to the garage. Every day when he came home, he had to take off his shoes there and then walk the short path to the house barefoot in rain, shine, snow, hurricane, whatever.

This lasted all of a week.

"John, take those shoes out to the garage."

"In a minute."

"NOWWWW!" *insert rabid Mom growl*

My stepdad decided it was time to take action. He bravely ventured into the laundry porch and gathered up John's intense biohazard - I mean, shoes - and carried them at arm's length to the garage. But that was not the end of it, oh no, because when Lary feels the need to get involved, shit just got serious.

He threw them away. Every. Single. Pair.

John, of course, thinking his "in a minute" technique had worked, did not realize this until he was getting ready to head to school the next day.

"Mom, do you know where my shoes are?"

"In a minute."

"Lary?"

"In a minute."

And that marked the end of the Hygeine Wars. For the most part. John learned that "in a minute" doesn't always work, and Mom learned to let Lary handle John.

Of course, that didn't manage to quell the new war that occured when Lary realized he couldn't stand John's tattered jean bottoms trailing behind him, pinned him down, and cut them off with a pocket knife as John screamed on the floor.

But well, that's another story, isn't it?

Anna Witnesses Twilight Brawl; Hilarity Ensues

So last year, at the very peak of the Twilight phenomenon, I witnessed something that to this day brings forth a hearty chuckle every time I think of it. To understand my viewpoint, you must first understand my opinions on the Twilight Saga: As a book series, I loathe it. As an author, I loathe Stephenie Meyer. The movie... well, the first one was a passable way to spend an evening, and aesthetically pleasing, and the second one promised to be the same, but nothing truly spectacular. The fandom, generally, I FREAKING LOVE. Especially Twilighted, as the site is intensively moderated, so you get no troll fics, no grammar/spelling fail, no general blood-sucking Mary Sue life-draining BULLSHIT. Other people, who aren't Smeyer, can actually write the stories pretty well. It's beautifully ironic. I've even written a few, starting with The Road Not Taken (linked to fanfiction.net, also available on Twilighted), in which one reviewer commented that, "I swear you write better than [Stephenie] Meyer, you make the characters much more realistic and you have a great talent for descriptive language".

Eat THAT, Smeyer. I even kept the sparkly-vampire canon, and I still kicked your lame ass!

I can go on for HOURS about each individual thing I hate about Smeyer's stories, but well, there are other sources for that - my dismantle of New Moon (and eventually the entire series - oh yes, Midnight Sun included) on Made of Wynn, for instance. No, what I'm here to tell you about is my super-fun experience at the mall that dark day.

Now, anyone who knows me can tell you that I'm piss-ass broke all the time. Having gone into debt at the tender young age of eighteen (aka the second banks start "pre-approving" you for credit cards), I was on a three-year plan to get out of debt. In the meantime, I got exactly $120 of spending money out of each check. Sounds like a good bit of money, in theory, but the term "spending money" is misleading. It wasn't "free-for-all-have-fun" money. It was for "this-does-not-come-in-bill-form" expenses, such as gas (my Subaru easily guzzled up $60 of my money every two weeks, just to get to work and school) and my two long-time addictions: nicotine (weighing in at about $35 a pay period) and energy drinks (about $20). You see, that leaves me with about $5 when all is said and done.

Anyway, this is relevant because previous pay period, I had bought the new Kingdom Hearts game for my Nintendo DS (358/2 Days). It was enjoyable, but not my cup of tea (I prefer turn-based RPGs, instead of real-time), so I decided to sell it back to GameStop before the value decreased horribly, so that I may still enjoy some nicotine until Thursday, pay day.

So there I was, wandering into the mall, all relaxed and just wanting to do this one little thing, staring at the gaudy Christmas decorations and listening to the horrible Christmas music (please note that wasn't even within three weeks of Thanksgiving yet), when I HEAR IT.

THE TWIMOM.

THE TWIMOM TO END ALL TWIMOMS.

THE TWIMOM TO END ALL TWIMOMS, FIGHTING WITH ANOTHER TWIMOM OVER AN EDWARD CULLEN NEW MOON CARDBOARD CUTOUT IN FYE.

Did you just say "what the fuck"?

Because my mind was screaming it at that moment.

But, being the person that I am - one with a sharp tongue that can be very brutal when provoked, but also incredibly lazy - I go on about my way, towards GameStop.

But you know something happened, because I wouldn't waste my time telling this story if it didn't.

As I was wandering by, cluching my game and pondering what these forty-something-year-old women could possibly want with an Rpatzz cardboard cutout (before having to refrain from vomitting in my mouth and deciding I didn't want to know), they get into an all-out BRAWL.

OLD LADY BRAWL.

IN THE MALL.

And ladies and gents, I know that there are big malls in the world, and there are ones that regularly have something going down - but that is not my mall. My town's mall consists of maybe twenty stores (including restaurants) and you have to walk around it six times to walk a mile. Yeah. It's that tiny.

So this sort of thing - is simply not done. And I cannot help but stop and stare, my mouth agape, as I watched this faggotry play out.

PLEASE PLEASE paint yourself a mental image -

Two rural housewives (dumpy, with love-handles, crochet-knit sweaters, teased-up hair, braless, the whole nine yards) ARE PHYSICALLY FIGHTING EACH OTHER over a promotional cardboard cutout of ROBERT PATTINSON just inside of FYE.

So they slap-fight for a bit, and keep shouting, management's going crazy, management points out that THEY CAN'T BUY IT YET ANYWAY because it's still in use as a promotional item, and will be until a bit after New Moon hits the shelves on DVD, they don't listen, and just keep fighting.

By this point, our little mall-cop force of FIVE men comes running down the mall. I am dying laughing by this point. It's the most amazing thing I've ever seen.

Until, that is, one of the twimoms got hit in the head with the cardboard cutout. She was more surprised than anything because come on, it's cardboard. But it angers her (TWIZILLA ANGRY!) and so she slaps the other twimom across the face. Up until this point, hits had been restricted to hands, arms, shoulders, and such in true pussy-fight brawling fashion.

So the other twimom has had enough of this, throws down Rpatzz's sexy two-dimensional sparkly body, and pushes the first twimom.

Irony of ironies, the twimom falls backwards - directly into the display for the first movie, which Edward had apparently been keeping dilligent watch over.

Just a Few Words...

... to kick this off.

First off, the reason for this blog:

In July, my friend Chelsea gave birth to my goddaughter, Hana Love. The image below is Hana right at three months.

Anyway, I've been writing pretty steadily for the last six years - mostly fiction novels - and when Chelsea decided to get started on the good ol' hardwiring for Hana's brain by reading to her, she asked if I had any stories that would be child-appropriate.

Well, long story short, I don't. Not that at the tender age of three months, Hana would have any idea what's going on, but still, why take the chance, right? Wouldn't want to scar the poor girl before she even knows what a scar is, amirite?

So I decided to write a book just for Hana, and while searching for a plot, Chelsea suggested that I write the story of our childhoods. Growing up in as small a town as we did, they were quite intertwined, and it seemed like a good idea. Also, being the black sheep in our families, we insisted upon learning things the hard way and such a story would be just chock full of morals and therefore good for Hana.

I readily agreed, but as I set about adapting these stories to a child's comprehensive levels, I realized something: a lot of my best stories are no good for that. Especially not the more recent ones.

So, I started this blog. It will contain all of the stories from growing up strange that could not be passed off as children's stories. I hope you enjoy, and to the black sheep of the world: this one's for you!