Who Stole my Bad Boy??? - Part Two

"We need to give you a haircut today. Your hair is looking pretty wild."

"How do you expect me to be a Bad Boy if you keep cutting my hair?"

"It's not wild as in 'Bad Boy, Easy Rider, Born to be Wild' wild; it's wild as in 'Einstein, forgot to put your pants on, mentally unbalanced' wild."

"Maybe that's the look I'm going for."

Who Stole my Bad Boy???

I married myself a Bad Boy. He was wild, had long hair, a leather jacket, a chopper motorcycle, and a switchblade in his boot. Even when he was cleaned up and wearing a nice suit he looked like he would kill you if you looked at him wrong.

I was in love. Momma was scared for my life. My girlfriend said he was "musty."

Then something happened, I don't know what. He cut his hair, got a respectable job, and sold his motorcycle. Now he drives my Granny Ride.

He was up early this morning playing on the Internet and didn't hear me behind him. I expected him to be looking at hot bimbo lesbian porn or something like that. You know what I caught him Googling???

Ziggurats of Mesopotamia, Sumerian water wheels, and ancient Assyrian history.

Who stole my bad boy and left me this geek?

He needs to find that switchblade again and cut the tape off his glasses.

I've Been Bestracked Lately

Hubby was grading papers from his 8th grade history class today. Among the papers was one written in second-grade scrawl ending with a huge "RIP." Oh lawsy I thought, another death threat. He gets them often and we have amassed quite a collection. Why is it that the kids with poor penmanship always write the death threats??? Hummmm....

Anywho, Hubby didn't seem overly concerned about it so I picked it up and began reading. I quickly realized it was just the top paper in a stack of writing assignments. I read through the stack and by the end I was laughing so hard I was crying...and peeing my pants just a little. They were too good not to share.

I would post scans of the actual papers but I thought I would be kind to my dear readers. All but two were practically illegible even though they were all printed. None of his students can write in cursive. Most have second grade penmanship. One kid even drew lines on the paper so he could write on it.

The assignment:

Hubby read a story to his class about Jayhawkers and Scalawags during the Civil War. They would raid isolated farms taking possessions, food and livestock, then kill the occupants. The writing assignment was, "What would you do if a band of outlaws tried to raid your farm and kill your family?"

Before we get to the responses, I have to post a few entries from the Southern Arkansas dictionary for clarification:

bepens - to be determined by something else; be contingent on.
bestracked - drawn (the mind, etc.) away in another direction; diverted.
bie - to stop living
nun - no thing; not anything. (See also nothing) Alt sp. none
war - past subject of be
will - during the time that

These responses were transcribed exactly as written. All spelling, capitalization and punctuation is as it appears on the page.

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1.) The French Descendant reaction:
I wood cry and hide and stand up and be kill if it take it and I wolid problem bie or not it bepens. RIP

2.) The False Sense of Security reaction:
If one day someone or a group of people came to my house and were trying to kill me and my family I would be very shocked and scared. I wouldn't be able to do anything because that would just get me killed. The only thing I could do would be to try and run away and call for help. But, if it war only one person I might have a better chance of surviving if I tried to fight back. Overall, I would not be able to think straight if it war a real-life situation. So that is how I would feel if someone tried to kill me and my family.

3.) The I'm a Helpless Victim reaction:
If I was in that position, I wouldn't do nun but be scared. I would just let them take the things, because I wouldn't have no weapons, or anything to use, nor I wouldnt want anyone to get hurt, but if it was different, I would shoot them and take the things that they took from me, and then make sure I lock up my place, so It want happen again. What I would do is kind of be scared because theres none I could do, and they would could shoot me.

4.) The I Hold a Grudge reaction:
I would feel sad. I would think of ways to get my stuff back. I would hide and run. I would think of ways to get back at them. I would feel bad for my grandma. I would be mad at whoever did it and never forget who did it to my family.

5.) The Doormat reaction:
If I was happening to me I would have to watch whats happening. I would probably do nothing to do for my family's sake and Jus listen. I would just have to take the pain. And goion with mY Life. Maybe move to another contry and start over.

(This kid will need years on the psychiatrist's couch)

6.) The ADD response:
I would be horrafied. I woul go get help if I could. Than if they wer there

("Somebody is raiding my farm???? Oh look! A Shiny Thing!" This kid needs to stockpile Ritalin.)

7.) The Woe is Me Victim reaction:
If i was in that situation i would be scared. I have never been in that position before, and i hope i dont because I do not want anyone harmed. This is similar to a tv show i watched. This woman was young. She had a husband + 2 kids. She had trusted this man, to take her and her family to the border. Instead the man was a nazi soldier that was disguised and took them to a place, and hitler shot them all in the head! That is horrible. I would be scared for months after.

("Hitler shot them in the head." Either the TV show used revisionist history, or we need to do a bit better teaching World History in our classrooms.)

8.) The Pacifist Tree-Hugger reaction:
If could see my family get beat down I would be Depress. I will feel Preety sad cause sonething like that is just cruel. It's not right to just beat and kill people for know reason. I would be mad and sad at same tine cause that's just not right.

9.) The Passive-Aggressive approach:
If something like that hapend to me like that I waod have told my sister to run + get help will I went in to help my grandmoma. I wad have bestracked them will Sunny ran for help, but I wad not fite back.

10.) The Budding Armageddon Conspiracy Theorist approach:
I would try to make the remaining animals mate. I would spend most of my time digging and eventualy it would make a small bunker. I would round up all my guns and supplies and make an under ground armmory. Id buid several ware houses to keep the food.

11.) The Future Homeless Shelter Inhabitant reaction:
I would feel bad. I would cry and wish I could do something I would hide and hape they didn't find me. I wouldn't be able to sleep. I would problub probley probobly probley starve if there wasn't any neibors around.

12.) The No Grip on Reality reaction:
I would be real scared and hide. and when they leave I would help my grandmother then get the sheriff.

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It's nice to know these kids think highly of their grandmothers. I guess grandpa is SOL.

I found it interesting that only two of the twelve responses were proactive. Ah ha! - signs of critical thinking in the group. This quote came to mind:

"To be prepared against surprise is to be trained.
To be prepared for surprise is to be educated."
--- James Carse

I have hopes for these two, although one needs a dictionary and the other will probably end up on the FBI's Domestic Terrorist watchlist.

"Bestracked" is our new word around the house. Hubby keeps yelling, "Mommy! Kitty is bestrackeding me!"

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Edited to add:

These kids are 13-16 years old. They will be driving in a few years if they aren't already. In four years they will be able to vote. They are the future of my state and our country. I find that more than a little scary.

Midnight Snack

Was going out on the front porch just now (at 3:00 am), opened the door, flipped on the porch light, and saw this in Cheezburger's food bowl:



He was the cutest little thing. I kinda felt sorry for him wandering around in the cold rain, just looking for something to eat. He was awfully young.

Poor Cheezburger the Porch Cat was hunkered down on the doormat looking terrified. Hurrumph! Some guard cat he turned out to be.

The little guy just kept noshing away on kitty kibble long enough for me to fetch the camera and fiddle with the settings. Only got one good photo before he was through and he wandered off.

He was too little to jump off the porch so he was trying to figure out a way down when I stepped outside and really messed with his head using the flash.



Now that he knows we have free handouts I imagine this won't be the last time we see him...much to Cheezy's chagrin.

The Squeeeeky Potty

Late last night I went stumbling into the bathroom half asleep in the semi-darkness. There's just enough light from a night light so that I don't run into anything. I check to be sure the seat is down because Hubby always leaves it up. (touch, touch, touch) Yep, it's OK, I'm good to go.

I sit down and I hear a squeeeeeeeeet! noise. I recognized the sound. It means the potty has developed a slow leak and the squeeeee noise is the tank topping off. "Dang!" I think to myself, "Gotta tell Hubby to fix that."

But usually sitting down doesn't make it squeeeee. That's odd. So I wiggle a little bit and it squeeeeeees again. Weird.

Then I felt a tickle on my right elbow. OK, wide awake now.

I turn to see whiskers poking out from behind me. It was Smudge the all-white kitty! She must have been standing on the back of the potty seat about to get a drink when I sat down and squished her against the lid. It was her making that squeeeeee noise.

She's the same white as the potty lid so I missed her in the gloom. I felt so guilty.

I squeeeed back at her as I jumped up all aghast. Why hadn't the silly kitty moved when she saw my big be-hind coming?!?

She didn't seem all that upset about being squished and didn't run away. She nonchalantly circled the rim, sniffed a bit, then went in for a drink. Of course the germy potty water tastes *much* better than the water in the sparkling clean kitty bowl. She drank and drank and drank and drank.

I felt pretty foolish after a while standing there with my undies around my ankles watching the cat drink from the toilet.

I finally hiked up the ol' Granny Pannies and went off to find a camera. Had to rummage around for a while to find it. Figured Smudge would be long gone by the time I got back, but oh no, she was still there lapping away. Took several pics.



As I sat there in the early morning darkness watching her I thought, "Man, the sacrifices we make for our kitties."

Stoopid cat.

And I still had to pee.

Next time I'll flip on the light.

Technology Leaves Me in the Dust

Caught a story on the news that the last big box music store, Virgin, will be closing its doors forever. The company president said that the music CD has gone the way of the 8-track tape and business was no longer feasible. Apple iTunes had 20% of the current market, Amazon Music had 8%, and the remainder of the market was illegal downloads.

He gave an example of the state of album sales: In 1992, Backstreet Boys had the #1 album with 2.5 million units sold. In 2008, Green Day had the #1 album with only 500,000 units. He said that kids today didn't even own a device on which to play a music CD; they're all plugged into iPods. Sigh.

Part of the allure of purchasing a music album was to look at the photos, graphics, liner notes and lyrics. Sometimes there was a sleeper hit on the album that I wouldn't have purchased if I were buying the songs individually. I suppose there's no real need for an artist to produce an "album" any more. Sigh.

I actually have an iPod, but I don't want to listen to music in my ears, I want to rattle the windows with some big, honkin' stereo speakers. Does anyone even own a stereo anymore? Sigh.

Next my sister tells me that movie DVDs will soon be obsolete because of Blu-Ray technology. The other sister bought us a DVD player back in 2002 because she thought we were pitiful because we didn't own one. We've watched maybe 20 movies on it in the last seven years. Maybe we are pitiful. I do however, have a VHS player and watch one of my seven or so favorite VHS movies on dull afternoons.

My on-line art group has decided Yahoo! Groups is getting too buggy and has switched to Facebook. I'm not drinking the Kool-Aid and joining Facebook. I'm *very* sure I don't want anybody to find me, being in the Witness Protection program and all.

I suppose I could join under my assumed identity, but that would be one more place I would have to go check every day, and that ain't-a happening any time soon. I can barely (and sometimes don't) keep up with my two little blogs, the art group on Yahoo, their accompanying Flickr pool, and Twitter.

I don't text on my cell phone and I have never, ever done the on-line chat/messenger thing. That's a little too immediate and invasive for me. Either call me on the phone if you need an answer right now, or send me an email and I'll get back to you.

Oh, about the blogs...apparently blogging is so "last year" and all the cool kids don't blog anymore. They Twitter or update their Facebook page. Eeh. The blog for me was never about my day-to-day activities, but more a space to share my timeless, long-winded thoughts about life. I'll stick with blogging until Blogger becomes obsolete too.

Great Big Sigh. I'm feeling a bit obsolete and behind the times, but then I've never been on the cusp of fashion and chic. And I have never, ever been one of the cool kids.

1300 Days

I have a doomsday countdown thingy on my home page. I noticed that there are 1,300 days left until The Big Poof on Dec. 21, 2012. The Big Poof may come a little sooner than that if somebody doesn't slip a little Thorazine into Kim Jong-il's tea. Dude is a little psychotic. Needs to have a heart-to-heart chat with Hirohito about history and the side effects of souped-up atoms.

When I read what North Korea is up to a scene from an old movie sifts up from the gray matter. The name of the movie is long gone and I don't remember any of the actors. The plot is that some kid hacks in to The Big Military Nuclear Missile Computer (TBMNMC) using an old boatanchor of a computer that isn't even capable of running Pong. TMMNMC goes on the offensive to launch a nuclear strike. It plays a zillion games of Tic-Tac-Toe, the runs a zillion nuclear strike scenarios.

The nuclear strike scenarios are what stick in my brain. On the wall is a huge map of the world. Arcs of light run back and forth between the continents, over and over and over. Somehow I can see that happening in real life sometime soon. Bright red arcs going east, bright orange arcs going west. Big blobs of color obliterating all the continents. Humm....

In the end the computer decides from playing all those games of Tic-Tac-Toe that it is pointless to play because there is no winner. Therefore, a nuclear strike is pointless because there would not be a winner either. The computer goes from DEFCON 5 back to DEFCON 1. The world is saved from nuclear destruction.

I think this movie should be translated into Korean post-haste and shown at video night next Friday in Mr. Kim's palace.

Now is not the time for the military to be kicking out any nice gay Korean-speaking linguists who can run a VCR.

At Wit's End

This true story comes from an old clipping from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. It's a tragic story, but Sissy and I rolled on the floor laughing because it's just so *Arkansas*.

"He needed killin'" is still a valid defense here.

Names were changed to protect the guilty.
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"Myrtle", a 75-year-old woman remained in jail without bail on capital-murder charges in connection with the shooting death of her husband "Walter", age 74.
Myrtle told police she was "at her wit's end" and decided to shoot her husband because he wanted sex.

"I was just at my wit's end," Myrtle told the police. "That old peckerwood was always chasing me around the house. I couldn't get anything done!"

After drinking four or five beers, she took a gun out of the nightstand beside her sleeping husband and took it into the bathroom to see if it was loaded. She returned to the bedroom and, in the dark, shot him three times in the head.

Myrtle told police she was sorry for what she had done but was relieved her husband was gone...

...him *and* his damned Viagra.

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BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

So, if there are any peckerwoods reading this post, take heed. As you gaze down at your little blue football, remember there are southern women at their wit's end who have accurate aim...even in the dark.