My Youngest Daughter
"Daddy, I want yellow catchup on my hotdog."
"What are those great big things? They're like CDs but huge!" I told her they were records. I went on to explain, "If it's a small record with a large hole it's a 45 and if it's large with a small hole then it's a 33. Unwittingly, I had opened another flurry of questions. What's a 45? What's a 33? Why did they play at different speeds? You mean there's only one song on either side of a 45? But it's bigger than a CD.
The Thanksgiving Andrea was three of four we had the Mormon missionaries over for dinner. One of them managed to spill his glass of water. I heard my little daughter sing out, "Oooooo, you spilled, Mommy's gonna whup your butt."
My Oldest Daughter
"You mean to tell me there's a thing that pops out when the turkey is done?
Me, "yes." Like I couldn't believe the question, even from a non-cook.
"Do they put it in later or is the turkey born with it?"
I tell this because she posted it on Facebook when we got off the pone. "I just found out there's a thingy that pops out of a turkey when it's done."
Her Driving
"I turned the corner and the bag of doughnuts I had on the passenger seat just flew off the seat and hit the floor. I wasn't going that fast either."
"Why is that car still coming? Doesn't he see me trying to back out?"
Me. "Why did you park in the no parking zone?"
Her. "I had to go to the bathroom really bad. I didn't think I'd be there long enough to get a ticket."
Her. "I'm not paying this ticket. I'm going to court. That was a speed trap."
Friend. "But weren't you speeding"?
Her. "Yes." She talked about how the officer had stopped thirteen or fourteen cars coming down that hill in a short amount of time. "That's a speed trap, I'm going to court".
Friend. Told my daughter to pay the ticket because she was guilty and court would be a waste of time.
My daughter went to court. The officer didn't show so my daughter didn't have to pay. Hmmm.
"Railroad Tracks." That means hold on because she isn't going to slow down.
Man at Sheltered Workshop in Salt Lake City
This one isn't funny. I cried and cried after he said this. Unfortunately, he was only a little bit wrong. He said I wasn't going to get a job anywhere other than a sheltered workshop. No one was going to hire me because of my eyesight. I used to look forward to having a wonderful job, seeing this man, and showing him how wrong he had been. Instead, I realize for the most part he was being brutally honest. Here's an exerpt from a post a did a few years ago on Wanda's World and Wanda Logic.
"What do you do for work?" people used to ask me. "Look," became my standard reply. That was true, I looked for work. The only exception was while I lived in Utah. There I worked my way up from fast food restaurants to the high end Mulboones.
I started looking after I graduated from high school. I didn't get hired so I went to college. I didn't get hired so I got Married. I got divorced and did the fast food thing. While working fast food I looked for better work. After we moved back to Pine Bluff I looked for work some more. I even got an expert certification in Microsoft Office to prove to an employer that I could use a computer. In 2007 I gave up looking. I had been looking since 1979. The trigger point happened when two people whom I had known for ten years asked, "Can you see to do that?" I was floored, astonished, astounded, and even gobsmacked. People whom I had known for ten years were asking me if I could see to do a copy editor's job. That did it. Some, maybe many, would disagree, but I was through. No more taking the bus to places to fill out applications or interview, no more explaining what I could and couldn't see, no more explaining to a prospective employer that I can work in a fast paced, cluttered, demanding, etc, environment without hurting myself. If people I had know for a long time didn't realize I could do a job, how in the world could I convince someone I just met?
Civic Pride
My youngest daughter an I were scouting out neighborhoods in Metro Atlanta before we move there. While waiting at the bus stop in a part of Atlanta which will remain nameless; I questioned a fellow passenger. I wanted to know what it was like to live around there. "It's alright," he answered.
I expected an answer like that, but I was surprised by what he went on to say, "If you call the police they come, and it doesn't take them too long."
Unthinkable
I am chocolate brown. My girls looked white when they were babies. So I'm out with the baby and someone says, "Oh! You're babysitting." I'd correct them, "No, she's mine." So the person made the next logical leap, "Oh, you adopted her!" They just couldn't fathom this dark woman giving birth to a baby that white. One woman went as far as to contradict me, "She had to get something from the mother." FYI, Tom and Edwin are white.
Beazle
"I'm calling you for a quicky." Then she'll ask her short question. What is So And So's phone number? Do you have any nutmeg" Do you want to go to the store with me?
Man at Truck Stop
While massaging his scalp this man told Edwin and me to massage our scalps regularly. You have to keep it loose. If your scalp attaches to your head, it will kill you. To this day I find myself checking my scalp for looseness. I think it's beginning to attach a bit. I wonder if I should massage more.
Teenager At Church
When my youngest was a baby a teenager was playing with her at church. "She's beautiful," gushed the teen, "She must take after her father."
Car Pooling
While riding home from church with another family, a girl turned to her brother and said, "Nobody likes you but God, and he has too".
Person Offering Assistance
I declined the assistance because, "I'm not as blind as I look."
The would be helper's reply was, "Thank God!"
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