The Puppet Plot

The puppet wagon was a summer highlight when I was a kid.  Once a week it would come into town playing music to alert the neighborhood that the show was about to begin.  The internet tells me the show has been going on for 35 years.  It was the coolest.  It was the place to be.

The picture above is the same wagon with the same puppets from back in the day.  The skunk named Aroma is the main character.  On the back of the wagon is a mailbox so you can write the puppets fan mail.  Seriously, that was a big deal.  I would draw pictures, bring them cool-looking rocks, and give them candy, all sorts of things.  I was a puppet groupie.

At the end of the show, the puppets would check the mailbox and read the fan letters out loud.  When you’re five, this is as awesome-sauce as it gets.

Every week, this older kid named Davey would turn up during show time to pick on the younger kids and make fun of the puppet show.  He generally made our little lives miserable; a real troublemaker.

One day my brother and I told my mom about miserable Davey.  She hatched a devious plan.  Since miserable Davey would be at the show to heckle the puppets, wouldn’t it be nice to write some fan mail from him?

So out came the construction paper and crayons and we made a beautiful letter that probably looked something like this:

I was nervous about the plot, but when the puppet wagon rolled into town I mustered up some courage and put the letter in the mailbox.  At the end of the show they read the love letter from Davey.  I can’t remember his reaction but I know all the other kids giggled.

And that my friends, is how I learned how to humiliate a ten year old.  To this day my mom will still say he had it coming.

Probably not our proudest family moment. 

*Miserable Davey moved away a couple of years later (for non-puppet related reasons).  I don't know whatever became of him.

You Should Know Better

I have a brother who is 3½ years older than me.  Not 4 and not 3.  3½.

As in Mom yelling, "David, you are 3½ years older than your sister.  You should know better."

My brother and I always seemed to be at odds about the little things back then.  I thought he was the coolest, and he thought I was a pest (which if we're being honest, may have been slightly true).

My mother drove an old Ford Escort when we were young (I was around 4, David 7½).  We called it the Dodo Bus for reasons I can't remember but probably had something to do with the movie Follow That Bird.  Because David and I loved to bicker over the little things on even days he got to sit in the coveted front seat and on odd days, shotgun was all mine.  Mind you, this is before little kids were always to sit in the backseat.

So it was an even-numbered day when we took the trip through the McDonald's drive-through.  David  basking in the front and I was stuck in the backseat of the Dodo Bus.  Though we loved to squabble, every once in a while the planets would align and we would team up against my mom.  2 against 1.

In the short time it took from Mom ordering the happy meals to paying at the first window, a plan was hatched.  David had the idea that I should tell the worker at the window that they were fired.  So because David was giggling and absolutely giddy about his plan, when we got to the window I yelled to the young man, "You're fired!"

The apathetic teenager at the window just sort of shook his head and maybe there was a slight eye roll.  Mom was trying not to be embarrassed and also trying not to give any laugh of encouragement but it was too late.  David was in stitches.  That was all the encouragement I needed, I now had a crowd.

"Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!"

I shouted as loud as I could over and over and over.  We were off to window number 2 to pick up the order with my mom trying to shush me.  The teen at window 2 was good-humored and started to chuckle at a 4 year old telling him he was fired.  More fuel.

"Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!  Your fired!"

Mom was mortified as she grabbed the happy meals with a defeated smile, David giggled, and I shouted "You're fired, you're fired!" all the way home.





Afterword:  I learned the F-word on Easter a year previous to this incident under similar encouragement from the one who should know better. 
 

December 13

Today's blog-a-thon prompt is to share a first.

I got my first job (besides babysitting) when I was 17 at the mall.  The store I got hired on at was Northern Reflections which I thought had totally disappeared by now but I guess it still exists up in Canada.  I made $8.00 an hour and told women that their sweaters were sleek and the boot-cut jeans really elongated their legs.

It is here where I note that my fashion sense (or lack of) has always been a lot more function than fashion and I have never been too particular about things matching.  I had no business telling other women what looked good on them.

This is what the store looked like:

When I wasn't doling out compliments and flattery, I was following the customers around right before closing time and refolding all of the sweaters.

I only worked there for six months before I moved on to becoming the smoothie girl at Mervyn's California, another mall staple that eventually met its demise.

What was your first job?

December 6

Looking back....

Today's prompt for the blog-a-thon is to share your first blog post.  So here it is...

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Let's get ready to rum ball!

Get it? Rum ball = Rumble. Well, this seems as good of a way to start a blog as any. Merry Christmas.

On December 24, 2008 I was 25, newly married, and working as a receptionist.  I started out reading a couple of great blogs and was inspired to create my own.  

This blog was started to be a place to be weird and goofy but my brand of weird and goofy is best experienced in person so instead I started writing about the goings on in my life. 

It took a long time to find my "voice" here and I cringe reading some of my old posts.  Cringe.  But just like my brace-faced/home-permed/neon outfit middle school pictures, they still exist.  I refuse to delete, keeping them as evidence of growth.  Or something.

This blog and I have been through a lot together.

 

And to those who read, you have given me so very much.

I'll stop being such a sap now.  Anyhow, thanks for reading.

September 06

A story about a time you were very afraid.

I am a scaredy-cat; definitely not someone you would want to be in a haunted house with.  Since I am working hard on not dwelling on my anxious thoughts, I think I'll take a different spin on today's topic and tell you what I am not afraid of.

Although I am a bit scared of a lot of things, I am not superstitious.  In one week it's Friday the Thirteenth.  I love Friday the Thirteenth!

There is a neat article on Mental Floss about the Thirteen Club.  The gist is that in 1882 thirteen guys got together to prove thirteen wasn't unlucky.  Dinners were held where the gents did things like walk under ladders, open umbrellas indoors, break glass, etc.  All the unlucky stuff.

I want to throw a Thirteen Club party one of these days but worry people wouldn't show.  A lot of folks still hang onto these superstitions, don't they?

Are you superstitious?  Would you brave a Thirteen Club dinner or is that just tempting fate?

Bring on the black cats and have a great weekend!

July 25

I loved reading books when I was a kid, especially with my mom.  One my most favorite books to read with her was Big Bird Follows the Signs

Thanks to Big Bird I am still a bit uneasy about jaywalking.

What was your favorite childhood book?

July Challenge

July 14

I have three tattoos.  The first one I had done in a teensy weensy parlor in a teensy weensy town in Minnesota.  It was my eighteenth birthday and Friday the thirteenth and the idea was to go get inked and then head to the casino to play bingo.  Looking back, those are some weird birthday plans.

My mother was none too pleased with me and said something along the lines of, "why on Earth would you want to do that to your body?!"  At the time I thought it would be a way to remember my ideals or whatever.  Ready for the picture?

Really accentuates the pipes, eh?

 

 

 

 July Challenge

Hi!

Yikes.  I have got a lot of junk on the brain today.  I am not quite ready to over-share about it, but things are okay.

I have started some long overdue projects over the weekend, one of which is uploading my photos from the computer into a cloud in case the computer decides to crap out.  No easy feat, we have accumulated around 4,000 pics since 2008.

So now I present some of the funny/weird/whatever I found.

I took this first photo by holding the camera out of the window while Bobaloo was driving.  I sent a copy to my Aunt and wrote on the back, "Just a bunch of Colorado asses sayin' Hi!"

 

This next one is my brother and I at my wedding reception (it was Halloween-themed).  I went as Marilyn Monroe and he went as Dwight from The Office.  Has someone had a few cocktails?

 



 

When Bobaloo and I first moved out here, we spent a day hanging out and exploring the city of Denver.  We went to the capitol building trying to find the step that is exactly one mile above sea level.  We thought there would be a huge sign or something to take our picture next to.  Here's reality:

 



 

My family went to Carlsbad, California to see my older brother for Christmas one year.  They had a fire hydrant walking tour.  All of the hydrants were sponsored by a local business and painted by a local artist.  I do not have one picture of me next to the ocean on this trip, but 25 of me posing with fire hydrants.  Dork.

 

 

 

What does everyone got going on for the fourth?