Mrs. Hillbillly Mom Is Not Exactly A Fine Wine

I think I'm feeling my age. Which you will never know, you nosy nosy Nancies. (Not to be confused with loyal reader knancy.) I will never reveal the length of my teeth. You'll have to cut me open to count the rings, by cracky! Warning: Do Not Cut Open Mrs. Hillbilly Mom.

Monday night, I settled in to watch the Cardinals play in the World Series. Since I keep the Mansion chilled to 69 degrees in order to preserve my decaying flesh save money on our all-electric-Mansion bill, I yearned for my ultrasoft fleece green blanket with yellow and white circles that I won at my sister-the-ex-mayor's-wife's Christmas party two years ago. There is was. Easily within reach, on the arm of the couch where The Pony curves his spine playing computer games in front of the big-screen TV. Why was I denying myself this toasty pleasure? Sometimes, you just gotta say, "What the cluck?" I grabbed it. Ahh. It's not like I have a shawl to keep me warm, you know.

The problem with my ultrasoft green fleece blanket is that it is SO good at what it does, I relax too much after swaddling myself in this silky cocoon. There I was, in the bottom of the first inning, looking for that Red Sox pitcher to dip the ball into green goop in his glove...when I startled awake to discover it was now that top of the fifth! And instead of the Cards behind 1 to 0, they were now tied 1 to 1. So in theory, all I missed was one pitch, the home run hit by Matt Holliday. I should have just slept through the rest of that game.

I'm lucky I haven't nodded off on the drive home from school. We get up and leave in the pitch dark of Daylight Savings Time night at 6:40 a.m. It makes for a long day. Why, just Monday I was blinking to stay awake when I spied this sign at the local Hillmomba church: Jesse James. Of course I said to myself, "What the cluck? Why is that church honoring Jesse James? Did he attend church there? Nah. It's too new. Did he provide fodder for a sermon? Yeah. That's more likely. Who doesn't want to sit on a pew and hear about Jesse James? Well...me, for one, but I bet the regular congregation would eat that up." Then I turned the corner and saw that the sign actually said, "Jesus Saves." Never mind.

Tuesday night I was so tired I didn't really want to take time to heat something in the microwave or warm it up in the oven. So I took Sunday's left-over vegetable beef soup and plopped that cold tower into a saucepan to simmer while I washed up a few dishes down by the creek since I don't have a dishwasher in the sink where Farmer H tosses his poopy eggs and says there's nothing unhygienic about it since he rinses the sink when he's done. I turned to stir that soup, after flinging the suds off my hands, having used lots of extra suds to counteract the thought of the befouling chicken poop, so I could dash in a bit of steak sauce, Heinz 57, and hickory BBQ sauce to moisten that meaty potato-y pile that Farmer H loves so much. Just a little taste. THAT STUFF WAS ICE COLD! But my shirt wasn't, hanging over the front burner that was making it give off that smell that happens right before a flammable bursts into flames. Yep. I had turned on the front burner and set the soup on the back.

Next thing you know, I'll be wearing gray sweat pants out in public, telling anybody who will listen about the hole in the knee.