Bound For The Food Network, Perhaps

I have a concept for a new show. I'm not sure which network is deserving of my pitch. It's kind of a hybrid of an idea, as Mr. Mendel would say. A mongrel, to the canine world. A conglomerate, to a geologist. My show involves both cooking AND a psychic! It could be called Chopped Medium.

Of course the star would be Mrs. Hillbilly Mom.

I would do what I do every day...besides trying to take over the world. I would whip up suppers in my Mansion kitchen. Notice that is plural. Because it is a rare evening when all residents concur on the vittles. But that's not the psychic part.

Farmer H sits down to eat when he's good and ready. He gets home at 5:00 and tends to his animals. The boys are hungry much earlier. So I feed them at the cutting block, then prepare food for Farmer H and myself. Which is usually the same.

Deciding when Farmer H will appear to sup is the psychic part. Sometimes, the meal is ready, but the Farmer is missing for a good two hours. Other times, the minute food goes into the oven, Farmer H is sniffing around like a junkyard dog outside an abattoir.

There's room for another kind-of cooking show, right? Because I'm not about to have 19 kids or go noodlin' catfish to get on TV.

Rootin' Tootin' Times At The Mansion

I hope I have not misled my readership. To hear me tell it, Hillmomba must be one big rootin', tootin' paradise, a land flowing with goat milk and free-range chicken eggs, where a Pony can be a Pony, living off the fat of the land.

That's not always true.

I know this comes as a shock to you, after years of sunny, upbeat stories letting you peep into my rainbow-and-unicorn, I'm-okay-you're-okay, everyone's-a-winner world. Clutch your pearls, people! Today, I dip into the seamier side of life with Farmer H.

For three days last week, The Pony and I enjoyed an idyllic respite from Farmer H and the #1 son. Farmer H was away on business at Lake of the Ozarks, and #1 was preoccupied with preparations for the Newmentia school carnival. We waved goodbye to Farmer H Tuesday morning. Figuratively, that is. Literally, we hollered, "We're leaving!" and dashed off to school while he was still abed. Our next two days stretched out ahead of us like a grade-school summer vacation, no end in sight. Like his father, #1 remained in the sack as we motored up the driveway. He would pointedly ignore me at school (except to scam $13 for his Chem II shirt), return to the Mansion at 9:30, shower, and do homework until bedtime. Barely fifteen words passed between us all week.

But then the master of the house returned. I had forgotten how unrestful the nights are in Hillmomba.  My rootin', tootin' husband has been lootin' me of a good night's sleep for so long that I have become complacent. Do you know how much rest you can get when there is not a person shoving his pillow up under the edge of yours, snaking his arm under it, dislodging your brain-packed cranium that is trying to renew itself with a scant five hours of elusive ZZZZs? Or that you can hear frogs peeping when the air is not ripped with the silent but deadly, unconscious, gaseous emissions of your bedmate?

Funny how I slept more soundly once he returned.

It Takes So Little To Make Him Happy

The Pony has returned from the school carnival victorious.

He did not win a cake at the cakewalk. Nor a pair of multicolored, stuffed snakes for me to use as neck supports. Nor a grab bag of miscellaneous plastic toys. Nor a Cat-in-the-Hat hat. Nor a finger-on-a-stick pointer. No. There comes a time to stop winning childish things. The Pony just turned fourteen. And he won a prize that made him the envy of teenage boys throughout Hillmomba.

TWENTY-TWO PACKS OF COOKIES!

He only made it home with twenty. Because he had to sample one, of course. And the #1 son finagled a pack away from him. #1 gave a resounding thumbs-up review: "Take the rest of those home, and we'll eat them there!" Because, of course, what's The Pony's is also #1's.

They are Little Caesar's cookies, like McDonald's cookies, only shaped like pizzas. The Pony won them by tossing Little Caesar's Crazy Bread Bites into Little Caesar's open mouth. A wooden cut-out board head, not a real dude. A stuffed Little Caesar costume was there, though. Stuffed face down in a box, with only his sandaled feet sticking out. The Pony bought twenty tickets for two dollars, which gave him forty bites. Twenty-two of which sailed through Little Caesar's oral cavity.

And the best part? Each bag had stapled to it a coupon for a large, one-topping pizza and a large order of Crazy Bread. All for the low, low price of $5.99!

The Pony is in hog heaven.

The Totally-Uncalled-For Athlete

Did you know that Farmer H is a world-class athlete? That he is renowned throughout Hillmomba for his feats of skill? That I sometimes wish him an athletic-career-ending injury?

That's not nice. But I can't help myself. A gal's gotta do what a gal's gotta do. And that future record-setter must be stopped. Before I kill.

Farmer H's sport? Dogfood flinging.

We feed our fleabags dry food. Hard, crunchy pellets. Each morning at 6:00, save Sundays, Farmer H tromps through the laundry room and steps out onto the back section of the wrap-around Mansion porch. He opens the metal trash can that acts as a canine canister for feed, and dips out three cups of food. One cup at a time. He dispenses it into each of three flat metal pans. Because our dogs do not share a meal nearly as peacefully as the cats do out of their single metal roasting pan in the garage.

Imagine, if you will, a jai alai player with his long, curved wicker scoop attached to his arm, running at the dog dish, winding up, and flinging those hard pellets at 188 miles per hour. Then imagine the sound. Three times

I rest my case.

One Captain Per Ship, Please

The person who cleans my room is the cleaningest cleaner who ever cleaned! The place gleams like a tile-and-steel operating theater. No germ would dare to encroach upon my sterile territory. However...

I don't mean to be a complainer. But this leopard cannot change her spots. Spots which would be scrubbed from her very hide, if she was under the jurisdiction of The Cleaner, making her a rare, stand-out, albino sitting duck for predators.

By now, folks should be privy to Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's peccadilloes. She is the captain of her ship. On that ship, there is a place for everything. And everything had better be stowed away in its place. This was no problem for The Original Cleaner. In fact, it seemed to apply to objects on the floor as well as classroom furniture and major appliances. Without even time to break in a middle-of-the-road replacement, The Cleaner was assigned to Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's flotilla.

What could possibly go wrong with a gold-medal caliber cleaner, you ask? Bounds-overstepping. That's what.

Imagine my surprise, one minute before first bell, when I noticed that my four rows of desks, with accompanying chairs, were out of alignment by two tiles. That's two feet! Twenty-four inches! It might as well have been a thousand miles! Because, you see, I know my students. I deliberately place my desks in a predetermined grid for maximum classroom efficiency. Too far forward, and they pin me against the board by afternoon. Too far aft, and they block the main aisle across the back of the classroom. Too much space in between, and the sardining effect is negated. Students feel free to roam willy-nilly about the classroom.

It was too late to remedy the situation for first hour. I should have noticed upon arrival, but was caught up in some last-minute changes to my lesson plan, which required typing and printing and copying a word bank of twenty words. So I muddled through.

As soon as my plan time rolled around, I moved twenty-five desks and twenty-five chairs back into the proper position. To add insult to my perceived injury, I have the kids line them up each day before the final bell. So all that half-butted work and my accompanying haranguing had been an exercise in futility.

We won't take time today to discuss the relocation of my plastic, four-drawer tower of textbook CDs that had been moved where I couldn't reach them without standing.

Please. This is like hiring a Merry Maid and discovering that she moved your furniture to suit her personal feng shui needs.

Sometimes, I See The Strangest Things At School

As I was locking up my room today after school, I saw a student down at the end of the hallway. On the way out, I stopped to greet the little sow.

You know what a sow is, don't you? Surely you've seen Sissy Spacek as Loretta Lynn, picking up a stick along the railroad tracks and ordering Doo's new girlfriend out of his Jeep. She makes it quite clear. "A sow. That's a woman pig!"

Oh, excuse me. I have not filled in all details of this story yet. A few days ago, this student told me she had just gotten a new pet. I miniature pig. Black. And this afternoon, her mother brought it in after school. At first, I did not notice the baby porker. The Pony had already carried some stuff out to T-Hoe, and reported that there was a tiny piglet running around in a colleague's room. So I was on the lookout.

Did you know that a black piglet snuggled up against a black t-shirt is virtually invisible? I greeted the student, and was about to go on outside when she said, "How do you like my baby pig?" Then I saw her. The little sow. The proud new pig-owner set her down for me to admire her tail and manner of perambulating. Did you know that pet miniature pigs have straight tails? Me neither. No curly corkscrews for them.

Here's a whole basket of baby piggies for your viewing pleasure.

You can decide which one went, "Wee, wee, wee!"

You Say Oui, And I Say No No

This is NOT Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's classroom.

That goes without saying, you might think. You would think wrong. Just this morning, a student mistook my classroom for a sidewalk cafe.

I have not been promoting my den of learning with a campaign touting croissants, baguettes, cafe au lait, crepes, or eclairs. Nor have I installed pegs upon which one might hang a chapeau. A beret, perhaps. The desks have not been replaced with tables. No streaming sunlight. Frankenwindow still holds court near the pencil sharpener. People-watching is impossible with no boulevard to overlook. Unless, of course, you find it restful to observe adolescents in captivity. I, myself, do not.

Even though it lacks all of the accouterments of a French cafe, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's classroom was STILL mistaken for such this morning. Why else would a young lady attempt to enter while carrying a 55-gallon barrel of Joe. I might be exaggerating just a smidge. She actually held it with one hand. But that foam cup was as tall as a 44 oz. Diet Coke. Of course I stopped her. Food and drink are not permitted in Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's classroom. It's right there in the rules. I dwell upon it throughout the year. The prohibition of such contraband is clearly mentioned in my First Day of School Speech. Others before her have had their ill-timed consumables confiscated.

"Stop. You're not going into my room with that."

"What?"

"You know the rules. No drinks allowed."

"SIGH!" (The air that gushed from her lungs could have replaced a wind farm in Nantucket Sound. No need to worry, Cape Codders. It doesn't kill birds, and it's relatively quiet.)

"I don't know why you're just standing there. The bell is going to ring."

"What do you want me to do with it?"

SWEET GUMMI MARY! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE TELL ME SHE DIDN'T SET ME UP LIKE THAT!

"You can put it in the trash can in the cafeteria. Or you can put it in your locker. But it is NOT going into my classroom."

So Tall Cuppa Java did neither, and hoofed it next door where an enabler allowed her to stash it until the class period was over. Different strokes for different folks. It makes no nevermind to me where that giant carafe of coffee went until the bell. But I would never undermine my fellow faculty like that. Perhaps it was due to a cultural difference. The harborer DID come to apologize with a shrug, in a "What you gonna do?" manner. So I have no bones to pick there. And I know she is not operating her own French cafe. Because she simply detests the French.

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom. Not the cool teacher.