This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Knees

You know how Mr. Wilson always yelled, "DENNIS!" when something went wrong? I have spent most of my life doing the same thing. Oh, I don't know anybody named Dennis, except that security guard when I worked in the insurance salvage store, he with a fondness for stealthily following co-workers around, then grabbing them from behind by the forehead and chin and giving them a free, unrequested, thankfully unmaiming, amateur chiropractic neck crack.

No, I don't have a Dennis around here. But I have a Farmer H.

With only Farmer H and me around the Mansion these days, it's pretty obvious who the culprit is when things go awry. Just ask me! Oh, he still tries to deny his shenanigans. But he doesn't have a leg to stand on. And I don't have a chair to set on. My groceries, that is.

We have a mesh metal patio chair on our side porch. Most often, it rests in front of Gassy G, the auction grill. Since Farmer H only grills once in a blue moon these days, and since I no longer have The Pony to carry in my groceries every week, I moved that chair over by the rail for the porch steps. That way, I can put my grocery bags on there, and Jack and Juno don't walk all over them, or get tempted to nose around in there. Not that my Sweet, Sweet Juno would do such a thing. But Puppy Jack might. He's inquisitive.

By setting my grocery bags on that chair, I can go back to T-Hoe for more, and pile them on. Then I make one trip up the steps, go unlock the kitchen door, and come back a couple times for my purchases. WITHOUT going down and up the steps several times. Anybody with sore knees knows what a big deal this is. I'm looking at YOU, Madam. The newly-knee-challenged.

Today I came back from town, having traipsed around Country Mart looking for snacks for Farmer H's upcoming jaunt to Oklahoma for a Sooners' game to visit The Pony. I had two bags of snacks, and 16 Diet Mountain Dews. They were only the 12 oz bottles. Two 8-packs. HOS is going along with Farmer H, so he, too, must stay hydrated. Don't even ask them why they won't drink water. For snacks. they will have sugar-free mini Hersheys, sugar-free mini Reese's Cups, sugar-free York Peppermint Patties, Lance Peanut Butter Crackers, and Lance Buffalo Wing Blue Cheese Crackers. Hey! It's a 9.5 hour drive! Farmer H is not going into a coma on my watch. He can't be left to his own snack selections. Said the Snickers bar he ate out of a vending machine at a rest stop while I was in the bathroom.

I had the two bags hooked over my arm, and an 8-pack in each hand. BUT MY CHAIR WAS GONE! Okay. It wasn't GONE, gone. But it was way over by Gassy G. I couldn't reach it from down on the sidewalk. So I had to set down my sodas and go up the steps and into the Mansion to put them down. Then come back out to get my purse and 44 oz Diet Coke from T-Hoe. Then take them into the Mansion. Then come back to the porch for my sodas.

If my holding chair had been where I left it, I could have piled the stuff on it from the sidewalk, gone back to T-Hoe for my purse and soda, carried them up the steps and inside, then come back onto the porch for the snacks and soda. Easy peasy. Instead, I had an extra trip up and down.

The dogs didn't mind! They got a flat chew treat of some kind that I found in the laundry room before I left, and a handful of cat kibble when I came back out for the soda.

Upon interrogation later in the evening, Farmer H denied moving the chair since grilling on Sunday, even though I know I used it for holding my Save A Lot box of groceries on Monday.

FARMER H!

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom Imagines Herself A 5X

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is quite embarrassed this evening, having committed a lottery faux pas.

My luck has been good lately, evening out that terrible run I had about three weeks ago, when only 3 tickets in 32 were winners. Those weren't all in one day, or one week, of course. And included those I give to the boys. The odds of winning on the tickets I buy are at worst 1 in 4. So Even Steven was toying with me back then.

Now, though, the dark basement lair of Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is flowing with scratch-off milk and honey. Today I took back a few winners to cash in. I had a stack of 7 that I'd been saving until I felt lucky. I took four into Casey's when I bought gas, and traded them for more tickets. Of the winners left in T-Hoe, I wanted to cash in one at the gas station chicken store's competitor, Orb K.

I picked up that winner specifically. Only a couple stores still carry it. It's an older game, with a chance to scratch off 20 times rather than 15. I knew I had a $25 winner, and planned to get more tickets with it. I got my 44 oz Diet Coke (which seems to me like only 40 oz here) and handed the clerk my winner. She scanned it and said, "That's five dollars."

"Twenty-five dollars?"

"No. Five."

"Uh uh. Could I see that ticket?"

The clerk acted a little bit annoyed. Maybe this is a scam that high-rolling scratchers run. Or maybe she took it as an affront that I didn't believe her.

I looked at that ticket. Whoopsie! It was a $5 winner. The one I had THOUGHT it was had a 5X symbol where I scratched the winner.

"Oh. Sorry. I thought I brought in the other one that was twenty-five."

Seriously. It's an honest mistake, right? Anybody could do that. I wasn't accusing that clerk of scamming me. I thought somehow she'd read that amount wrong after the ticket-checker device scanned the bar code.

I think my face is still red. But that could be from the 101-degree heat index, after sitting on the front porch pew with Puppy Jack and Sweet, Sweet Juno. At least they think I'm a winner.

Oh, yeah. I won $50 today.

You'd Think It Was Contraband, But THAT Would Be Easier To Get

This morning I started watching The Birds. I've never seen the whole thing. Still haven't, since I missed the first 20 minutes, and gave up on the last 10, because I was tired of the commercials. Besides, it was 1:20 already, and I hadn't eaten lunch, and I didn't have my 44 oz Diet Coke!

Besides my soda, I only needed one thing from town. Still, it's good to drive the 10 minutes to civilization every day, because in town, I get ALL THE BARS on my 4G connection. So I can email myself pictures, or download stuff in seconds, things that won't happen at all at the Mansion.

I ran in Country Mart to get some cupcake papers. Save A Lot only had the little short paper ones when I looked yesterday. I wanted normal size, in foil. Well. You'd a thought it was the day before Thanksgiving, so many people were shopping at 1:30 on Labor Day! Especially the differently-abled, because all the handicapped parking spots were full. Not that I park in them. But I park in the ones next to them, up by the building. And THOSE spots were full, too. But don't you worry about Mrs. Hillbilly Mom's jacked-up knees, because there was an end spot right across from the exit door. The door that says EXIT ONLY, but has the vestibule clogged with carts for people to grab to do their shopping when they enter.

I took a cart, even though all I needed were some cupcake papers. Carts are like walkers, but without the fuzzy yellow tennis balls on the feet. I actually think they were new carts, all lightweight, with gray-plastic-like paint over the metal. The wheels did not have rubber flapping from the tires. And they steered straight. I wouldn't mind having one at home, but that's probably frowned upon.

The best place to look for cupcake papers is on the baking aisle, right? I looked. And looked. Looked some more. I saw candles and tubes of icing and sprinkles and those packs of 8 different decorating tips. Across the aisle, there were paper plates and foam plates and plastic silverware and disposable containers and foil. Back to the cakey side, there were mixes and muffins and graham cracker crusts and bread mix and NO MUFFIN CUPS. I went all the way down the aisle, and finally found exactly what I was looking for under the seasoning packets for fish frying, I think.

So back I went up front, ready to get out of there and get my soda and get home for lunch. Two checkers were open. One had a guy with gray Bob Ross hair, in raggedy jeans, who had been consulting with a younger guy who was at the quarter-pusher machine over at the end of the checkout lanes. It seemed like they had just run to town in the midst of a cookout to grab some things. Not saying they were drunk, but they were a bit off kilter. My weirdo counter (like a Geiger Counter, only silent) was clicking in my head. It's like they'd come at each other from opposite ends of the store, talk with their hands (and voices) about what they should get, then go past each other. Bob had several items already on the conveyor, including a frozen pizza in a box, a gallon of milk, and small cans of something that didn't occur to me to care.

The other line had an older lady (probably younger than me) with half a cart full of groceries. She had it already on the counter, her last two items being a chocolate half-cake in one of those odd clear plastic half-circle containers, and a white foam carryout container from the deli hot food bar. I figured she'd be the quickest customer, so I pulled in my cart with its two tiny containers of foil cupcake papers in the baby-seat area.

Of course you know what happened, right?

The checker fiddled and faddled. She stopped, with only the cake and deli remaining un-rung, and re-did all of her plastic sacks on the bag carousel. THEN the customer asked her how to fill out a check. So...I did what anyone would do, especially that Murphy guy, because it's the law, apparently, and backed up my cart and went over to Bob Ross's checkout.

You know how this is going to end, right?

Bob had already put all his stuff on the conveyor, and the checker had rung them up, and she was giving Bob the total, and he was scanning his card. Piece of half-cake, right? But then I heard that noise of a declined card. And Bob turned to the quarter-pusher all the way across the store, and hollered his name, and started waggling his fingers, and Q-P waggled his back and Bob said, "It's 2, right?" and went back to poking at the card scanner. Then the checker told him it was six more dollars and some change, and he pulled a roll of bills out of his raggedly pocket and peeled one off and paid.

By now, people were lining up. The half-cake lady's checker called for backup. Mine scanned my two packs of cupcake papers. Except they refused to scan. BOTH of the packs. So she had to poke the numbers in by hand. Then she said, "That'll be $13.53."

The NOT-HEAVEN you say!

"That can't be right. They were only a dollar-twenty-something apiece."

"Oh. Yes. They were $1.23 each." She fiddled and faddled and recalculated and charged me two dollars and something.

Why does it have to be SO hard to buy regular foil cupcake papers in Hillmomba?

Nightmare On Mansion Counter

You know how sometimes, you get that feeling of dread? Like something bad is about to happen? So you avoid certain places of situations? Well, I don't have that. But I'm developing such a sense.

Farmer H is responsible. He's a secret spender and a junker. And sees nothing wrong with it. In fact, bring it up, and Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is the bad guy! This week, Farmer H spent a hundred dollars on gunk and screws to repair the roof of one of his shacks. Can you believe it? The outlay for Shackytown alone is enough to force Mrs. HM back to the salt mines. Then yesterday, Farmer H spent another $23.87 for TIN for A NEW SHACK! I swear, the apopadopalyspe is on the horizon.

Farmer H also has a penchant for not telling me when he spends this money. I rue the day that our bank gave us each a debit card. I was fine with doling out allowance to Farmer H, from the sock buried in the back yard of my old ($17,000) house in town. Those were simpler times. When Farmer H was an hourly employee, not salaried. When he made overtime, but had a less flexible schedule. Meaning he spent more time MAKING money than SPENDING money. I fear that I will have to put him on a cash budget when he retires. He can't go on living this life of champagne wishes and caviar dreams.

The amounts Farmer H squanders are not that much in single outlays. But they add up. We're not paupers yet. The boys won't have to drop out of college or pay for their own insurance. The part that makes Mrs. HM wary of waking up to a retired Farmer H every day for the rest of her life is this (cue the REE! REE! REE! Psycho music):

I cannot stand to walk into the Mansion kitchen and find one of these on the counter. It's always a day or ten late, and makes the bank account a couple hundred dollars short. Farmer H thinks he deserves a medal for showing me his bill. Who does he think he is, Daffy Duck after a shotgun blew his beak around backwards? It's not that special to give your wife your receipts so she can balance the joint checking account.

There very worst part is that Farmer H leaves this afterthought right on the part of the kitchen counter that I keep clear for food preparation. And he does it in the dark of night. Stealthily. And he doesn't even bother to UNFOLD THE RECEIPT! I swear, I am having teacher flashbacks about those absentee slips that were tossed willy-nilly upon my desk, having been fished out of pockets and foundation garments and backpacks and probably shoes...strewn about my desk as if I was the one supposed to unfold them. At least Farmer H's folds are not soggy with something I don't want to know the origin of.

I think I need to designate a new throw-down area for Farmer H's afterthoughts. And keep a ledger with a running total each week, and each month, with a cumulative total at the end of each year. Surely I can find time to do that, can't I? Even with the full calendar I have with this new retirement gig.

It's A Nice Day For A Pup Wetting

I came back from town around noon and met Farmer H in the Gator on the road in front of his freight container field. With him were The Veteran, and two of his little girls. Ranging out in front was my sweet, sweet Juno, and running alongside was Puppy Jack.

Perhaps running is too strong a word. Farmer H does not drive a fast Gator. Puppy Jack, short-legged though he may be, was barely trotting, and had no trouble keeping up. Juno had to rein it in, her long legs aching to race like the wind.

While I was blocking my half of the road, and Farmer H his, Puppy Jack grew bored. He walked in front of the Gator, looked up at Farmer H, looked over at me, then crawled under the front end, by the right front tire, for a nap in the shade.

"Don't run over Jack! He's under the Gator!"

"I won't run over Jack. He'll get out when I start it up again."

"Just out for a Saturday drive?"

"We're going up to the other land."

"Look out for Jack!"

"I will. He'll be going swimming." With that, Farmer H fired up his engine, Puppy Jack ran out from under, Juno darted ahead barking, and off they went.

Upon his return, Farmer H reported that Juno waded into the creek, Jack ran in and started swimming, and The Veteran's littlest girl (around 6) followed them.

"Don't go in the water! Stay away from the creek!" And in she went. Where she slipped and fell on her butt. Kids. What are ya gonna do?

Jack was all dried out by the time I went out this evening to feed him an old hot dog. Who knew that dachshunds or heelers liked to swim so much?

For Somebody Without Any Livestock, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom Sure Gets Her Goat Taken A Lot

He's done it again. Farmer H got my goat.

Oh, he doesn't plot and finagle and do it consciously. It just happens, by way of his lax household skills. As if it's not bad enough that he abandons his ripe bananas like a foundling on a doorstep, with nary another thought. He also believes that packaging is permanent.

Here's what I found in Frig II at noon after braving the first-weekend-of-the-month, Friday-before-a-holiday, Devil's Playground shoppers:

Uh huh. You know that individual tub of puddin' would have collapsed without its giant cardboard package, right? That's why Farmer H left it there.  A giant cardboard package, protecting a single individual tub of puddin'. I daresay Farmer H would have left the packaging on the back of the top shelf of Frig II by itself, even after taking the last individual tub of puddin'. But...we'll never have that data, because I threw it away and put the last individual tub of puddin' back on the top shelf of Frig II.

Farmer H probably won't eat it now. He'll think there's something wrong with it.

No, the tub of frosting in the corner of the photo isn't for Farmer H. I'm not trying to send him into a coma. YET. That's for the Oreo cake I will be baking this week for Farmer H to deliver to The Pony when he visits him in Oklahoma. 

And the scarred cutting block is a huge thick one on metal legs that was saved from the cleanout of the basement of Farmer H's old knife-making factory, before his current employer lured him away the year that the #1 son was born.

Sock It On Me!

Sometimes, lives tend to parallel and intertwine, much like the antics of Jerry, George, Kramer, and Elaine on an episode of Seinfeld.

Blog buddy Sioux rode with The Pony and Mrs. HM to a writer's conference in July. Funny how we both retired from the public school system in May, although Sioux, always chasing the big bucks and cushy perks bestowed upon such revered employees, turned right around and dived into education again. Maybe that's how she hurt her knee.

Funny, how we were discussing painful knees while waiting for the next conference session. Sioux is the one who brought up how old folks rock back and forth several times before arising. Right before Mrs. HM rocked back and forth several times in order to get up from the inches-from-the-ground cushioned blocky chair she had fallen into.

Funny, too, how Sioux was just the other day touting the benefits of putting a sock on what ails ye! A sock filled with rice warmed in the microwave, to ease those aching knees. Well. Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has an old electric heater under her corner countertop desk in her dark basement lair, which heats her knees just fine. But she appreciated Sioux's info, and the almost-title of her post. Because on that very morning, Mrs. HM had taken a sock OFF what ailed her!

Here's the proof:

Don't be afraid! It's not a boa constrictor. You're not in danger. That's just a big ol' Doc Ortho sock, which Mrs. HM has put on each early-morning and taken off each morning for the past three days. What's so strange about that, you might ask. Well, let me tell you! That sock wasn't on her foot. No siree, Bob! That sock was on Mrs. HM's hand, of course. Because there's something funky going on with the inside edge of her left ring finger. No. It has nothing to do with a ring. Mrs. HM doesn't even wear rings. And it's NOT so she can catch another man just like Farmer H.

Yep, something has gone all wonky with that finger-side. It's even on the fingertip. I could be a spy, probably, because my prints will be messed up. That fingertip gets all dried out and wrinkly like when you sit in a bathtub for too long. Only dry. Not moist. The finger. Not the tub. So...the best remedy is to put some Vaseline on it overnight. I had some in a little rectangular plastic jar from about 25 years ago. It still works.

All you have to do is slather some of that Vaseline on your finger, and put a sock on your hand overnight. That way your bedclothes don't get oily, and your skin can marinate for at least 4-5 hours (if you sleep like Mrs. Hillbilly Mom).

With all the expert advice from Sioux and Mrs. HM, I'd be surprised if you ever have to go back to a health professional again. I don't know about her, but I'm pretty willing to jab you with needles and perhaps carve out minor organs if the pay is right. Of course, Sioux has a new cushy job, so she might not want to climb down from her pedestal and get her hands dirty.

I'm here if you need me. Just call 1 HIL LMO MBA1.