THURSDAY THIRTEEN

Thirteen Things about Toni

THIRTEEN HAIRBRAINED SCHEMES THAT DIDN'T PAN OUT.

1. My sister-in-law and I once tried to capture a rat that meandered downstairs into my living room (with my dim cat following curiously behind). The plan? To block off the entry from the living room to the dining room using couch cushions, then climb up on chairs to throw a cooking pot over him (upside down)like a trap, beating him with a broom if necessary. Well, sis-in-law got into a smackdown as that nasty rodent repeatedly climbed the broom handle, both of them screaming like girls. This went on for a good 30 minutes until it occurred to me that we should prop the front door open. Um, 3 minutes after I did that, he simply walked out.


2. When I was about 10, I decided to make my way in the world. I got busy crocheting bookworms and sold them house to house. I worked my tail off too, both in crafting 'em up and in running my sales pitch for my startup company. Got a great start on my college fund that summer, all $3.25 of it.


3. During first grade recess, I convinced several friends to hide behind the small brick wall that our school's name was on. I was laughing soooo hard as we walked back toward the building, the rest of the class in their seats and the teacher waiting at the door. It wasn't as easy to convince those same friends to remain my friends after we all got a nice paddling from the principal.


4. In highschool, I decided to double pierce my own ear. I froze it with an ice cube for about 15 minutes, heated a sewing needle, then poked 'er good. It all went well until I couldn't get the earring in. Had to let the hole close because my ear was burning like all get out when the ice wore off.


5. The pet squirrel and the "pet a squirrel" schemes. I wanted a pet squirrel so a friend brought me one, along with a nice cage to keep it in. The first time I opened the cage door to feed my new pet, it flew at me with such a flurry that I tripped and fell down. And it went up into the rafters of my parents' garage and we could hear it up there for days. Never did recapture it. I also tried to pet a squirrel. I made my best squirrel call to a squirrel in our backyard and (surprise to me) it slowly came in until it was right by me. I had some sort of "bait" in my hand that it was in the process of taking when I reached out to touch its tail. The squirrel turned and nipped at me at the speed of light. Fortunately, it did not break the skin.


6. We finished building our country home in April, but didn't seed the lawn until September. In that time, weeds at least 5 feet tall grew over our entire 3.5 acre lot. As a result, we had huge swarms of horseflies bunkering down in them. Our foster care social worker came out for a visit and was running and swiping madly at all the flies that were dive bombing her (of course, that's not as funny as the time our cable guy opened the box on the side of our house, and I saw him running past my dining room window yelling and screaming, swiping as he went; a few seconds later, he rang my doorbell and calmly said in frustration, "Got any bee spray?").


7. That same summer, we had to rake all those overgrown weeds onto burn piles to rid our property of them (there were waaaay too many to just ignore). We poured gasoline on the first pile. When I tossed a match on it, the gas literally combusted with an enormous boom and flare of light, singeing my eyebrows (I can see my fireman friend, Dan, rolling his eyes right now.)


8. In college, I broke my key off in a frozen car lock and had to borrow a friend's car for the day. She had a killer sound system installed, so naturally I cranked it up (and up and UP), rockin' out to Miami Sound Machine as I made my way down the highway. Um, the music was vibrating the car sooo hard that the rear view mirror fell off. Not to worry. I fixed it with Superglue.


9. I once made dh get up at 5am so we could disembark on the island of St. John. Our cruise ship dropped us off at 6:30am, then continued on to St. Thomas. We were given transfers to get over to St. Thomas to catch up with the ship. All this because I wanted to experience the private beach I'd heard of. Oh we did, too. We had Solomon's beach all to ourselves until 10:30 in the morning. That's when I awakened to find 1, 2, 3 naked young men lying on their sides facing me. I let out a little scream and quickly tapped dh. That's when we realized most everyone else on the beach was naked. Would have been nice to know of that "minor" detail before making a day of it.


10. When we owned a camper, I decided to climb up on the roof to apply sealer while dh was at the store. The ladder fell over and it was way too far to jump. So, I spent the next 2 hours enjoying nature from the roof.


11. I took old flip flops on a cruise and wore them as we went shopping in St. Kitts. While lazily making our way through the many quaint and expensive boutiques, I blew a flat in one of my flip flops. "No big, I'll just buy a pair in one of the shops." Nary a one, people. What kind of island doesn't carry stinkin' flip flops?
    We borrowed a stapler from a store clerk and went crazy "fixing" my flip flop. Now, anytime we hear the Jimmy Buffet song Margaritaville, we sing, "I blew out a flip flop, when I did St. Kitts stop."


12. Carl thought it would be good to listen to a pots-n-pans sales pitch so we could get free film (newlyweds, lol). A man showed up with his wares and he looked just like Matt Foley from SNL. He proceeded to sit us down in our living room and stuck a video in our vcr, instructing us to watch it. He then went in our kitchen, dug out our own pots and pans and began to cook chicken, potatoes and carrots on our stove. We were hostages in our own home, with Matt Foley cookin' up dinner in our kitchen. And no, we did not want his $800 pots-n-pans.


13. Friends wanted us to go skiing with them. "Oh sure, let's hit the slopes." Only, I didn't know how. I must have been a silly sight when the ski lift arrived at the top of the hill and I fell out. But I topped that when I skied like greased lightning down the hill, no clue how to break my speed or come to a stop. I was passing others like an Olympic champ, then gave out a banshee cry when I realized I might hit a crowd at the bottom of the hill. They moved out of the way just in time for me to discover a ditch, which I had no way of navigating around or stopping in front of. So I did what any new skier would do. I acted all cool as I flew across it and the front of my skis dug into the other side, dumping me right in the icy water. Pridefully, "I'm good. I'm good. No really, go back to your skiing'. I just lost track of my own speed is all."

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Toni