The one where they dragged me to a Bigfoot festival

Ron believes in Bigfoot. I shielded our son Zac from such a fate, but apparently neglected to protect our grandson and now Ace is also a Bigfoot believer. At least it skipped one generation. Chuckles (as our grandkids call him) and Ace can regularly be found huddled together watching anything involving Bigfoot. Expedition Bigfoot, Finding Bigfoot, Hunting Bigfoot, Mountain Monsters, and throw in a little Destination Fear for good measure and periodic nightmares.

A few months ago, Ron, Caymen, Ace, and Zac drove to Pennsylvania to tour the infamous Pennhurst Asylum and meet the cast of Mountain Monsters and Destination Fear. Caymen went because she'll never pass up a road trip and she has a crush on Dakota from Destination Fear. Granted, so do I, but not enough to road trip to Pennsylvania. Zac tagged along because somebody had to be the adult supervision.

A little side story. Bigfoot is not the only thing Chuckles and Ace have in common. If you're familiar with the old sitcom 'The King of  Queens' they're both very much like Arthur Spooner who lived in their basement. That's how their nicknames Spooner Senior and Spooner Junior were lovingly born. Someday I'll blog about the Spooners and their very strong opinions and very big feelings. That skipped Zac too. 

But back to Bigfoot. We were scheduled to babysit Ace and Scarlet the first weekend in August and Ron suggested we take them to the Hocking Hills Bigfoot festival and stay in a hotel. Caymen was all for it because road trip, but zero part of me wanted to spend a day at a Bigfoot festival and a night in a hotel room with both Spooners. But with Zac out of town and our other kids having to work, that left me to be the adult supervision on this trip. A sad state of affairs, I admit, but that's how it landed. 

My first job as the adult supervision was to refuse his demands to take his Sasquatch costume to scare people. I told him absolutely not and he threw a minor fit. Sorry, but watching my husband get shot in the woods of Hocking Hills is not on my bucket list. Oh, you thought I was talking about our grandson? Nope. That was Spooner Senior, everybody. 

So we loaded up in the van. Ron, Caymen, Ace, Scarlet, me, and our oldest dog Quincy, the only one who can travel on trips and be trusted not to act a fool. I wish I could say the same for the humans.

Our first stop was lunch. Most of us wanted Mexican, but Ace hates cheese which apparently disqualifies all Mexican food so we ended up at The Hungry Buffalo. It has a pet friendly patio and the waitress brought Quincy a large bowl of water, which Ace promptly stepped in and immediately had to remove his wet sock and shoe to dry on a nearby railing, almost ruining the entire day for him. Then our nacho appetizer arrived with cheese and he went over the edge. Spooner Junior, everybody.

Next stop- our hotel, where a lady approached us in the lobby pointing at Ron and Ace's matching Bigfoot shirts and asked, "Why is this big monster thing so popular here?" Ron excitedly answered, "Because there's been SIGHTINGS!" Overhearing the conversation, the front desk lady quickly interjected before things escalated into who knows what, "Well, word of sightings happen anywhere there's heavily wooded areas..." and I finished her sentence, "or heavy populations of hillbillies." *points to the senior Spooner* 

Note to front desk lady- I'm normal. I married into this.

We found our room and within 90 seconds of entering, Ace pulled the refrigerator out of it's cabinet and Caymen came out of the bathroom proudly announcing she'd found a hair dryer hanging on the back of the door that "someone forgot." Orrr, and stick with me here, maybe that's the complimentary hair dryer that comes with the room. 

Good lord, what have we done?

Family meeting: "We've stayed in hotels before. Let's everybody get it together and stop sounding like a lunatic to strangers in the lobby while we're at it." *side eyeing you, senior.*

We decided it'd be best if Sassy everyone took a little nap before doing anything else. Ace looked at the 2 queen beds and asked "Where's Sassy sleeping?" 

"Excuse me, sir? Chuckles and I are sleeping in this bed. You're sleeping over there with Scarlet and Caymen."

Flash to 10 minutes later when I was laying with my head on the bedside table while both Spooners lay cuddled beside me in the bed. I lost that war hard and fast.

The festival didn't have anything fun for Scarlet, so she and I stayed at the hotel pool. There was nothing there to play with, so I gave her some pennies to dive for and she was amazed. Welcome to old school dive toys, kid. 

Apparently the festival was pretty boring and although they saw 'Wild Bill' from Mountain Monsters, "he was too hot and grumpy for pictures." I can only imagine how the two Spooners found that out. So they came back to the hotel and started watching the Bigfoot marathon on tv. There's a reason I never leave home without a book.

Around 5:30, Ron suggested we 'go on a hike through the Moonville Tunnel down near Bubbawoods Trail.' Everything about that suggestion was alarming. He explained that it used to be a train track but now it's a hiking trail that leads to an old school a mile down, then we'd turn around and come back. Sounded easy enough.

In reality, what we did was take 2 of our grandchildren on an unscheduled and unsupervised Sasquatch Hike (aka; Squatch and Seek...I wish I was making that up) in a sketchy area with no phone signal that turned out to be far longer than 'a mile down each way' because my husband lies to get his way. 

My first clue that we should leave was when there was what appeared to be a woman living in her car in the parking lot. The second clue was the 4 people walking toward us through the tunnel singing 'Take me home country roads,' a song I used to like until I heard it being sung Acapella through a tunnel by people who looked like the cast of Children of the Corn. I took my phone out and started recording so someone might find it as evidence if we disappeared. Not even kidding.

On top of all that, it was 6:45pm and trying to walk a mile each way with a slow mover (Ron, not the children), we'd be racing sunset. The last thing I wanted was to end up somewhere on this Moonville path in the dark and the flashlights we carried weren't nearly as comforting as Ron thought they were.

If this had been a movie, I would've been calling us idiots through the screen.

The tunnel singers turned out to be a harmless family who ended up wanting to take a picture with Ron and Ace and their Bigfoot shirts. The Spooners have obviously hit celebrity status. Once their fans left, we started on our way. 

As expected, Ace and I walked faster than Ron and the girls, so we ended up quite a ways ahead of them. I told Ace at first sign of that school, we're turning back. While we walked, Ace filled me in on the back story of the school. He explained that the old school burned down a long time ago and some children died and some children got out and they rebuilt a new one. (The following day, I confronted Ron about filling an 8 year olds head with tragic stories. He didn't know anything about a fire. Caymen googled it): 

Meanwhile, sitting on Chuckle's shoulders, Scarlet was having a nonstop conversation under her breath. When Ron finally said, "I can't understand what you're saying." 

She answered, "I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to my flashlight."

For future reference, it's not our place to take the grandchildren to places that could scare them and/or possess them. File this under things I shouldn't have to say.

Eventually giving up on finding the school, we turned and met back up with Ron and the girls. When you've walked so far you have to carry the dog, you know you've walked too far.

Ron and the girls were busy taking pictures of broken trees, because Bigfoot,

obviously. As we trucked along the ever-darkening path through the woods, Quincy darted after what I thought was a long black stick, but then it slithered across our path, and that's when I peed my pants. Like, abruptly. Straight down my leg. 

That's right, the adult in charge is the one who peed her pants. The irony is not lost on me, I assure you, and the Spooners will never let this go.  

Before anybody asks me why I didn't Kegel, let me remind you that A HUGE BLACK RAT SNAKE SLITHERED IN FRONT OF ACE, ME, AND QUINCY. There was ZERO Kegel time! Also, my Kegel game is weak, but mostly there was no time. 

It's not like my bladder completely emptied, so I real casual like dropped my shorts for a quick little Squatch and Pee, when I glanced up and found Ron taking pictures of me. Oh now dude walks fast and catches up. He said if the roles were reversed, I'd be taking pictures of him and I'd blog it. He's not wrong. So here I am forced to be on the receiving end of my own hilarity. 

He earned back some marital points when he stopped to carve our initials on a bridge and we made it back to our van right before we lost all daylight. The kids didn't seem too traumatized as they babbled on the whole ride back to the hotel about how Sassy peed her pants. 

I don't even care. Whatever stopped Ace from his telepathic history lessons and Scarlet conversing with inanimate objects was fine with me. Just add it to the list of things we'd have to explain to their parents.

The following morning, we got up early for the hotel breakfast before heading home. AGAINST MY WISHES, Ron brought Quincy with us to breakfast. I know better. I need you to understand that. So I wasn't at all surprised when he and Quincy both got kicked out of the breakfast area.

Ace wanted to bring his peanut butter bread with us to eat later, so I reluctantly asked the nice employee if he had a ziplock bag. I'm a huge stickler for buffet etiquette and you don't ask for take home bags. But you also don't bring your dog in there either, so may as well ask since we were already in the thick of it.

He very kindly brought me a gallon size bag, which was all he could find. Ron appeared back in the breakfast line, minus Quincy, and as I cleaned up our area, I noticed the breakfast line backing up at the pancake station and looked up to see both Spooners overly involved with the pancake conveyor belt. I'm not a fan of being a spectacle at hotel breakfasts, so I loud whispered "Ron!" They turned around with a plate overflowing with pancakes and I growled "Ronnn!"

As if it made it better, he hurriedly explained "Half of them are Ace's!"

Just as the employee began to approach us again, Ace grabbed a handful of pancakes off the plate and tried to force feed me one before dropping the rest of them into his 'to go' bag.

I waved off the employee. 

                                          We'll show ourselves out.

Our 4 little Bigfoots

On the 8th day, Sassy rested

 Let me tell you about my first week of August.

Ron was working in Mexico the first 3 days. I don't think I know any wife out there who loves it when her husband is away, but I definitely don't. Not only do I miss him terribly, but I'm not smart enough to be left alone for extended periods of time. It's ok, I know myself well enough to admit that. Logistically speaking, Ron runs this circus. When he travels, he's basically leaving the clown in charge of all the monkeys and I just hold my breath and hope nothing hits the fan while he's away. Thankfully we raised kids much smarter than me who live on standby when Ron travels.

On the 3rd day, two of our grandchildren arrived for an extended stay while their parents went on a little getaway. 

On the 4th day, we took them to The Big Foot Festival for an overnight stay in a hotel.

On the 5th day, after a day of boating, our other two grandchildren came home with us for a night swim and a Sassy slumber party with all four. 

On the 6th day, Chuckles (aka; Ron) took them all to church while I listened to online church and cleaned the house. I call that a mental health morning, cuz cleaning and restoring order calms my mind and soul. Is that all moms or just me? 

On the 7th day, I had my regular schedule of classes as well as all four grandchildren for our normal summer Monday.

I was blessed to be a stay at home mom with our four children and I'm blessed to be a stay at home Sassy for our four grandchildren...but I'm old now.

So on the 8th day, SASSY RESTED.

I've been planning it for weeks. I blocked out the entire day for my perfectly perfect day off. No classes, no writing, no cooking, no cleaning...nothing. I don't know how you spend your perfectly perfect day off, but let's just say I'm no Ferris Bueller. My goal is not to go do all the things. My goal is to stay at home and do nothinggggg.

Yesterday consisted of snacks, takeout, movies, sleep, no pants, and a bottomless margarita with Ron who scheduled the day off with me.

*Hangs sign*

Ron's a Ferris Bueller, so yesterday was not his dream day off. 

But he did it for me, because Big Foot Festival. 

I'll give ya two guesses whose idea that was.

Hint: Not mine.

Tune in next week when I'll be back to write the one where he dragged me to a big foot festival against my will.

The one where pedestrians shouldn't assume they have the right of way

Ron lives his life in what I lovingly angrily termed "Mozey Mode." Dude has absolutely no desire to move fast. Unless he's behind the wheel of a car, that is, and then suddenly he's a Nascar driver. 

For the record, I'm the exact opposite. I do everything else fast. Walking the beach- fast. Walking the block-fast. Walking through Walmart- wait, that's why I don't go to Walmart. But when I'm behind the wheel of a car, it's like my body has an inner cruise control censor that's always set at 5mph above whatever the posted speed limit is. Not that my ways are always the right ways, but in my 35 years of driving I've received a total of 2 speeding tickets, hit 0 deer, and hit exactly 0 pedestrians is all I'm sayin'.

As for him, I lost count of his speeding tickets and he's offed so many deer that I firmly believe he drives through fields instead of on the road. And then there's that 1 pesky pedestrian.

In theory, pedestrians have the right of way. We all know that. But pedestrians need to remember that they don't stand a chance against a mini van driven by a man bringing a pizza home for dinner. Deer should keep that in mind too.

For the sake of protecting everyone's identity, I won't pinpoint details on when or where this pedestrian incident took place, lest anyone start throwing around dramatic phrases like "hit and run." I wasn't there, but as Ron sees it, there was a hit and there was a run, but it's not what ya think. 

What you need to know is that he was driving through a small city as a parade was about to begin, when according to Ron, a guy carrying a lawn chair darted out in front of him, his body "made contact" with the hood of our van, but he stayed on his feet.

I'm not defending my husband or downplaying the pedestrian's traumatic experience, but Ron was slowly taking off after the light turned green, so anything resembling rolling across the hood seems a bit dramatic and I'm not overly impressed that he landed on his feet either. Dukes of Hazard guys did it under way worse conditions all the time. 

Ron braked and then he and the pedestrian had an angry stare down through the driver's side window, which reminds me of the time in Hilton Head when 16 year old Zac barelyyyy thunked a guy's back tire as he crossed the street on his bike. Zac gave him an 'oops' wave and mouthed the word 'sorry', as is customary when you hit a pedestrian, but that guy stared a super angry face through the window for awhile too. To be fair, I've never been hit by a car, so maybe that's like an unspoken rule or something. 

The main difference in the stories where the father and the son both hit pedestrians, is that Zac said he was sorry. Ron just quietly stared the fuming pedestrian down.

For being such a people pleaser, he doesn't seem to mind pissing people off when he's driving. You might recall  another time Ron made some people mad behind the wheel  the day we accidentally broke a series of laws out on the lake in our boat. 

But back to our parade pedestrian. Caymen was in the passenger seat holding the pizzas and she assures me that Ron was not being a distracted driver, neither by phone nor by pizza. According to her, the guy darted. Sometimes there's just no defense against darting. 

I asked her if he said anything at all to the guy and she answered, "Nope. They just stared at each other for a long time and then he flipped us off, called daddy an asshole, and punched our van. Then he picked up his lawn chair and ran off." 

Good lord. Surely this was witnessed by others at the parade, so I asked Ron if that would be considered a hit and run in the eyes of the law. He said, "It should be, but I let it slide."

Perspective is everything.

Pedestrian count: 2

The one where DIY minor surgery and motherhood don't mix

I'm a DIY'er. Not for the important stuff I already know I can't do. Like, purchase stuff online. Ron does that. If I need my hair braided through the back of my baseball cap, Caymen is the girl. Need a sign made? I call Barbara. Need a shirt designed? Aubrey. Need a video downloaded to YouTube? Call Zac or Kearstin. Or is it uploaded? I don't even know. What I'm trying to say is, I know my limits.    

But when it comes to anything involving the medical field, DIY remedies is my go-to. And if you're familiar with this blog at all, you know that 99% of the time, that goes terribly wrong.

Despite regularly seeing a primary care physician, a chiropractor and a gynecologist, when symptoms arise, the professionals never come to mind before my own ideas do. 

Dislocated rib? Ron probably did it, so he can probably put it back.

Ear pain? Sticking keys, bobby pins, and the shower head down there might jog somethin' loose.

Yeast infection? Google says yogurt.

I inevitably end up sitting (or laying splayed in stirrups) and getting lectured on the importance of not inserting foreign objects...or sugar based dairy products...into parts of my body where it doesn't belong. Ok, first of all, google told me to insert the yogurt and I only inserted half the container. Google also never once said not to use peaches 'n' cream flavor, so let's throw a little of this shade in their direction. But I digress.

For the most part, I limit my DIY experiments to my own care and I'm happy to report that 3 of our 4 children have successfully escaped  moved out of our home as healthy responsible human beings because that's what pediatricians are for. 

But a few months ago, our 4th child started to complain about a painful bump on the bottom of her heel so I asked Ron to make her a doctor's appt. What I meant by that, was to call her pediatrician. But what he did, was call a foot doctor.

Pause here for a second. I used to work for a foot doctor so no offense to the whole foot doctoring industry, but I know what they push...$500 shoe orthotics fix everything, in case you've never been to a foot doctor. 

Against my better judgement, I took her to the appointment where a cocky nurse took one look and predicted she knew the doctor would say it's a clogged sweat gland and that Caymen needed...*drum roll please*...orthotics. Wow. Orthotics. I didn't see that coming. 

Then she did x-rays, which seemed like an unnecessary step if you can already tell it's a clogged sweat gland, but I think we've established that I'm not a real doctor. When the actual doctor came in, she took one look at her foot and diagnosed her with a clogged sweat gland and strongly advised orthotics. It's almost like I've seen this scam before or something.

Then she shaved off the top layer of the bump, put some medicine and a bandaid on it, and told me to call and set up a time to get her casted for those orthotics.

I didn't call. I'm never gonna call. You're shocked. I know. 

Anyway, the bump was gone. But then it came back.

Having tried the whole "doctor" route, maybe I could give this a go. 

I asked Ron to get me the headlight he straps to his head that he keeps in the garage. 

I bet if he'd noticed my pile of tweezers, toenail clippers, a splinter picker, and my Dollar Shave Club razor in the living room, he would've asked more questions. Dude might wanna pay closer attention. 

Every evening for 2 weeks, I sat on the couch wearing a light on my head with Caymen's foot on a pillow in my lap and I did surgical procedures on the heel of her foot and then I started applying wart remover because maybe it's a wart and then towards the end, athlete's foot cream, because that angry looking red ring beginning to form around the area looks suspiciously like

ringworm to me. 

We ended up at the pediatrician's office yesterday morning, through no fault of my own.

She looked at Caymen's foot and, low key accusingly, asked if I'd been doing anything to it. I wan't gonna lie to her doctor so I casually described how I might've done a little scraping and some wart remover sometimes.

Then she said, "You were on the right track. It is a plantar wart." 

I snapped my fingers triumphantly and said, "I knew it."

She offered to freeze it off with liquid nitrogen and said that would hopefully take care of it. Then she looked at me and said, "If she notices it beginning to return, you can try using a clean fingernail file over the area and then put some wart remover and a bandaid on it."

I was so surprised by such a simple and genius idea, I looked at Caymen and said, "A fingernail file!"

The doctor looked at me questioningly and asked, "What were you using?"

...long silence while she waited me out...

"Razors. And other stuff."

Anyway. The bump is gone, Caymen is fine, and I've been instructed not to touch it.

Next she'll be telling me I can't purchase liquid nitrogen online. As if.

Next week we'll get back to Ron stories as originally planned before this minor bump debacle arose, which had very little to do with me anyway. 

Granted, I may or may not be reported to CPS, but Ron hits pedestrians with his car. He's obviously the bigger problem here. 

The one where they think I need anger management

I promised my husband that this week's entry would be about me, so here we are. Honestly, you can scroll through this blog and find plenty of stories starring dumb things I've done. (I linked a couple.) It's just that Ron provides the most material and that's all I'll say about that. 

I asked him which story he'd like for me to out myself about today and he started to give me some examples where I become "irrational" over something "stupid." I said "You're naming things that make me justifiably mad. They're not "stupid and I'm not being irrational." He replied, "I think our kids would disagree, not to mention all the Amish."

If he's referring to the weed wacker debacle, he caused that whole thing and it was a few wagons of families, not the Amish community at large. The Amish community at large doesn't wanna hang out with me for different reasons, totally unrelated. And if he's talking about that Amish waitress I had a run in with last Fall, she had it out for me for no reason at all, so we're just gonna leave the Amish completely out of this.

As for our kids, in the interest of fairness, I put out a question in our Close Courters family group chat that read: The answer is probably no, but for research purposes, does anything generally mundane make me irrationally angry?

One of my sons-in-law, who rarely responds to anything in our group chats, was the first to reply. Almost like he's been waiting his entire married life to my daughter for me to ask that question. 

He said, putting "gross" trash in the trashcan. 

That is an absolute no no here. Anything that aids in the collection, cleanup, and/or removal of anything involving bodily excrements cannot be thrown away inside. ie; diapers, wipes, toilet paper and/or paper towels that have come into contact with vomit, urine, and/or poop. So.help.me, if I catch a whiff of any such category wafting out of an indoor trash can, it fuels my hate fire. But that's not anger talking. That's my gag reflex. 

Kearstin replied next.

"Lee's Chicken!"

Before you think I have hostility toward a fast food chicken chain, you need to know that for whatever ungodly reason, my family went through a phase of breaking the silence by screaming "LEEEE'S CHICKENNNN!" for absolutely no other purpose than to watch me jump and threaten them with bodily harm. As an added bonus, she made a video montage of her scaring me, to keep for their endless entertainment. I keep it so the coroner will know why my heart mysteriously stopped. 

They all like to scare me. It's like their favorite pastime. You might recall the time I almost killed myself with cashews because Ron yelled "DEEEEP" at me. And they call me the crazy one. For the record, I'm also not a fan of riding along in the car reading a book and minding my business and suddenly hearing "SLUG BUG!" and "CRUISER BRUISER!" followed by a punch to the arm. I will meet violence with violence. Don't forget who started it.

So I'm still waiting for the part where I get "irrational" over something "stupid."

Then Ron says,

"What about the time you lost your mind and crushed our emergency alarm?"

Ok. Don't make it sound like I just snapped one day and started smashing our security equipment. I was provoked.

While the kids were all waiting for the bus, one of the preschoolers pushed the panic button on a security fob alarm that was hanging from our key hooks in the foyer. I awoke out of a dead sleep to a high pitched ear splitting siren piercing through my ears, brain, and soul and no amount of me pushing the buttons and screaming profanity would turn it off. This was serious.

I messaged a picture of it to my family asking anyone if they knew how to turn it off. 

When no one answered back right away, I took matters into my own hands, carried it into the garage, laid it on top of the chest freezer, and began pounding it with a rubber mallet until it flew off and landed behind the freezer. It was still ringing. I was still cussing and now also heavy breathing.

I climbed onto the deep freezer with a broom and knocked it out where I could reach it, took it outside in the rain, laid it in the wet grass and began beating it with a hammer until it buried itself deep into the ground. Still ringing. Still cussing, heavy breathing, and now soaking wet with rain.

I got a shovel, dug it back up, laid it on the concrete this time, and with just 4 violent swings of the hammer, I shut that thing up once and for all. No more ringing. No more cussing. Just me sitting outside in the rain in my pajamas, covered in mud, panting like a deranged serial killer. 

When I got back inside, I picked up my phone and saw that Kearstin had replied to my message with a labeled picture of a lanyard that she said should be hanging on the key hook near the fob. All I had to do was stick it into the hole to silence the alarm.

I slowly turned to look and right there hanging on the key hook was the lanyard.

I messaged everybody back: 

The good news is, I silenced the alarm.

The bad news is, the fob has been destroyed.

Obviously, I don't need anger management. 

What I need is for my family to stop trying to scare me to death and to answer my questions in a timely manner.

Click here for Kearstin's video if you'd like to see the evidence of the torment I endure. 

The one where we did undisclosed things in an undisclosed vacation house

When our family of 13 vacations together, everyone pitches in to rent a big house for all of us to stay. We love finding ones with an elevator or an indoor pool or anything else that's super cool for the grand babies to experience and we're always mindful that this is someone else's home, therefore we treat everything in it even more respectfully than we treat our own and aim to leave it even better than the condition we found it in.

That being said, we're also human, we frequently travel with dogs, and we're...well, us, so we always get whatever insurance coverage the rental company offers. 

We're all pitching in on these houses, so I never ask or expect to get the "master" bedroom. What I do request, is that we stay in whatever bedroom is on the main floor with the kitchen since I'm the early-rising-coffee-drinking-breakfast-maker and I don't want to risk disturbing anyone else in the house.

So one undisclosed year at an undisclosed location, we got an amazing deal on an enormous undisclosed house right on the beach. It was 3 floors high, with the main floor being at the top, and it had an elevator, a theater room, and it's own pool.

Right off the bat, we found the broken elevator. 

Not ideal, but oh well. I got busy trucking our stuff up the stairs to the top floor.

My first trip up all the flights of stairs, I was met with the overpowering aroma of alcohol. The drinking kind. When I got to the top, I found 3 of our undisclosed kids picking up glass and sopping up an entire bottle of wine all over the floor. We've been here 5 minutes, but okay then.

My second trip loaded down with food and luggage up all the flights of stairs, I realized I hadn't seen Ron on either trip up and/or down these stairs. Hot and mad, I went looking for him in our bathroom, because heaven forbid the dude not poop every time he drives or walks from here to there and it annoys the freakin' crap out of me, no pun intended. Apparently it's a man thing, but seriously. No one can possibly have that much poop. I refuse to believe it.

I was fully expecting to open that door and find him sitting there on his phone, but instead I found him standing naked from the waist down with his head sticking out of the window overlooking the front of the house.

What.The.Hellll have I walked in on.

He jerked his head back inside and whispered "The bag is on the roof."

Dude. You're half naked and saying that to me as if it explains absolutely anything. 

Here's the cliff notes version:

He pooped without checking for toilet paper first.

He yelled to the undisclosed children cleaning up wine in the kitchen and they brought him a roll of paper towels. 

He wiped with paper towels. 

Unable to flush paper towels, he put them in the little pink trash bag in the can beside the toilet. 

As if alll of that were not enough, here is where the story actually takes the truly baffling turn. 

Rather than walking the bag downstairs fully clothed and quietly disposing of it in the trashcan at the end of the driveway, he decided the better option was to strip naked from the waist down and throw it out the window with the goal being...what. 

What.exactly.was.the.goal? To watch it drop 3 stories before landing at the feet of our children as they unloaded their cars below and then hope they didn't get curious and tear open the pretty pink gift bag that just fell from the sky? Or was hiding it on the roof of our luxury vacation rental the true end game? 

I gotta be honest with ya. If a bag of poopy paper towels is unavoidable, keeping my pants on and carrying it down 3 flights of stairs is the only option that would've crossed my mind. But hey. Maybe that's just me.

When asked why he didn't do that (Caymen literally asked him last night) he replied "I didn't want to draw attention and face all the questions." 

Well then. Good thing that didn't happen.

As it turned out, the broken elevator that never did get fixed while we were there wasn't the only issue with that house. 

The following day, 2 of our undisclosed kids walked in on us at 2am. (Read between the lines or better yet, don't.)

They said "It's raining downstairs."

Well that's a weird thing to say.

We all went downstairs to discover that when an undisclosed person staying in a second floor room takes a bath, it rains down through the light fixtures over the theater room. 

Also a sliding door wasn't installed properly and an undisclosed person knocked it off it's track and it fell onto the pool table. While we're at it, one of the dogs had diarrhea on the top deck.

We called a little family meeting. 

We've clearly stumbled into The Money Pit house, our trip insurance covers 2,500 dollars, and it's only Sunday. So we're gonna need to slow it down and get our shit together.

Lookin' at you Ron and Rufus. 

We all gonna start knockin' on bedroom doors first too, k?

The one where Barbara didn't understand the assignment

I love Zac's wife as if she were my own daughter and just like with Aubrey, Kearstin, and Caymen, I count Barbara as one of my very best girl friends. She's the whole package- smart, artistic, beautiful, kind hearted...and also slightly ruthless competitive.

Sometimes Barbara takes her slightly competitive side to the next level and occasionallyyyy gets a little...(whispers) mean.

On the boat over Memorial Day weekend, she and I played a guessing game of 'name that song' that ended after the first round with me telling her I pretty please don't want to play anymore.

Fast forward to 4 days ago when that song started playing on the boat, I interrupted a conversation and started telling Ron to "Turn it off, turn that song off, TURN THAT SONG OFF!" None of us understood why until I remembered that was the song I couldn't guess the title of and now I apparently have ptsd triggered by the worship song 'Forever Glorified'...

*Flashback to Barbara's clues- "NO! Shorten it. SHORTEN IT!! I.SAID.SHORTEN IT!!!"

WAIT! It's just Forever! I meant to say Forever! It's NOT Forever Glorified! I'm Sorry! 

Other than that, she's like the nicest person you'll ever meet. Also an amazing softball player, which combined with her mean er, competitive streak, makes her a force to be reckoned with on the field. 

Whether she's playing in a competitive women's league or the co-ed church league is irrelevant. She's wearing scary looking black teeth guards and she's out there to play hard and get dirty. Fun is secondary.

So our church softball team was asked to play a "fun" game against a special needs team last year...

You see where this is headed, right?

Going into it, there was an unspoken understanding that the special needs team would win.

I'm giving Barbara the benefit of the doubt that this understanding was never spoken out loud, although everyone on our team had been instructed to hit with their opposite hands so I feel like that was a clue. 

Long story short, the majority of our team "bobbled" catches, "missed" grounders, and "struck out"...while Barbara played the best game of her life.

At one point our Pastor leaned over to me and whispered, "Did Barbara understand the assignment?"

Listen. It just so happens she makes an amazing switch hitter and she can't be faulted for that...although gunning down the 40 year old man who hit off a tee and chasing and tagging the girl on the scooter as she rounded second might've been slightly over the top.

To my surprise, they were asked to play that team again this year and it's tonight. I asked her what her plan was for the game and she answered, "I plan on trying to hit to all parts of the field."

Oh boy. I hope she's not referring to all the parts that are over the fence.