What teachers say when they can't say what they want to say . . .

Out here in farm land there is a lingo that teachers have, one that I was not aware of until recently.  Today, as I sat in the teachers lounge drinking stale coffee that I don’t even like anyway, just trying to get away from some kid named Tyler who was intent on telling me his life story in five minute chunks between all of my classes, (I swear if I had to hear about his cross eyed cousin or his ninety-four bunnies anymore I was going to strangle him).  I came upon a non-descript leather bound book, a tomb really, for no other reason then the fact the word tomb is kind of cool.  There was no title, and it had definitely been leafed through quite a bit as the leather was worn, and the clasp, like one you would find on a diary, was broken.  Well, I opened it, and inside I was introduced to THE RURAL TEACHERS GUIDE TO WHAT YOU SAY WHEN YOU CAN’T SAY WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY.  And while I might be hung by my big toes if word gets out that I am doing this, it was just too good to keep to myself,

So,

Monday Night at the Farm presents:

The Indiana Students guide to what a teacher says, and what he/she really means.

The teacher says:

Okay it’s time for silent reading.

The teacher really means:

I went to the bar last night and had fourteen shots of Tequila with some guy named Bubba who owns an El Camino, if I hear so much as a whisper I’m going to hurl all over my desk.

The teacher says:

Chad, please sit down at your desk.

The teacher really means:

You smell really, really bad, have you ever heard of deodorant, go away and I’ll buy you a bar of soap for Christmas.

The teacher says:

Zack, you better keep your homework from your dog from now on.

The teacher really means:

Stop eating paper

The teacher says:

Open your books to page 263

The teacher really means:

I’m going to give you a really boring, busy work assignment because I don’t feel like teaching today.

The teacher says:

I have to go make some more copies, everyone sit quietly.

The teacher really means:

I know you are going to go nuts and throw things, but I don’t care because me and (The teacher next door, the janitor, the secretary) are going to go make out in the copy room.

The teacher says:

I have to go make some more copies, everyone sit quietly.

The teacher really means:

I don’t care what you do because I ate a bad raccoon last night and if I don’t go to the bathroom right now . . .

The teacher says:

I’m leaving for a minute but I told Mr. Pembergast next door to listen to you, so you better stay quiet.

The teacher really means:

I’m making an empty threat with the hope that you might fall for it and actually stay in the room.

The teacher says:

Okay kids it’s time for recess.

The teacher really means:

You are way too hyper to teacher and I don’t feel like trying anyway.

The teacher says:

Okay kids it’s time for recess.

The teacher really means:

I hope that you all get lost in the woods.

The teacher says:

Sit down and shut up

The teacher really means:

Sit down and shut up

My favorite part of that whole thing, Mr. Perbergast, I wish I knew a Mr. Pembergast, what a great name.

My favorite new annoying teacher trick:  Answer every question with another question, even really silly ones that would be easier just to answer.

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

“I don’t know can you?”

“What’s your first name?”

“What is the square root of 284?”

“What page are we on?”

“Do I look like a clown?”

“Do you own Applebee’s?”

“If I owed a successful restaurant chain would I be a substitute teacher?”

or (Pointing to  my name on the board) “Is that how they spell Applebee’s”

or “Do you own Applebee’s?”

etc.

This week’s best way to make it seem you don’t live alone on a small farm in rural Indiana:  Buy Bulk.  Of course even this can backfire.

I went to Meijers today to get some more dog food and macaroni and cheese, and ended up spending 73 dollars on bulk super deals.  When I left I ran into a friend who knows that I live alone.  He saw that I had twenty-four rolls of toilet paper, 85 plastic garbage bags, concentrated tang powder enough to make 36 gallons, and twelve rolls of double thick paper towels.  It took me fifteen minutes to convince him I wasn’t running some sort of terrorist training camp.  I guess it doesn’t help that I’ve been making a lot of running trails in my woods . . .

My favorite stupid commercial is the Reisen ad, it’s like a bad Mentos commercial, or a worse Mentos commercial, lets put it this way, it’s the worst Mentos commercial. 

A guy approaches these three young men leaving a movie or something, and offers them a Reisen.  Then, like they are totally making it up, one guy says, “Umm, chocolaty,” another over chewing, “great chew,” and the third, “but not too sweet.”  Yeah that’s believable.  I think that ad should be more like Dudley Moore would make it.  “Reisen, not just your grandpas hardass, nasty candy anymore.”  

Monday Night Goes to Mexico

Recently I went on a trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  And while the sun was nice and the pool cool, and the drinks . . . alcoholic, it was the little things that I began to miss about my life here in alfalfa country.  So, with apologies to Quentin Tarrentino, more for his giant forehead and annoying voice then the fact I’m stealing his bit,

Monday Night at the Farm presents “it’s the little things.”

-Okay, so tell me again about the new flying rules.

Okay what you want to know?

-Toenail clippers are legal right?

They’re legal, but they’re not a hundred percent legal.  You can’t just walk into an airport pull them out and start trimming away.  Airports want you to trim in your home or put them in certain designated places.

-And that would be your checked luggage?

Right, see it breaks down like this; there are a lot of things you can’t carry onto a plane now.  Take batteries, it’s legal to buy them, it’s legal to own them, and if you are the proprietor of an airport souvenir shop, it’s legal to sell them, but, but check this out, if you have extra batteries it’s illegal for you to put them in your carry on luggage.  I mean that’s a right in the airport you don’t have.

-Oh man, I don ‘t want to go, that’s all there is to it.

I know you’d hate it the most.  But you know the funniest thing about Mexico?

-What?

The little differences.  I mean they’ve got the same stuff over there as we have over here, but there, it’s just a little different.

-Example.

Okay you can walk into a shoe shop in Mexico and ask for a big shoe, and I’m not talking about a size fourteen, I’m talking about an eleven and a half, and you know what?  They’ll just tilt their heads in wonder.  And you can walk around for an hour and you won’t see anyone over five foot six.   Do you know what they call Diet Coke in Mexico?

-They don’t call it a Diet Coke?

No man they all weigh like a hundred pounds they don’t what the hell a diet is. 

-What do they call it?

They call it a Coke light.

-A Coke Light.  What do they call a regular Coke?

Regular Coke is regular Coke except over there they have Coke Max too.

-Coke Max, huh, heh, heh, heh, heh.  What do they call a Pepsi?

I don’t know, I don’t drink crap.  (Of course here in Indiana anything made by Coke is called woman juice, as in “Hey Bubba, you having a Bud, or do you want some more of that woman juice?)

(Another thing I’ve noticed: you know how when you are in the U.S. and they say something in English and then in Spanish, well in Mexico it’s the other way around, like it should be right?  Well what I’ve noticed is that when you get the information second it’s just a little too late.  Like on the plane, the pilot starts talking and all the Mexicans start buckling up, then he finishes and right before he starts into the English the plane starts bumping all over the place, too late he tells us in English to expect a little turbulence.)

Things I’ve found in teachers classrooms:

I’m not sure if it is just the fact that I am teaching in some really backwoods areas or if all teachers just need there own release from the hard rigors of stupid mean spirited brats, er I mean our nations future, but I have found some weird stuff in some teacher’s classrooms.

The Sixty-five year old music teacher with a signed Brett Favre life sized stand up cardboard cutout.

A Middle school science teacher with the whole South Park action figure set and a bumper sticker in his coat cabinet with Cartman saying something about feeding hungry Ethernopians.

An English teacher with word of the day toilet paper on her desk, used, I hope, for tissue.

An Art teacher with a Wok, a blender, two of those all day cooking pots whose name has completely escaped me, and a toaster.  I’m sure there is some sort of explanation for that.

A first grade teacher with one of those electric shock collars, I’m sure she was only tempted to use it on her children.   I know I was.

And, with all of her math books, a eighth grade Algebra teacher with an almost complete collection of Adam Sandler movies.  I was disappointed when I did not see Billy Madison.  When does an Algebra teacher have time in class to watch Happy Gilmore and the Wedding Singer?

This week’s late night TV invention:

Click and stick, the one-handed tape dispenser. Saves whole seconds.  Watch the professional wrapper wrap this package without any help at all.  Plus it’s not dangerous like the tape dispensers we all have in our homes today; did you know they were sharp enough to pop a balloon?  And if you order now you can also get fancy designer tape, (red metallic and gold metallic) for a professional look.  (I wonder if I would be allowed to bring scotch tape onto a plane.)

Funniest thing I saw today:

My dog throwing up.  But not just throwing up, not just blowing chunks, or hurling or spewing, it was like throwing chunks of spew.  Now, while I probably should have felt bad, or worried, or even upset as half digested bits of High Protein Lamb and rice formula splattered against my windows, watching his whole body lunge forward and seeing that much food come out of that small of a body, just put a smile on my face.  You know like seeing a midget, or the blank look on a hicks face when you ask for something other than Bud, or Bud Light, or watching people slip on the same patch of ice over and over while you sit inside your favorite bar, cozy and warm, drinking beer with your friends.  Aww I miss the Good Times.

Why My Job is Better than Yours

Maybe I just want to believe that what I am doing is worthwhile.  Maybe I look at my friends with their real jobs and their big paychecks and their car insurance (which of course would allow them to fix their new lease cars if they were to say, I don’t know, drive into something large and furry and that rhymes with my favorite beverage.)  Or maybe I really am having the time of my life substitute teaching in rural Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.  Anyway you look at it, I’m still going to write about why my job is better than yours.  Without further ado . . .

Monday Night at the Farm Presents:

Top Five reasons why subbing is better than actually having a real job.

Number 5:  Remember when you were young and you would see snow on the ground when you woke up and you would hope and pray that the busses wouldn’t be able to run, and that it would be declared a snow day.  Or your parents wouldn’t wake you up and you would get to sleep in.  It would be your chance to watch Bob Barker go gray gracefully on “Price is Right”, or catch up on reruns of “Three’s Company”.  Well substitute teaching is a lot like that.  You see, I get called in the morning, that is my alarm, and every once in a while they just don’t need me, and it’s my own little snow day in the middle of October.  Oh yeah and I still get all of those holiday’s off, you know, the ones we’re always griping about because the post office is closed, and just the other day we had a half day.  Remember half days?  And for absolutely no reason what so ever.

Number 4:  Recess:  How many lawyers do you know that get to go outside for thirty minutes and play four square?  When you sub you get to go out for recess and leave all of the paper work for the real teachers.  The other day I went outside with my third graders and actually played red rover.  A game I haven’t played since the accident at Pierce school in October of 1989.  It all stared when the girls asked Ben Cunningham the come on over, Ben bent at the waist and sprinted screaming.  Sloan Dewese and Lisa Mark both panicked and simply let go of each other’s hands.  Ben feeling no contact kept running until he slammed into the wall with his head.  Lisa started to hyperventilate and nearly passed out, Ben started bleeding from the head, Kevin Carlson said something mean and Sloan slapped me across the face because I laughed.  In this particular game, I was not called over.

Number 3:  Never really in the same place twice.  Why is that good you ask?

No real boss:  I have a new principal everyday, and I haven’t even met them all.  I talk to the secretary for, like, ten minutes, and then I’m the boss for the rest of the day.  What I say goes.  I have all the power.  I am GOD.  Err, but I certainly wouldn’t let it go to my head.

No grades:  As far as I’m concerned these kids all get A’s, I don’t have to destroy poor Jimmy just because he can’t figure out what comes after the letter ‘a’ or thinks 2+2 = giraffe.

My name is always a kick.  I always seem to be either Mr. Applebee’s (plural and all) or Mr. Bee, or in some cases Mr. Dog, Hey Dude, and Teacher Guy.  Yes, I really demand the respect of my students.

I get to break all of the little school rules I always thought were dumb.  I had my kids watching T.V. while sitting by whom ever they wanted, eating candy.  That’ll teach Mrs. Crispen to leave me lesson plans next time.

What could possibly be the downside to this?  Well a while back I had first graders.  And I don’t know if you all know this, but first grade girls look a lot like first grade boys, and really vice versa.  So when they have names like Jesse and Pat and Sam and well actually I was sure Abbi was a boy with really cruel parents, you just have to guess.  Unfortunately, there was that time I guessed wrong, and called Jesse a boy.  To make it worse the whole class heard and everyone said, “But Jesse is a girl.”  Right.  So what do you say to that?

Number 2: Not retail:  Really that’s all I have to say about that.

And the number 1 reason:  Retirement account:  That’s right, even though I don’t have a real job; I still have real retirement benefits.  Of course I don’t make enough money for it to ever help me but back off.

The depressing part is that when they asked me who I wanted as my primary benefactor I couldn’t think of a single person who was making less money than me where my retirement benefits would actually help in the case of my untimely demise.  I really didn’t want to be that guy.

Worst Monday Night Football commercial: Butlers perform stomp with Rubbermaid step stools.  Amazingly it was still more exciting than the first quarter of the game. 

I haven’t been sleeping very well lately because Cane has now taken to snoring barking and whining in his sleep, apparently he’s having a rash of bad dreams, so not only am I utterly alone in life, I’m still getting all the negatives of living with a snorer.  The worst part is that I really want to know what he’s dreaming about, but of course I can never find out, you know because he’s a dog and all, and everybody knows that dogs never remember their dreams.  (Is snorer a word, and if not how do you say ‘one who snores’?)

Yeah so I got to be Mr. Fireman Charlie Guy, well more like Mr. Probee Fireman Charlie, when my dog treed a cat.  While I was proud of the dog, I actually felt a little bad for the cat, it was all up in the tree and scared and drooling.  So I brought my dog in so he could leave.  But then like four hours later I looked outside and the cat was still in the tree.  So I got the ladder and climbed up there and got him out.  Sure he hissed and tried to hold on to the tree and then ran away without thanking me or anything, but I know inside of him somewhere he’s just a little grateful. 

Little known fact:  A ladybug frying on a halogen lamp smells like peanut butter.

This weeks strangest late night invention: It’s a tie between the Patriotic Postman, a mailbox that has a spring loaded flag telling you that the mail is there, and the Can Around, a device you put in your refrigerator to organize pop cans.  The thought that someone might actually make money on these ridiculous ideas is almost depressing as the fact that at two in the morning while alone on a sixty acre farm in the middle of freaking nowhere, they still sounded really, really good.

See you next week.  Where Monday Night will talk about the perfect family Thanksgiving dinner, and then explains why mine wasn’t anything like that.

Vets and Cops and Power Outages

I was going to write about my trip to the vet where my dog freaked out had to be muzzled then broke a thermometer off in his, err, you know, then had to be tranquilized to the point of hilarity.

I was even going to write about the last Wednesday, when as I was getting ready for bed I heard a knocking, a gentle tapping at my front door.  Thinking my watchdog would bark if someone were there I just let it go as the wind.  Then I heard louder tapping, insistent tapping.  I got out of bed, put on my slippers, but didn’t bother with my glasses.  So I had to put my face right up against the glass of the front door, and who is standing there?  Deputy Fife of the Angola police department, 911-response unit.  Cops.  At my door?  Crap.

            I pointed him around to the side door, the one that actually works, and there is his friend with a flashlight the size of telephone pole shining into my eyes.  You know even though I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong I still felt guilty as hell, and I was scared.  Barney and his buddy Andy let me know that there had been a call from the old lady who lives here that a young prowler was seen in her garage.  Whelp, I explained I don’t have an old lady living here, just me and my vicious attack dog, currently smelling your crotch and humping your leg. 

Now if I were them, I would have asked for ID, looked a little in the house, as I invited them in, maybe looked into my story a little before saying, oops I’m sorry must have the wrong place.  There is our police force working hard to keep me safe.  Turns out the old lady who we bought the farm from seven years ago called in and either gave this address in her senility, or this address was in the 911 computers under her name.  Either way, I think if I were a cop I would have been a little more suspicious.  Not that I really wanted to go to jail or anything. 

I was going to write about that, but then my power went out, and stayed out for a very, very long time, and I decided to write about how much that sucked instead.  Except now I’ve already written about the cops at my door, and so this is just going to get really long as I write about both.

Monday night Presents:

My random notes while stuck in a cold house for three days without power,

Apparently it was the biggest ice storm in Stupid County’s history and at 7:00 a.m. Thursday morning, my power went out, flickered back on, out, on again, then out cold.  Did I say cold?

Thursday night

Powerless in the middle of an ice storm, wind howling, tree branches falling, thudding, knocking on the side of the house, scratching the windows, the draft in the room swirling, making the candle light move, forcing the shadows on the walls to dance.  And there I am freezing my butt off staring at a blank television in the dark wondering if it’s time to go to bed yet.  I glance at my watch; it’s 7:38 p.m., it’s going to be a long night.

Isn’t it ironic that in a power outage the one room that you don’t mind being freezing cold, the kitchen, for all of your food is slowly melting and your butter is soon going to taste like sour cream, it’s also the only room, if you have gas appliances that you can get warm, by lighting the pilot light and turning on the oven.  You just can’t win.  Wait, is that ironic, or just unfortunate?

Most embarrassing, yet quick thinking, and resourceful thing that I did:  I actually stole water from my dog’s dish so that I could make my pork chops.  I can’t explain the dish but it’s not quite as gross as it sounds.

Worst mistake I made.  Trying to invent a new salad.  Heard of the Chicken Caesar?  How about the Pork Chop Iceberg with ranch.  NO?  Didn’t think so.  The other white meat doesn’t go with the other leaf lettuce and the other dressing.  Maybe if I added anchovies . . .

Early Friday morning, house as cold as Hilary Clinton I suddenly remembered that I had a freezer full of ice.  Now, what do you do?  What do you do?  The ice is melting all over the inside of your freezer, yet at the same time, maintaining a much colder temperature because of it.  I got a bowl poured all of the ice in it and stuck it back in the freezer.  And now I have frozen chicken potpies to thank me, and whatever chicken lips are, I think they have been there since we moved in.

Good things about not having power:

Without power there is no water, so no dishes.

A lot of time to read

A lot of time to think

Affords you the chance to have an extremely romantic candle lit dinner, in my case it was a pork and iceberg salad with ranch cooked in dog water, alone.  Not quite ideal.

A lot of time to write

A lot of time to light fifty candles and sacrifice the neighbor’s sheep.

Who the hell am I kidding, it’s a perfect excuse to get blitzed, you only think you’re warm, but knowing is only half the battle, and after half the bottle, you don’t know anymore either.

I don’t know which is worse, seeing your breath in your own house, or it being too dark in your house to see your breath.

It’s amazing how many times I turned on light switches out of habit.  It’s also a little funny that I kept putting things back in the fridge when it eventually became colder outside of it.

Best part about losing power.  The feeling of happiness when you get it back.  Ahh, heat, now turn it down dammit, you think that pays for itself? 

Fact the beer companies don’t want you to know.  All beer is cold filtered it’s just a way of getting around having to pasteurize it.

Man of the Week:  Nisser, inventor of the trampoline.  Came up with the idea watching a bad circus.  The high wire act kept falling into the net.  Got to love a man who takes a bad and turns into my favorite drunken activity.

My biggest problem with NASCAR (There are so many):  In the commercials they show a lot of accidents, granted the only thing worth watching when it comes to NASCAR.  What’s the problem?  In order to get people to watch this pastime, that has been deemed a sport by the same idiot that thinks A Field of Dreams is the thrilling sequel to A Catcher in the Rye, they have to show what goes wrong.  Do they show a foul ball in baseball to get you to watch it, or the ref throwing a flag in an NFL game?  No.  This driving cars around in a circle is so dumb that the only thing people watch it for is to see them screw up.  “Wow man did you see Tiger Woods hit that ball into the ocean?  Wild.”

Thing I feel guilty about today:  I overheard one of the teachers talking about her grandfather, and how he was really sick and probably not going to make it much longer.  And while it was only a momentary start, a mere blink of the brain, I still thought, if even for a micro-second, should I go into the office and tell the principal that I’m free to cover her classes if she has to be gone for a while.  I’m like the back up quarterback, who doesn’t really wish for the starter to get hurt, but really, when it comes right down to it, well, he really does.

Quote of the week:  The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the past.

-       Bill Waterson, Calvin and Hobbes

Getting a dog

It started simple enough.  I wanted a dog.  My parents got me one.  I promptly went to college and left a half trained demon for them.  They constantly told her that I abandoned her, they fed her at the table, took her for long walks in the woods.  I came home very infrequently and when I did I ignored her.  She continued to love me best anyway.  My brother tortured her by teaching her the word squirt, and then giving it no significance, by making her do tricks for a single grain of rice, by knocking on the wall and saying “Come in,” until she ran to the door in a frenzy, barking.  She gained thirty pounds.  She stopped running and jumping and . . . moving, really at all.  She was dubbed Mongo the special dog, I believed she really didn’t know any better.  I decided it was time for me to move on, to get my own dog, and so I did, a Coon Hound named Raisin Cain, a perfect dog for a farm . . . or so I thought.

And so . . .

MONDAY NIGHT AT THE FARM PRESENTS:

A day in the life of Cain the American Black and Tan Coon Hound

5:00 a.m. I get up, not because I want to, but because I have to go to school, Cain eats his breakfast then gets into my bed and falls asleep.  I couldn’t be more jealous.

6:10 a.m.  I leave.  Unbeknownst to me but knownst to anyone who has a puppy that has never been left alone before, Cain goes completely mentally insane.

6:11 a.m. He runs around the house jumping on every windowsill howling and crying

6:15 a.m. He accidentally knocks over a ten-gallon water jug that dispenses water into his bowl; the kitchen is flooded.

6:17 a.m.  I like to think that the reason he knocked over the trash can and pulled out and shredded all of the paper towels was to somehow mop up the mess in the kitchen, my mother thinks it was because he was pissed off and hungry and the turkey pot pie I could only eat half of, mostly because it was turkey pot pie, not because I wasn’t hungry, smelled really, really good.

6:25 a.m.  He starts to jump on doors to see what might open, maybe to get out, or to find me, or to run away, I don’t know.  He pushes open the bathroom door.  He finds and chews up, spreads out, and unrolls 15 rolls of toilet paper throughout the house in a sort of Halloween/ Devils night, vandalization effort.  Luckily he can’t figure out how to open the fridge to get the eggs.

6:45 a.m. He finds a bag of Halloween candy, and eats the entire bag that it is in, leaving every single piece of candy intact, if not a little slobbery.  What can you say, he doesn’t like Runts and Gobstoppers.

6:55 a.m. checks all of the pockets in the jackets hanging in the front room, by systematically ripping them off of their hooks and dragging them through the flooded kitchen.

7:05 a.m. Stilled pissed off, he decides to really get me back for leaving by marking the couch as his own.  He lifts his leg; a new puddle is born on my moms Sea Grass rug.

7:15 a.m. as a big screw you for leaving a dog bed out on the living room floor, he picks it up, and drags it upside down onto our leather couch, where he falls asleep, too tired to chew on the bone or ball or Frisbee or stuffed gorilla that I left out for him to play with.

12:25 p.m. I come into the house, my feet get wet, the toilet paper is everywhere and my dog is asleep on the couch underneath his dog bed.  Not the best lunch I’ve ever had.

Funny thing happened to me the other weekend.  I left to go to up north to visit my grandmother, and my parents came down to the farm to move furniture and apparently to see how many dirty dishes they can fit into the washer without actually washing them.  I got home rather late, picked my dog up at my uncles and in the darkness, which is beyond explanation at the farm; I pulled out my key to undo the padlock on the door (don’t ask).  Funny thing is, they didn’t use the pad lock we all use for the door; they accidentally used a totally different pad lock, one that not I, nor anyone else, actually has a key for.  So there I am, in the middle of the night, pitch dark, trying to break into my own home with a screwdriver and a paperclip.  Lucky I live in the total boondocks or somebody might have gotten suspicious, actually maybe that’s not so lucky after all.  It turns out it was just a little too easy.

Speaking of people breaking into my house and killing me in my sleep.  I am thinking about writing the cable company to complain.  Every time I turn on the TV it’s another scary movie, and you know I’m going to sit there and watch Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween and Texas Chainsaw massacre and Porky’s Revenge (okay maybe that last one isn’t that scary) and I live alone in the country where children are of the corn.  Children already are of the corn out here; I don’t need Hollywood making it worse.  And I think my house has it out for me, making all kinds of eerie sounds just to hear me jump.  It’s not funny okay house, it’s just not funny.  Great now I’m talking to the house.  I need a friend.

On the bright side, I’m not really going to have many trick or treaters out here, so all the candy is for me, maybe three bags were too much.  (Is treaters a word?)

How to talk hick

Some Random thoughts on:

Monday Night at the Farm

Here in Indiana it is impossible to make yourself understood unless you know the lingo, (it’s a lot like Ebonics for hicks,) basically any word can be a verb, say that you are looking for something, like a watch, a dog, or a gun, then you are watching, dogging, and gunning, though I believe they must be spelled without the final ‘g’.  People actually look at me weird when I don’t put the letter ‘r’ in the word wash.  “No I am not doing the warsh, I’m doing the wash, I said the wash . . . wash . . . w-a-s-h.   Fine I’m doing the laundry, happy?”  If I hear that one more person ‘seen’ it, I’m going to flip out.  Do they not teach the past tense in this state?

Why is it that everyone on Friends grew up in New York but has a Midwestern accent? 

Note: By the way, I looked it up, and welp is not a word.

I don’t know if it’s just me, or if people down here really are that lazy, but no one really named any roads down here.  Either they are named after the two towns they go between, Ray-Clear Lake, Ray-Quincy, Coldwater-Quincy, or they are just numbered.  For instance my street address is 4145 N 775 E.  That’s not a road it’s a GPS coordinate.  Is it so hard to come up with something like Elk, or Maple, or Franklin, or Dead Deer Pass?

I’m only upset because I actually got my own street address wrong.  I mean the first thing you teach your kids when they leave the house is how to get back, their address and phone number.  I’m twenty-two and I was telling people the wrong address.

It’s not good enough to shoot and kill deer, but you must first get up stupidly early, then you have to sit out in the cold silently and wait for them to come to you.  There is no sport to it, it’s just sitting there with a gun and a beer and trying not to shoot your friend.  So why is it they have so many damn magazines?  

I went to urgent care the other day and while I waited in the little room I decided to read a magazine, I thought I might grab a sports illustrated or something, oh no, my only options were Bow Hunting Quarterly, Outdoor Sportsman, Coon Hound Fancy, and a local publication, a three page commentary on Shotguns vs. Rifles in non-tree stand hunting.

Maybe it’s just me, or maybe it’s because up until recently I have not had TV, and now that I do I find myself watching the commercials that have the newest time saving product or CD for sale.  Actually it seems like there are a lot of strange CDs for sale, like the greatest country ballads, or accordion rock, or songs of the chef.  Is it just me, or at three in the morning do those CDs sound damn good, so good that I find myself trying to remember the number so I can call and order them.  Is it just me?  I mean do you find yourself strangely drawn to the shoe that converts into an inline skate?  The paint roller that edges perfectly?  How do they make these crappy products sound so appealing?  I know, I know, It’s just me.

New favorite expression:  That really chaps my ass.

For the vegetarian out there . . . some things that has cow in it that you would never suspect:

Yogurt thickener . . . mmmm, I knew I liked yogurt.

Brake fluid, hood ornaments, emery boards, marshmallows, margarine, and mayonnaise.

The children here are still just like those of any place, except there random facts are a little stranger, in the city you might hear something like, “Did you know that the average life span for a left handed male is 62 years-old?”  To that you can answer, no Timmy, I didn’t know that, but that still doesn’t mean that you can skip out of class and go play Final Fantasy 43.  Here you hear things like, “Did you know a mule is a cross between a donkey and a horse and that they are sterile?”  Or like I had today “Did you know that a cow has two hearts and the first one can’t fart, so if a cow eats really gassy food it’ll explode?”  What the hell do you say to that?

By the way.

Dallas won the game nine to seven; luckily I woke up after sleeping through the third and fourth quarters to see the game winning field goal with zero seconds to go.  That is just great, now even one of those crap ass teams is better than Detroit.  Go Redwings.

Trying to get a pizza in rural Indiana

I bring you a tale of a young man, wise, learned, and . . . and . . . and he knows stuff, who set off on a mighty quest (well he left college and moved two hours away on to his parent’s farm).  But on that sixty-acre piece of land he encountered many trials (can one man actually eat an entire bag of Totino’s pizza rolls without blowing chunks, is it truly possible to watch five hours of the three stooges without poking yourself in the eyes to make it stop?)  And I a lowly writer (really the same guy, and about that pizza roll thing, the answer is no.) have chronicled his story, or at least one night of that story.  I give you . . . 

 

Monday Night at the Farm

Tonight I found myself actually deserving a bit of a rest, as I was employed in real life work, which really means that I have to pay taxes and I only get paid every other week.  Yes, that’s right I finally got the call to be a substitute teacher, and I had a great time in every class that I taught, unfortunately I accidentally drove to the wrong town, confused the hell out of them and ended up being forty minutes late to my first day of work.  I actually misheard the lady on the telephone telling me where to go and I showed up at the wrong school and tried to teach their kids gym.  The real gym teacher of course was not pleased. 

Then, when I went to check my e-mail at home my computer made a errrrrr noise and then came up with the message, error 25sf3td9 in motherboard input reactor. I decided to get on hold again with my favorite customer support people.  I got an Indian man who I had to have repeat himself four hundred times, two hundred because I couldn’t understand his English and the other two hundred because I didn’t understand what it was he wanted me to do, what the hell is a bios intergraded update floppy?  When he told me to change my interface system by rebooting and tapping F2 while singing Abba’s Dancing Queen and praying to Inspiron, the Dell God, I knew he didn’t really know what was wrong either.  However, after breaking it much, much worse over a four hour period suddenly and without any real explanation from Tech Support Unit 17, Handi, who I miraculously not only started to understand but sound like, (“I will nah be toushing the Delee button, ohhh noh”) the computer just started working.

Football was now approaching and I hadn’t eaten, I decided to order a pizza.  (well basically it was either eat bacon and new potatoes or go out and get something)  I had a hankering for butter cheese crust and it just so happens that next to McDonalds, down the road from the first Wal-Mart, which of course is right between the Meijer and the Kmart across the street from the Taco Bell and before the Burger King, Arby’s, and Hot and Now combined Parking area there happens to be a Hungry Howies.  They don’t deliver, however, to BFE, which I think is actually my official street address if anyone would like to send a postcard, so I had to pick it up.  It took me an hour and a half to go pick up the pizza and return home.  An hour and a half.

            Ever get stuck behind a really slow driver, either on the highway where it takes a while to get around them or you have to follow them through town from the Blockbuster to your street?  The farm takes that concept and multiplies it by three.  If you are lucky enough to get stuck behind a car, its going to be a rusted-out pick-up truck and it is going to be bellowing some sort of lethal toxin directly at your vent intake, it takes forever to get around him because the roads are all back country highways that twist with hills and at any moment you could come car to horse with the Amish.  Ah, the Amish, trotting along the side of the road with their beards and their German and their staring, pretending they’ve never seen a car before, or color, or a bath tub, and that’s just the women. 

I had the luck of getting behind a tractor that was towing some sort of harvester that was wider than the road, who either couldn’t see me, couldn’t pull off enough to let me by, or just didn’t care that he was going down the highway at eight miles an hour.  Of course there is more than one road going to Angola, there are two.  So I tried the second.  Just as I was getting to speed I saw an animal enter the road ahead of me.  No problem I thought as I took my foot off the accelerator, it’s just a wild turkey crossing the road.  And though I don’t pretend to know why, that’s just what he did, him and two hundred of his closest friends.  At what pace did they cross the road, you ask me?  A waddle, which is much slower than a lazy stroll but just faster than a cat with no legs . . . who’s dead.  Honking and screaming doesn’t help if anyone wondered. 

It wasn’t even funny when I had to stop for the train.

The pizza was cold, and the idiots forgot the butter cheese crust.

Random thing I’ve noticed about living in the boondocks:

The road kill out here is much larger.  In the city, you’ve got, what? squirrels, maybe a raccoon?  Out here just to start, there squirrels, opossums, raccoons, large birds, but then there is the scary deer carcasses all over the place, along with monster skunks and a ton of ill taken care of house pets.

After all that, when I got home, I was ready for some football.

Unfortunately I was so tired from getting up early and playing kickball with third graders I fell asleep shortly after kickoff.  Ahh farming it.  

Top Five Ways to know you Live Alone on a Farm

Top 5

The Second Installment of Monday Night at the Farm brings you

The Top Five ways to know that you live alone on a farm

5 You find yourself trying to decide if it is actually cold enough to turn on the heat, and if it is, whether it is more or less efficient to turn the heat on only to warm the house until it is bearable again and then to shut it back off until you can no longer feel your toes, or just to leave it on. 

(Incidentally I decide that it’s only forty, and hell I’d camped in colder, and so I put on my fleece wrapped myself into my huge green comforter and made a hearty bowl of condensed chicken noodle soup.  Ahh, nothing wrong with that)

4 You overhear intellectual conversations at the local lumberyard.

Clerk: That’s what I say.

Farmer: Yep.

Clerk:  Exactly, so what can I do you for?

Farmer:  Welp, I’ve got a bit of a gofer problem out in the back forty and my son, lazy little guy can’t seem to get him with my shotgun, I was wondering if you’d got any traps in here.

Clerk:  Welp, (this isn’t a word is it, because I find myself saying it and I’m pretty sure it’s not a word, right?) We’s all outta gofering traps, but I tell you a little trick.  You get yourself some juicy fruit from Jim Skeleton out there at the 76 station there and ball it up and put it in their runs you see, theys got the wrong kind of digestive system there or sometin and theys’ll die if they eats it.

Farmer:  Hah, you sound like my eight-year-old son, always looking for some hokey trick or something, ‘dad the gun hurts my shoulder when I shoot it, can’t we just smoke em out.’  That stuff never works I tell you.  But thanks anyway.

Clerk:  It works I tell you, go talk to Skeleton, he’ll tell you too, he will.

Farmer:  Yeah, welp thanks.

(I of course began to think of Caddy Shack at the mere mention of gophers and when he mentioned that his son was only eight and already toting around his dad’s shotgun I thought, welp, he might never be all that bright, but the kid can shoot, so he’s got that going for him.)

3 Your parents, while visiting for the weekend, realize suddenly that it is a farm and there really isn’t anything to do, so they insist on rearranging the furniture in the house and then I’m dumb enough to let them take the dog when they leave.

When my parents show up they do all sorts of things to my way of life, nagging me, making me do silly things like eat off of plates, use silverware, do the laundry, wash myself, you know.  But to move all of the stuff in the house . . . I spent the better part of Monday evening just looking for things . . . like the couch.

2 When the only thing on television is boring you find yourself playing games like count the holes in the ceiling, and make new holes in the ceiling to count.

The game, which was a blow out, is hardly worth mentioning, that is except for a few key moments.

Favorite football moment #2

The failed end around.  A trick play that if it is sniffed out early enough sends an entire defensive unit rushing into the backfield to take out a tall but certainly not stable receiver.  He jukes left to find a two hundred fifty pound linebacker with $$$’s in his eyes knowing a tackle for a loss gives him an extra forty million per year, jukes right to see his tight end get run over by a three hundred pound defensive lineman that will do anything to get his name mentioned on Monday night Football and he does the worst possible thing, turns backwards looking for more room, meanwhile the quarterback who tried to block a defensive back is on the ground with a groin pull and the Linebacker and defensive lineman converge and smother the poor receiver for a ten yard loss, knocking them out of field goal range.  The receiver doesn’t get up the quarterback doesn’t get up, the only one who is happy about the play on the offensive side of the ball is the running back who didn’t have to get creamed on this one play.  Ahh football.

Best commercial.

I wanted this to be one of the very touching patriotic commercials that have been floating around on the air, but it has to go to this really freaky singing belly button commercial, if you haven’t seen it, the word is yeesh, with a little shiver.  Downright weird, I love it.

1 You accidentally run into a piece of furniture that wasn’t there the day before and out loud apologize to it.  Then and still out loud you ask yourself if you just vocally apologized to a piece of furniture while alone in a house.  Then, still out loud, you ask yourself if you’re now talking to yourself. 

If my dog had been there at least I could have talked to her, I mean that’s bad enough, but the furniture?

Monday Night at the Farm

MONDAY NIGHT AT THE FARM

Obviously I have been reading too much of Bill Simmons on ESPN page two, but as I get a little goofy here, too goofy to try to sleep, hopped up on Sunkist orange and Diablo XXX salsa, which has less punch then a twelve year old girl with cirrhosis of the liver, I have decided to write MONDAY NIGHT AT THE FARM,  Right so without further ado, (Blaring Country Music)

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FARMING?

6:30 p.m. Indiana (This would be 7:30 eastern because the entire state of Indiana is either too ignorant or too lazy to change their clocks like the rest of the freaking country.  Why is it that rednecks always got to be different?)

            A bit of college nostalgia leads me to start peeling potatoes and cooking sausage, and despite the fact that I now have a dishwasher and trust the fact that my plates are clean I mix my mashed potatoes and sausage and frozen corn all into one pot and eat out of it ala college keg table Simpson/Friendsathons.

7:00 p.m.  Dinner finally ready I sit down to watch television.

Unfortunately it was ruined because, since the only channel I get on the TV is ABC, I was forced to watch Who Wants to be a Millionaire, this time the absurdity of the questions reached a new low as they brought in sports stars like Carl Lewis and Steve Young.  After eating I go outside with Kelly, my dog of course, to pee, well for her to pee, I can do that inside; well she could do that inside . . . never mind.

8:00 p.m. It’s the start of Monday Night Football and my Favorite Al Michaels moment.

He looks at Dennis Miller after his monologue of outrageous metaphors and tells him he always seems a mile high.  Dennis Miller on camera at the moment first starts to laugh, and then realizes that he is so whacked out on cocaine or vodka or Zoloft that it is actually true so he makes a look as if to concede the point.

9:00ish p.m.

While the game was fascinating I was distracted early in the second quarter as a moth violently attacked my copper lamp, nearly knocking itself unconscious and then going back for more.  It continued to hurl itself at the light bulb bounce off and smack into the lampshade, I haven’t seen such blind persistence since I was last at the bar and needed a beer.  So here’s to Brutal Moth dude, a fighter even when the odds are against him, someone who knows what he wants and goes to get it no matter what the consequences

9:25 p.m.

After smelling something burning, and looking around for a while I was dismayed to find that brutal moth fried to a lovely golden brown in my halogen lamp.  The funeral is cut short when he falls out of my hand onto the floor and Kelly eats him.

Shortly later:

One of my favorite sports sites, a Quarterback stumbling off the field grass sticking out from all over his helmet, his shoulder pad sticking out from under his jersey.   Yet another reason turf should be banned.

One Second Left in the Half:

Dragged out as usual, but this time in unusual style.

Something you don’t see everyday one team attempting a field goal and then on the next play the other team attempting the field goal, something about that thin air at Mile High Stadium, either it’s easier to kick, or it kills so many brain cells it makes you call crazy plays.

Best Monday Night Football Commercial: Southwest airlines IT MUST BE FOOTBALL SEASON campaign is back, this time a young check out worker at a supermarket walks up to a lane turns on the light and says “I’m open over here.”  Meanwhile, football fan shopper hears this and grabs a pineapple, (The perfect fruit for the occasion,) and guns it into the unsuspecting boys chest and face.  Two notes, one it was the perfect throw, right on the numbers, and two, either this kid is going to be an academy award actor, has absolutely no reflexes or was actually taken by surprise, because no one can have anything thrown at them like that and not even flinch, I mean give this kid a golden globe, that astronaut statue with the popcorn, an old Grammy, something.  Damn that boy is good.

Third Quarter:

Third down-and-one, tie game, and I make the mistake of looking at my dog, fishing under the daybed.  She comes out with an ancient Koosh Ball and starts shaking it like it was a rabid Squirrel coming after her family, then she promptly falls on her side rolls over, Koosh hanging from her mouth and starts sneezing.  Seriously, if you aren’t laughing you haven’t quite pictured this correctly, big dog lying on her back legs out in all four directions blue and yellow Koosh hanging down sneezing violently over and over, her face twitching with every blow.  Either that is high comedy or I am beginning to be starved for a viable release for my under used sense of humor, I think maybe it’s both. Somehow the Broncos score.

Minutes Later:

Koosh now found I set up a little football of my own, sending Kelly deep she instead runs a curl route while jumping and barking, under pressure I am flushed from the pocket, (aka I start running around in my pajama bottoms pretending I am eluding would be sackers) I throw deep to the end zone, and it is intercepted by the TV antenna and Monday Night Football disappears into a ball of snow.  Winded I have to sit down for about ten minutes, I only get up to pop about four IB2s, my old knee injury kicking in, okay, okay, my old sit on the couch, watch football, drink beer, go to the bar, jump on a trampoline and fall off, laziness, stupidity, injury kicking in.

Still Third Quarter:

Antenna still broken Charlie, (alias Richard Dean Anderson) finds an old Exact-O knife three pieces of duct tape and some aluminum foil and Monday Night Football is back on the air, I also now get PBS and what appears to be scrambled porn.

Get the game back in time to see a vicious hit and Ed Mcaffery go down.  He doesn’t get up.  Announcing from the booth sounded something like this.

Al: . . . and Mcaffery shaken up on the play, still down.

Dan: Yeah this is a violent, violent game and you hate to see this, but anytime that you throw the ball down the field and a receiver catches that ball, and begins to run with it, and a guy from the opposing team tackles that guy and brutally snaps his leg in two places, you’re probably not going to see him play again tonight.

Dennis: Wow I could hear that from the booth, that hit had more decibels than a Greco Roman Wrestler’s fart in a tin shed after eating peanut butter, am I right?  I mean what are the odds of Eddie getting up after that, I mean, really, am I right?

Dan: What did he say?

Al: you hate to see this, a prominent player, a go to guy getting hurt . . .

Melissa Stark: That’s right Al, Ed Mcafferey has a fractured leg and is very hurt, I asked team doctors what they thought of the replacement officials Al, and I think Brian Griese is hot, back to you Al.

Al: Eric Dickerson, how are the running backs doing tonight.

ED: Well, Albie dey is dun fine oder here, bud now dat Eddie substanified dat leg breakage, dey really god to run.

Dan: What did he say?

Dennis: HBO rules!

Al: Somebody shoot me now.

Late in the Game Random Note:

Is it just me, or does mike Shanahan, the coach for the Denver Broncos have twitchy face?  It goes from a blank stare, to a grimace, to a smile, to a furrowed brow in cycles of about ten seconds.  What the hell is that? 

My “Only In Football” Moment

Ed Mcaffery breaks his leg and is carted off the field in a little golf cart.  The crowd tries to cheer him off the field, make him feel better about the situation.  What does he do?  He raises his hands in the air clasped together in an effort to pump up the crowd.  The crowd sees this and goes absolutely nuts screaming and stomping.  76,000 fans cheered that man off the field, what a fucking sport.  Oops sorry about the language.

End of Game

Lost for something to do, I write this instead of opting for sleep.  Yeah, good call.