Arts and Gaffes

By Beth Bartlett

Deadly weapons.

I’m not crafty at all. Martha Stewart might as well be a wizard from Hogwarts as far as I’m concerned. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop me from trying to be one of those people who can knit a doily from cat hair or turn a “Twilight” book into a stunning series of origami castles. I have the passion, I just don’t have the skill, patience or survival instinct of a crafter, which is why I’m no longer allowed near glue guns.

This is not a new thing for me. My mother taught me to sew by hand when I was six. I can’t blame her for giving me pointy objects, because she had only known me for a few years. I sewed so much material to my own pants, every pair of jeans I owned came pre-equipped with chaps. After we ran out of Band-Aids, I was the proud owner of a non-pointy potholder loom, which I promptly managed to turn into a Mobius strip of stretchy doom.  Mom finally gave up and bought me an Easy-Bake Oven, which permanently set my culinary skill level for life. (Shut up.)

As the years progressed, so did my failures. When I drew Tippy the Turtle, he came out as a diseased muskrat. If Bob Ross could have seen my paintings, he would have said “Please. Just stop. Let me rescue these trees and get them some therapy.”

In spite of all this, I managed to marry an artist who was also an incurable optimist. He tried to teach me how to build faux Victorian jewelry and knit and watercolor. Like I said, incurable. After 25 years, I thought he had accepted the fact that my only acceptable craft tools were popsicle sticks and painted macaroni.

Recently he presented me with a box emblazoned with the words “Perfect for beginners! Easy to do! For all age levels!” Inside was an etch-by -number kit, where you take a sharp instrument (mistake #1) and with a steady hand (mistake #2) you remove everything from a black-coated metal sheet that doesn’t resemble a detailed Japanese garden in full bloom (mistake #3). I worked delicately, following the lines and scraping bits of black off the sheet to reveal little gold streaks. After a week, he asked me how I was doing. I proudly presented him with an artwork that looked like someone grabbed an angry porcupine and rubbed it hard against Darth Vader’s helmet.

I now have a lifetime supply of popsicle sticks and craft glue.

Beth Bartlett is a freelance writer and humorist who now knows that short shorts and hot glue don’t mix. Feel free to follow her on Twitter (@plaidearthworm) or drop by one of her many sites: www.plaidearthworm.com, www.puregeek.me or www.wisecrackzodiac.com.

Besties, Beasties and Frenemies: Oh My!

by Beth Bartlett

Doesn’t mind late calls

Refills your wine while you vent

Honey Badger cares.

Makes fun of your shoes

Even Jimmy Choos on sale

Cougars are vicious.

Drunk-dialing your ex

New girlfriend answers the phone.

Snap! Barracuda!

Long neck, stretchy pants

Hears all the gossip, stays mum

Giraffe’s got your back

Mishap avoided;

Turkey knows just what to do.

Put down the hot wax.

What’s white, black and red?

Zebra after dirty jokes

And margaritas.

Image: Flickr/Cristiano Betta

Kitchen ‘Ku-Boom

by Beth Bartlett

Fire extinguisher

Tops off the soufflé with foam

Mmmmm, creamy goodness.

Helpful kitchen tip:

Burned cookies make great trivets

And they last for years.

25 Steps and Three Short Days to a Home-cooked Meal

by Beth Bartlett

1.  Go into kitchen, locate electric skillet. Look on countertops, in cabinets. Where is it? The thing was right here just last month.

2.  Become tired and hungry while searching for skillet. Wonder if you washed it before it disappeared.

3.  Suspect dog has stolen electric skillet and is making quesadillas in his doghouse.

4.  Give up search. Order pizza.

5.  Day Two: Tell yourself nothing will stop you from cooking a real dinner tonight.

6.  Go out to thrift store and browse electric skillets. Ooh, there’s a combination yogurt/ice cream maker!

7.  Walk out with yogurt/ice cream maker. Slap forehead.

8.  Search next thrift store for electric skillets. Find one that looks like someone has made candles in it. With their feet.

9.  Settle for a nice electric wok.  Think about stunning husband with stir-fry, conveniently forgetting that last stir-fry stuck to the pan so badly, it looked like a square in a cobblestone sidewalk.

10. Bring home wok. Plug it in.

11. Open pantry door for ingredients. Note amazing lack of ingredients. Wave to the ants as they gather around a lone raisin like orphans in a Dickens tale.

12. Make note to go to store tomorrow for ingredients.

13. Order pizza.

14. Smell smoke. Unplug billowing smoke machine that was the electric wok.

15. Add ‘new fire extinguisher’ to shopping list.

16. Day Three: Go shopping for assorted foodstuffs. Decide that grocery store really should have a fire extinguisher section.

17. Come home, stock pantry. Listen to faint cheering from cupboard.

18. Plug in wok, and this time, add water.

19. When water boils, add package of ramen noodles, remembering to unwrap it first.

20. Fish out seasoning packet out of boiling water with wooden spoon. Curse appropriately when scalded.

21. Open can of mushroom soup. Smack can opener repeatedly against countertop to get it to work.

22. Take a moment to bandage cuts from flying can opener debris.

23. Pour soup into wok. Add cooked chicken from grocery deli section and contents of damp seasoning packet.

24. Simmer for a few minutes, and serve with crackers, potato chips, or salad if you’re feeling ambitious.

25. REMEMBER TO TURN OFF WOK. Relax and rest up for next month's attempt. Make note to wash wok and hide from dog. If he doesn’t have the decency to invite you to his dinner parties, he shouldn’t be allowed to borrow the wok.

Beth Bartlett is a domestically challenged freelance writer and humorist who will be delighted if you laughed during the above post, but sadly acknowledges that there’s more truth than fiction to it. If you don’t bump into her at a pizza take-out waiting line, you can catch her at Pure Geek, her main site, or her new blog Geek Girl Universe.

Hey Girl, Put Down That Club

by Beth Bartlett

Hey girl. 

Oh yeah, it’s 1997 over there, Ryan Gosling’s probably playing a Little League game right now and you have no idea what I’m talking about. Quit looking at me like I’m crazy. Because I’m you.

Right now, you have a decent job that doesn’t involve a grease-resistant uniform or any knowledge of fryer maintenance. It does, however, require a suitable amount of antacids, especially after committee meeting days. How would you feel if I told you that in a few short years, you’re going to go after your dream of being a full-time writer? 

I thought you’d like that. You’re all bouncy and shiny and happy and innocent, and I love that about you. I would tell you that in less than a year, you will get your heart stomped on by a gorilla in golf shoes, but-hey, come out from under that desk-I won’t tell you that. I also want to tell you to take more chances, jump off more cliffs, but that could change everything. Butterflies die, the universe changes and I could end up not even being here to tell you all this. 

So, in self-preservation, I’m telling you to go forth. Forgive the gorilla, but take away his shoes. You can also make him walk on sharp gravel if you want. The lessons reality will hand you on a tennis racket swiftly moving toward your head will keep you sharp, make you a little cynical (okay, a lot) and introduce you to drinking: three ingredients needed to be a freelance writer. Within three years, you will wake up one morning and realize that the overwhelming dread of another 9-to-5 day does not trump the joy of writing. You will say “Pfft!” to the idea of a safety net and do a full dogpaddle off the high wire straight into the Slurpee cup below. 

The first year, you will make enough money to cover the cost of your new computer. You’ll also learn 43 ways to make beans totally inedible and discover that not even you can screw up Ramen noodles. You’ll pin up that retirement card your co-workers gave you when you left. They thought you were taking the easy way out by staying home. As the months progress, you will snort out loud when you look at that card, because they had no freaking idea how much work this would be. Honestly, you don’t either. 

Thank goodness for the Internet, because you will find a group of maladjusted, muse-addled people who will accept you, mainly because they can’t see you on the days when you’re butt-in-the-chair, beating a deadline while wearing a Scooby-Doo beanie and a muumuu. I won’t mention swatting at your legs because you think there are mosquitoes in the house but really you’ve just forgotten to shave them for ten days in a row, because right now you think writing is glamorous and mysterious and awesome.

You know what, kid? It is. 

Even fifteen years later with all the rejections and successes and near-misses, after all the insults and compliments and regrets, in spite of the groove in your desk that perfectly matches your forehead, writing is the best thing you will ever do.

New monthly feature: Erma interviews! First up: Beth Bartlett

Welcome, readers! We're trying something new at Ermas starting this month: Each month, we'll pick two Ermas and conduct a short interview with them. We'll do our best to keep these interviews serious and on-topic, but...well. They're Ermas. ;)

Our first guinea pig interviewee: Beth Bartlett!

How are you feeling right now, Beth?

Right now, amused. Watching reruns of Big Bang Theory.

1. Well, focus. The interview is starting. ;) Please introduce yourself and tell us why you wanted to be an Erma.

I’m a freelance writer specializing in business travel and tourism articles, although under my work clothes is the baggy superhero costume of a humorist. Under that, there are some Spanx that could blow any second. I wanted to be an Erma so I could work with the very talented and savvy Stacey Graham, and because I knew a regular humor gig would stretch my writing muscles. I’ve always been a big Erma Bombeck fan, and I enjoy taking that to the next level with my fellow writers and readers.

2. I understand you write smart-alecky horoscopes with chilling accuracy. (I might have made that last part up.) Tell us about that.

When I was in elementary school, I told kids’ fortunes by copying the horoscopes out of the National Enquirer and selling them their own horoscope for a buck a pop. Today I write a newspaper funny horoscope column for the Lovely County Citizen and for the web. The first endeavor was much more profitable. I do have an alarming number of folks who tell me they plan their life by weekly horoscopes from Wisecrack Zodiac. I ask that they please don’t do that, since they could find themselves with a live ferret in their underwear and a really embarrassing video on YouTube.

3. What do you do want to be when you grow up?

Someone much better, braver and cooler than I am now. Currently I am a dorkasaurus.

4. I can certainly relate. *ahem* You are a geek. As a fellow geek, I can say that. Tell us about the Geek Book of Days.

The Geek Book of Days is a project I began more than a year ago chronicling nerdy holidays. I love that there is a weird, geeky thing to celebrate every day of the year, from the anniversary of the first PC to Nathan Fillion’s birthday. I started a website detailing a week’s worth of weirdness at a time, so I can share my geeky obsession with the masses. You’re welcome, masses.

5. What’s the most unusual payoff you’ve received from writing humor? 

When I was a 9-to-5 drone, I wrote a ribald poem about P.M.S. and our female-packed office in one of those “Office of the Day” radio contests. I won us a free pizza, but the male DJs were too chicken to read the poem on the air. If they had, I suspect we would have received free chocolate and red wine, too. 

6. Wimps. Anyway, any last words?

Sure, I have several last words. Here are some of my favorite conversation-enders:

“So there.”

“I bet you won’t stick your tongue in THAT again.”

“You know, these nuclear holocausts wouldn’t happen if I quit cooking and we turned the kitchen into a library.”

Profound words, indeed. Thanks for being courageous enough to go first, Beth! 

You can visit Beth at the aforementioned Pure Geek website, or at her personal writing site.

And don't forget to join us on the 14th, when we dissect interview Pauline Campos!

The Hawkeye Experiment

By Beth Bartlett

It’s not something I would ever voluntarily do again. But I did it.

Remember the episode of M*A*S*H when B.J. bet Hawkeye he couldn’t go without telling a joke for 24 hours?

I did it. Replicating Hawkeye’s task was one of the scariest and hardest things I could imagine. Humor is my armor and my coping mechanism.  It’s my Prozac, my Muzak and my LSD. When other kids were reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I was reading The Neurotics Handbook. I snuck out to the living room to watch George Carlin, Steve Martin and Elayne Boosler on late-night talk shows, stayed up late every weekend for Belushi and Radner on SNL. I wrote parodies of songs, movies and television shows. If I were stricken by cartoon lightning, you would be able to see knock-knock jokes engraved on my skeleton. Yes, I am made from funny bones.

Considering my influences, it was only natural to turn to 1970s television for my experiment.  I would go 24 hours without making a joke, throwing out a pun or cracking wise in any way. Staying true to the episode, I could only tell one person: my BJ Hunnicutt of choice was fellow smart aleck Angie Mansfield. I figured she wouldn’t tempt me with too many straight lines, because she knew not being able to make a joke about BJ would be tortuous enough.  I would also continue normal, everyday interaction, including Twitter and Facebook, but I stopped short of flying to Korea and performing surgery.  

Surgery might have been easier. 

As we walked the dog that morning, my husband remarked that our Black Lab isn’t really a hellhound; he’s more of a darn-it dog. I smiled and allowed the dog to head-butt my kneecap so the pain would distract me from a snappy comeback. 

I turned on the TV. “Hot Booties!” exclaimed an overexcited pitchwoman.  I sobbed.  Reading tweets from Discover Magazine should be fairly safe, right? No, not when they’re discussing the audible cracks heard in penile fractures. Before I could stop myself, I nearly sent a reply mentioning AFV crotch hits.  

“Go read the news,” I told myself. “It’s always depressing.”  Apparently I forgot about the tiny (okay, life-size) Jon Stewart living in my head. A certain talk show host calling a law student by a nasty slur? “Sir, you are no Chevy Chase, but Jane Curtain could still kick your butt,” started to pop out of my mouth, so I slapped my hands over my pie-hole and just hummed “Werewolf of London.”

I bit my tongue during “Two and a Half Men,” and scalded myself with tea water when my husband talked about his day, because he has sea monkeys for co-workers. 

At 12:01, I limped to the door, stuck my head out and yelled “THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!” before my head exploded. Thank goodness laughter is the best medicine; Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce will help me heal while I bolt on a breastplate woven from the finest snark.

Beth Bartlett is a freelance writer by day, a humorist by night, and a caffeinated procrastinator by mid-afternoon. She is recovering from her joke-free ordeal by injecting massive doses of ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘Mystery Science Theater 3000’ directly into her brain. Once rehab is complete, she’ll go back to blogging, so drop by and visit www.plaidearthworm.com, find out if the stars are laughing behind your back at www.wisecrackzodiac.com, or get your geek on at www.puregeek.me.

Five Reasons D.I.Y. Is Really A Four-letter Word

by Beth Bartlett

Editor's note: I seriously have no idea what this is.
Hold me.

Whenever my husband and I go out to a restaurant or retail store, he will take me by the hand, lean over and whisper in my ear, “We can make this stuff at home, you know.” 

What he doesn’t realize, even after twenty-plus years of marriage, is that I go out so I don’t have to make stuff at home. Not making it is a big part of the appeal, but he comes from a family that makes their own mayonnaise, so he never quite understands I’m domestically challenged. It’s cute, in a what-are-those-fire-engines-doing-here kind of way.

There are many projects we’ve tried together, but these are the top five I should never be allowed near again:

Broccoli salad

After performing a CSI-worthy autopsy of deli salad, he gave me the ingredient list: chopped broccoli, golden raisins, normal raisins, bacon and dressing. Sounds simple, right? Except that golden raisins are apparently made from real gold, considering the price. I’m thrifty, so I set out regular raisins to bleach in the sun. Maybe I should have dunked them in lemon juice, because they didn’t go blonde; they shrank into rabbit pellets. I also tried blending the broccoli; it looked like someone had massacred a herd of Chia Pets. Oh, the Ch-ch-chiamanity.

Dehydrated snacks

“If we make our own dried fruit, we can have snacks any time!” he said as he carried in a dehydrator. “It’s easy! Slice up fruit, slap it on some trays,flip the switch and walk away.”

 A crucial part of this recipe involves remembering to remove the fruit before the conga line of ants dances through the kitchen.  The fruit stuck to the plastic, the ants stuck to the fruit, and the entire colony had the full-on UFO experience as I flung the discs into the yard. I’m pretty sure I heard “Wheeeeee!” with each Frisbee toss.

Candles

Helpful hint: forgetting the wicks and trying to insert them later with a hammer and screwdriver will give you a lovely basket of vanilla-scented firestarters. The wood stove smelled delicious for a month, and every time I stoked the fire I had vivid hallucinations of crème-filled donuts. Good times.

Tiger Balm

Yes, the stinky, tingly stuff you slather on sore muscles can be made at home.  When you tire of the hair currently growing in your nose, you can find a recipe for this online; I assume it’s listed on Bachelor Quarterly. Among other things, it requires crushed red peppers, petroleum jelly and a firm discipline of never rubbing your eyes when they start streaming like a garden hose. We now have a 55-gallon drum of stinky, tingly stuff and a corner of the kitchen that makes the cat twitch.

Leather

Actually, he does this very well, because I’m opposed to hunter-induced male pattern baldness in deer and I have no part in this whatsoever. While he doesn’t hunt, he does tan an occasional deer hide for a clueless buddy, I’m assuming so the guy can make an adorable pair of high-heeled boots.  My participation is limited to running in small circles shrieking “Eeek! Bambi!” and gagging at the trail of un-deered hair around the worktable, which is located away from the house. Far away. In fact, if I call him for dinner, there may be roaming charges. 

Freelancer and humor writer Beth Bartlett calls her sponsor every time she feels the need to make something from scratch. No animals were harmed in the making of this article, except for one unfortunate deer, and we’re sure he’s in a better place now. At least that’s what he said when we did a séance with the new boots. Delve deeper into Beth’s twisted world with her sites at www.wisecrackzodiac.com, and at www.puregeek.me.

Thrifty is nifty

by Beth Bartlett

When I was young and broke, I would leaf through cast-off catalogs at the library and fantasize about buying clothes from Banana Republic or L.L. Bean. Now that I’m older (and still mostly broke) I realize that even if I were a millionaire, I couldn’t order a $70 insulated shirt from those high-dollar catalogs; once you pay $20 for a working TV at a thrift store, there’s no looking back. 

Once you get a taste of the good deal, you’re hooked. Some women dream of Brad Pitt; I dream about the ultimate discount store, stocked with everything I want, and I still get change back from a ten-dollar bill. Yes, I’m a thrift store queen. If they don’t have it, I don’t need it, which explains why most of my movie library is still VHS. 

My home may look like it’s furnished by a bag lady, but when I glance around, all I see are the amazing bargains I scored, like the $50 futon that serves as our couch (okay, the cats claim it, but they let me sit there occasionally) or the $5 entertainment center which houses the aforementioned TV. OK, so it’s not a flat screen or plasma or LCD, but it does help heat the living room up in winter. 

My biggest “get” perches on a shelf below the TV: a CD/cassette player/radio stereo system with speakers and a six-CD changer, all for $6 because a tooth is missing from one of the cogs in the changer. Hey, it’s worth a few hundred bucks to press “skip” on the CD player occasionally. 

I admit, I’m a purist. When I hear other people squeal over “just” paying $200 for a blouse at a designer sale, I choke on my McD’s dollar tea. Unless a shirt comes with built-in puppet hands to lift my boobs and make them look perky all day, I’m not paying over $4. 

You won’t see me on Black Friday, pushing and shoving with the masses for one-day only deals. But when you try to use that new gadget without reading the instructions, give up, and donate it to a bargain shop, I’ll be waiting.

Lights! Camera! Ghost!

by Beth Bartlett

We knew the hotel was haunted. The hubby and I had worked off and on at the old hotel for years, and we both witnessed enough weird stuff to fill dozens of campfire ghost stories. But when we drove up to the hotel to celebrate a wedding anniversary, we realized the hotel was infested with weird, scary pests of an entirely different type: TV people.

A huge sign was posted in front of the hotel. With all the warmth and friendliness of a Facebook Terms of Agreement page, it basically explained that if you went into the hotel, you gave your permission to be filmed for a ghost-hunting show. I suddenly had a vision of shuffling down to the ice machine in my PJs and someone shining a flashlight on my massive butt, saying, “My God, that’s the biggest ghost I’ve ever seen!”

I shoved my trepidations aside and made an oath to drink warm cola and tap water for the entire evening as we checked in. Other than seeing an odd number of people running around in black shirts, I didn’t experience anything out of the ordinary, and I looked forward to a romantic evening in the Jacuzzi suite. Once we set down our bags, my hubby wanted to “have a look around” which, after many years of marriage, meant he spotted someone with a piece of technology he had never seen before. I’ve never been afraid of losing that man to another woman, but I’ll be seriously worried if female androids are mass-produced.

After 15 minutes, he bounced back into the room, telling me the identity of the show. At that time, it didn’t mean a thing to me, but it was the favorite show of our friend.

“Can I call him?” my hubby asked, practically dancing in place.

“Oh all right.” Hey, I’m a good sport.

He put the phone on speaker and dialed our friend’s number. Our friend is a big man. 6’4, tattooed, bald, 400 pounds, and if he walked into a biker bar, they would call him sir. He picked up the phone. We told him the news. He giggled like a blushing schoolgirl, and I’m pretty sure he squeed.

Apparently he also possessed transporter technology, because he appeared at our door in fifteen minutes. He definitely missed his calling as a pizza delivery guy. Within seconds, the two men were off hunting the ghost hunters.

I amused myself by watching the Discovery Channel and hoping a ghost would show up, because at least then I could play a game of cards. Gin, maybe some poker. But not Indian Poker, since it’s very difficult to get a card to stick to a non-corporeal forehead. As the hours passed and I sat wondering if a floating
head could even play cards, I heard the doorknob jiggle. I ignored it, thinking hubby had left his key behind.

Jiggle. Rattle.

“Weird,” I thought. I called out his name, waiting to hear “Let me in!” Nope. Nothing.

Rattle. Twist.

I peeked out the peephole but couldn’t see anything. The doorknob was silent now, so I sat down in the buttery soft leather chair and decided to watch the door.

Five minutes passed.

Jiggle.

Rattle.

Rattlejigglerattletwist.

A chill flared up the back of my neck as I approached the door. Of all the weird experiences I had in that hotel, nothing had ever tried to hurt me. Flying fuzzy balls of light, full-size apparitions walking past me into the elevator, paintings and furniture that would occasionally tip themselves had just been par for the course, but this was new.

I put my hand on the doorknob. I turned and yanked it fast in case someone was pranking me. The door whooshed open, and I was staring at the denim-clad backside of a cameraman losing his balance. Somehow he had perched one cheek on the doorknob so he could film into the room across the hall, but he lost his rear wheel drive when I threw the door open. Past him, the ghost experts were sitting in a dark room talking about electromagnetic fields and trying to maintain a spooky atmosphere while the hall lights blazed and tourists stumbled past. I blushed and muttered, “Sorry,” he apologized for freaking me out and they went back to their darkened lair.

The guys came back from their quest with autographs, our friend headed home with photos and the crew went away with some decent ghostie footage (captured later in the night) but I had the scariest story. I came this close to being on-camera, big butt, PJs and all.



Freelancer and humor writer Beth Bartlett has lots of ghost stories, and if you keep the margaritas coming, she will tell them all. The names in this story have been omitted to protect the clueless, the notso- clueless and the hubby who finally turned up to share the anniversary Jacuzzi soak. Visit Beth’s psychi -humorist side at www.wisecrackzodiac.com, and her nerdy side at www.puregeek.me.



Image: courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

Purple Marker Haze

by Beth Bartlett

Yeah, I see you crouched over there, waiting to score an armload of twenty-cent notebooks. I know you well, even though I’ve never met you before in my life. You’re grasping a school supply checklist from the front of the store, but there are no sticky children behind you, pulling you to the Hanna Montana backpacks or insisting on the giant 36-color box of crayons.  Your hair is remarkably free of peanut butter, too. You’re trying to blend in for The Man, but I see you quietly grooving to a psychedelic display of highlighters.

We’re office supply junkies, and back-to-school season is our Woodstock.

We have it tough, you and me. We have no kids, but there’s this manila folder monkey on our back, and he wants more gel pens. And a Beatles pen case to keep them in. So we sneak around the families comparing Kindergarten nap mats, pretending to shop for children who don’t exist. Apparently these children are really into florescent push pins this year. 

Occasionally, we’ll drag some unsuspecting niece along as cover, but they cramp our style; it’s hard to be freaky over one-subject Jimi Hendrix college-ruled notebooks when a five-year-old is squealing for a Dora the Explorer ruler.

It’s always safer at night, and we huddle together around the marker displays, sharing tales of the good old days when Trapper Keepers ruled the land.  We trade coupons for staplers and day-glo pencils until some clerk shoos us back into electronics where it’s safe to geek out over laptop RAM and productivity software.

Another family passes through, and you gently ease up to the new recycled pens. Our eyes meet. 

“Don’t sniff the brown scented markers,” I whisper before I slip over to the next aisle, where padded binders in bold patterns await. In a few minutes, I feel a presence beside me.

“You want some good stuff?” 

I nod.

“Staples starts their clearance Saturday. 8 a.m.”

Back-to-school clearance? Oh yeah, baby. I am so there.

Office Spaced

by Beth Bartlett

Years ago when I was an office drone at the local tourism bureau, we would occasionally take an end-of-season trip through the state. Officially, it was to broaden our knowledge of regional attractions. In reality, it got our summer-cranked tempers away from friends, family and tourists for a week. By autumn, our group insurance policy had usually reached the maximum allowable limit of heads bitten off, so it was either get out of town or discover pharmaceuticals. 

 One memorable trip taught me a lot about traveling, especially the value of leaving all sharp, pointy objects at home. The rest of these lessons I give to you now, in the hopes that you, too, can take a trip, look back on it twenty years from now and realize you might have had a good time.

1.     Never share a room with a bouffant hairdo. My roommate used at least a half-can of hair spray every morning in order to defy her personal gravity. I blame my loss of brain cells and the purchase of a $5.99 bag of dirt (Mine your own diamonds at home!) directly on Aqua Net.

2.    That cheap, weird thing you didn’t buy? You’ll regret it. How was I to know that those clearance sale Lou Holtz dolls wearing little red-and-white plaid pants would be collectible today? Darn you, eBay!

3.     The $2.99 café burger is always better than the $40 fancy dinner. I don’t remember what we ate at the posh restaurant, but I’ll always remember the simple plate dinner with the awesome sugar-free pumpkin pie at a tiny diner right along the highway. One rule of thumb I learned from columnist Richard Allin years ago: if you’re traveling, stop at the restaurants with both Cadillacs and beat-up trucks parked in front. That means the food is good and cheap. Don’t stop at a place where you only see an LTD out front; that’s the cook’s car.

4.     Always listen for the “uh-oh,” especially if it comes from the bus driver. We zipped down some of the curviest roads the state has to offer, and I only heard it once. That was enough, though, for me to realize that I could use Ms. Bouffant as a safety inflation device.

5.     No matter how dirty you left your house, it always looks gorgeous when you get home. Even if your husband has been living like a caveman and building a nest with leaves, power tools and beef jerky in a corner of the living room. I guess the bag of dirt was a suitable souvenir after all.

What’s New, Pantyhat?

by Beth Bartlett

 

There’s nothing more exciting than being fifteen and going to your first concert--unless you’re going to a Tom Jones concert with your mother and grandmother. While the law of nature dictates that parents exist solely to embarrass their teenagers, some visions go beyond the maximum allowable humiliation. When I saw my mother dancing around the living room, brandishing free tickets and singing “It’s Not Unusual,” I immediately began calculations on how much cement it would take to seal myself in my room until high school graduation.

Before I could escape, she saw me and sprung into action. To this day, I still think I could have outrun her if I had less mousse in my hair. That stuff was not aerodynamic.

“You’re going to the concert with me!” she squealed.

I whipped out my best eyeroll. “Moth-er! No!”

To a teenager in the 1980s whose hormones were fine-tuned to Eddie Van Halen and Prince, being confronted with Tom Jones is like seeing Freddy Kruger in bicycle shorts: it’s creepy and uncomfortable on levels you don’t even understand yet.  All pleas were in vain. She had the double whammy of parenting: free entertainment and a custom-made bonding experience. I would have been happier if they used real glue.

On the night of the concert, the three of us piled into the car. I smuggled a book into the back seat, but “Atlas Shrugged” was promptly confiscated by the parental authority.

“You are not going to read at this event,” my mother sighed. “But we’ll get you a t-shirt.” 

During the hour-long ride to the amphitheater, I heard my supposed female role models giggling like mad schoolgirls, cracking jokes about the swivel potential of Mr. Jones’ hips, and singing repeated off-key performances of “What’s New Pussycat?”  Which somehow lead to more giggling, and the circle began anew.

We sat a mere two rows from the stage, slightly off center. The music started up and he strutted out in all his gyrating glory. When unmentionables started flying over my head, I checked to make sure Mom’s panty lines were intact. I wasn’t too worried about my grandma; it would have taken some true acrobatics to get her out of those bloomers. If she did throw them, they would just cover him like a B-movie ghost. Other women were picking up the undie-tossing slack, though. He picked up a pair, made an off-color comment, and stayed close to the edge. 

At that moment, I felt something tickle the back of my head.  A wisp of pink nylon clouded my vision and I realized a pair of bikini underwear was caught in my over-moussed curls. I screamed, shook them off and stomped on the offending garment like it was a burly spider in Viking armor. Stunned, I looked up. Tom Jones was looking at me. He mistook my scream of horror for a shriek of delight. He smiled, winked and kept singing. My face beat the color of the trampled panties by several shades.

My mother never noticed. She thought he was looking at her. 

I never got that t-shirt, but between that $20 and the money I saved giving up hair product cold turkey, I had enough for a few Van Halen albums and better speakers. Revenge was a dish best served with a maxed-out volume knob.

FEET DON’T FAIL ME NOW

by Beth Bartlett

My friends know I’m the Doctor Kevorkian of the plant world. But I’ve been keeping a darker secret: I have the same effect on cars.  

It’s not intentional—I’ve even done limited mechanical work, like replacing a clutch cable on a 67 VW Beetle. But looking back on the trail of bizarrely broken autos, I’m beginning to think I have…wait for it…bad karma.

From my first driving lesson in Mom’s Rollerskate, er, Ford Escort, which within a day of me driving it developed the sudden urge to only move in reverse, to my current car, now in the care of a mechanic because it developed an allergy to asphalt, any vehicles I drive break down with conditions that even Click and Clack would need to call in Carl Jung to solve. New or used, it doesn’t matter. They all wait until I’m behind the wheel to have a total nervous collapse.

I do try to maintain them, but how do you handle an entire dashboard falling off or a wheel heading for greener pastures by itself while you’re speeding down a hill? That’s something Turtle Wax just can’t fix.  

My official first car that I paid money for was an Audi Somethingorother. It looked like a bowler hat caught in a cracker box, but I loved it. The car also had fantastic gas mileage and didn’t cost a thing to run—because it never started. Not once. It went straight to the shop and settled in. For a full year. Finally, I sold it to the guys who ran the shop because A) I was very young and B) I was an idiot (see fig. A).

But in between that first drive of each vehicle and the lights of the wrecker have been some amazing times. I loved the jacked-up Ford truck tricked out with glass packs that I inherited from my brother.  I got nods of approval from both lesbians and rednecks while driving it, although that could have been from the va-va-voom girl silhouette my brother had plastered on the back window. And I spent many joyous hours speeding along in my Hyundai singing Disney soundtracks at the top of my lungs, although now I realize that could have contributed to the engine committing hara-kiri. 

Until my current ride is cured of sputtering like a sneezing toddler whenever it touches a highway, I’ll be walking. Because you can always trust your own two feet, right? 

Oof! Thud.

Did I mention my third secret is that I’m clumsy?

Resolution Redux

by Beth Bartlett

It's that post-holiday time of year, when every third commercial is about dieting, gym memberships, or unbelievably buff people touting exercise machines that cost more than my first car. After a few days of these spots, I start thinking about resolutions for the new year. Maybe fitness would be a good place to start, I ponder. Something besides tummy crunches. I make a few pseudo-kung-fu moves.

"Hee-ah!" I try out a kick in front of the television. It feels impressive. I try a couple more, a little bit louder. "Hwah! Hoo-hah! Hee-ah!"

Suddenly I hear my husband's voice from the next room. "I'm hearing weird sounds," he says. "Did the cat just throw up?"

Okay, maybe fitness isn't my strongest suit. I could work more, but I already spend enough time at the desk to have a pitiful lack of hobbies. The last fiction I read was a brochure at the doctor's office touting the joys of broccoli. And while I do watch TV, I don't think George Lopez can count as a viable pastime.

Maybe it's a good year to get organized. First, I'll need a pencil, some paper, and a new calendar. I begin searching through old Barnes & Noble bags for the calendar. No luck. My husband suggests I look in the filing cabinet. Ha! That man and his crazy notions. However, sometimes he does have an occasional helpful thought. I open the filing cabinet gingerly, just in case a giant spider has taken up residence in there since the last time I filed papers. Instead, I find lots of other cool stuff, like a box of dried-up ink pens from 2002, a box of stuck-together envelopes, and three pristine calendars, still in the shrink-wrap. Eureka! I take a closer look at the date. Two of the calendars are for 2001, and the other is for 1999. Undeterred, I open the box of pens, take one, and do the zero scribble on an envelope for about three minutes. I'm encouraged by bits of blue appearing in the grooved circles, so I consider my calendar options, then go with the 1999 Scooby-Doo calendar, a classic. I begin scribbling in potential goals on each month, like "Write best-seller" and "Find good tuna recipe."

Just then, my own personal Scrooge peeks over my shoulder. "You know, that calendar is sadly out of date."

"Don't stomp on my dreams," I reply, writing in a note to lose hubby's socks in March.

He shakes his head and leaves, mumbling something about institution and commitment. It gives me such a warm glow when he talks about our marriage, so I carve in (the pen has quit working by this time) a reminder to lose only half of his socks; this gives him a foot to stand on. My goals now set, I wander back to the living room, wait for the Ab-Killer commercial to end, then relax with a well-deserved glass of wine. I think it's wine, anyway. I do vaguely remember buying some grape juice last July. I sip delicately from my plastic Shrek glass, comforted by the fact that the new year is all planned out, and I've got everything under control. I ignore the giant crash from the kitchen, followed by a plaintive 'Meow?' Yep, everything's under control. Best of all, George Lopez is coming up next.



This essay originally ran on Beth's personal blog, www.plaidearthworm.com, in December 2007.

Scorch Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

by Beth Bartlett

My inability to cook is famed in our family. After years of suffering through my attempts at holiday meals (the green bean casserole may not have been edible, but it makes a lovely planter) my loved ones became proactive. Every women’s magazine I picked up had large holes cut in them where recipes should be and cooking sites were banned in my browser as if they were naughty pictures of George Clooney.  This left me in the acceptably safe zone of processed foods, like my famous Scorch-n-Serve rolls, a tiny turkey roast in a cardboard pan that always ended up crispy (who knew those little pans were so flammable?) and Stove Top stuffing, which even I could not mess up. 

And then it happened.

A good friend gave me a holiday snack mix recipe. I snatched it up like it was the last toilet paper at Woodstock.  I had visions of filling cute Santa-covered jars with tasty treats, and watching a sincere smile come across my mother’s face after ingesting something I made instead of seeing that vein throb in her forehead again.

After a quick run to the store for supplies, I looked over the recipe again and realized that I could be in trouble. Do I still have a mixing bowl? The last time I saw the measuring spoons was when I doled out cat wormer. Years ago I discarded my pantry full of Vesuvius cookie sheets with the tragic shadows of long-burned cookies permanently etched into the metal. And I had to clean the toaster oven. Correction: I had to find the toaster oven first.

Once I began, I still had a lot of questions. How many empty Lean Cuisine trays make up one cup? If you use aluminum foil to bake snack mix, how do you turn it? Or can you just ball it up and wait for it to explode like Jiffy Pop? Did I use too much molasses? Why did the wooden spoon break? My mother was no help and after the third call she muttered something about starting a new hobby of drinking in the evening. So I was on my own.

I fired up the oven, accidentally giving a giant spider a hotfoot, and shoved the mixture in. I’ve tried these types of holiday treats before.

When I decided to make little gingerbread figures for Christmas, my husband walked through the kitchen, saw the glowing oven and disappeared. Half an hour later, he reappeared in body paint and glowsticks in either hand and waited in front of the oven door until smoke started seeping out.

“What are you doing?” I asked as I slipped on the oven mitts and waved away the smoke.

“Celebrating Burning Man,” he replied, cranking up the stereo as tiny, flaming gingerpeople emerged from the stove.

But this time, no smoke. Instead, a gorgeously yummy aroma wafted through the house.

“Did you just light a scented candle?” yelled hubby from the back office.

“No, I’m baking!” I shouted. I heard a heavy sigh. And the timer went off.

I learned several things: fresh snack mix is very hot and molasses is difficult to get out of cat fur.

And even I can’t completely mess up a great recipe.  It made the hubby smile.
Now I’m off to buy Santa jars.


photo credit: bullexsafety.com

Stick-to-itiveness

by Beth Bartlett

We live in an old home, so gaps and breezes are par for the course. But when our cats came and went even though we don’t have a pet door installed, I became suspicious. In the back storage room I found a space where a board had fallen away, revealing a large hole. In my mind, it became a cavernous entryway into our home, big enough for an armadillo pride parade, badger badminton team, or two ninjas and a trained monkey.  I realized home repair was in order, but the hubby had a packed schedule. This left it up to me. That thought alone wakes Bob Vila up with night terrors, mumbling “Oh my God, the duct tape…DUCT TAPE!”
Since hammers and nails were banned substances for me after Jimmy Carter negotiated the Great Home Improvement Accord of 1998 between me and the hubby (he can’t complain about that flat thumb—if he put a chip in it he could use it as a USB drive,) I turned to alternate means of getting the job done. Duct tape didn’t seem like the answer this time so I settled on the seemingly innocent can of expanding foam. I’ve seen the hubby use it on numerous occasions and the foam always behaves itself, rising nicely and turning rock-hard in minutes, just like my home-baked bread.

I read the instructions. Blah, blah, blah, eye protection, shake can, hold can upside down for best results (kinky, I thought, but hey, whatever makes it stiff) and always use gloves. Gloves? Ha! Gloves are for wussies. I am a tough redneck hippie chick. I didn’t scream when a wolf spider ran across my foot last week, and he even tipped his hat and said ‘Excuse me’ afterward.
My strategy was to approach the hole from the outside, and fill it top to bottom. I shook the can, slapped it a couple of times to keep it happy, and hit the trigger. It belched, spit and squirted like it had eaten a week-old burrito from a truck stop. The second layer flopped out of the hole and started a slow reach for solid ground, leaving behind a gloopy trail and looking for all the world like the house had sneezed. I scooped up the falling goo with the end of the straw nozzle and shoved it back into the hole, but it was like trying to knit with melted circus peanuts.

As I fought the ooze back into the opening, I accidentally hit the trigger again just as I saw two eyes peeking out from the inside. At the exact same moment the nozzle sprayed, the cat hissed and I screamed “Aaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiigh!” which is slang for “Crap, now I have to shave the cat.”  The can also was startled, because the foam started spurting from the seal below the nozzle in a vain attempt to crawl up my arm and stop me. I dropped the can and ran back into the house to find the cat, intact, un-foamed and under the couch.
On the bright side, I didn’t have to go out and check the foam to see when it stopped being tacky; I knew the exact time it was no longer icky, because that’s the same moment my fingers quit sticking together. When that happened, I was able to hold the scissors and cut the rest out of my hair.

Tomorrow I’m baking some bread and shoving that into the hole.

Beth Bartlett is a freelance writer by day, a humorist by night, and a caffeinated procrastinator by mid-afternoon. Since writing this column, she has been placed on the Home Depot ‘Do Not Foam’ list and can only enter a home improvement store at 2 a.m. while disguised as Princess Vespa, which garners fewer questions than you would think. She is also a serial blogger, so drop by and visit www.plaidearthworm.com, find out if the stars are laughing behind your back at www.wisecrackzodiac.com, or get your geek on at www.geekbookofdays.com.

Not waiting for the beep

by Beth Bartlett

In today’s world, everything beeps. The microwave oven dings, the computer, television and DVR player all have a chorus of boops, chimes and dongs, and the cell phone blasts out the song you danced to at your junior prom, but nothing beats the average modern car.

Each automobile sold today is packed with safety features that can not only motor you from place to place, it can also drive you around the bend. There’s a Vienna Boys’ Choir worth of strange ringing sounds designed to get your attention, from the ‘bong’ you hear when your door is ajar to the maddening, volume-increasing ‘bing’ if you haven’t firmly clicked your seat belt. Our 2006 model even chimes in when the windshield washer fluid is low or the gas cap might be loose, and one staccato chirp pipes up for absolutely no reason at all. If I drive past with windows down on a warm day, people think I’m grooving to trendy electronic dance music; I’m only missing the spinning disco ball inside the cab for effect.


That’s why I love our 1978 Datsun pickup. It does not beep. It does not care if you left your lights on like an idiot then walked away; hey, you’ll know better next time. There’s no ring when you decide to risk danger and drive the quarter-mile to the neighbor’s house along a quiet dirt road without your seat belt firmly strapping you in. When you get out, don’t bother pressing the key for a ‘boop boop’ to tell you that it’s locked; you’ll only have the imprint of the word ‘Datsun’ backward on your hand. Besides, the thing doesn’t lock anyway. Want to activate the security system? Roll the windows up. Want air conditioning? Roll the windows down. The only way you’ll get interior airbags in this baby is if you squeeze in a couple of long-winded relatives. The solitary thing that occasionally beeps is the horn, and only if you push it on the left side, with gusto.

Our Datsun is a relic from a simpler time; it speeds along like a greased skateboard, and sips fuel like a moped. During the mile-high gas prices in 2008, it could rumble along for a month on just twenty-five bucks in petrol. Although we paid only $150 for it at a salvage auction, we were receiving offers for up to $2,500 last summer by envious SUV owners. We laughed and rejected them all, because fuel economy is just one happy by-product of this bygone machine.

The other is freedom; glorious, politically incorrect, beep-free, borderline-safe, take-your-risks-without-a-giant-warning-sign adventure. After 30 years of dedicated
service, this truck has earned the right to retire to a peaceful farm life, hauling wood and hay. But it has a crotchety cowboy’s heart, something we recognized when we first laid
eyes on it three years ago; in spite of the rust holes in the floor, the cracked windshield, five layers of antifreeze-soaked carpet tacked to the floorboard and bookmarked with a Dukakis campaign sticker, it only took $100 bucks and some elbow grease to get it running. This battered little beater held up our expectation of adventure, too. We discovered that racing home in a gutter-busting thunderstorm with the windshield wipers, defroster, radio and heater going at the same time may cause spontaneous combustion. Instead of squealing like a teenager in a horror movie, I held up the cool factor by saying, “Hey, go a little faster, because we’re on fire.”

Add in the episode with the snoozing black snake under the driver’s seat (gotta patch those floorboard holes), and this vehicle has achieved legendary status with our friends and neighbors, an icon of individuality and personal freedom, enjoyed best when it is imperfect, colorful and full of stories. After several years, old autos become characters in life, comfortable yet unpredictable. Having just a touch of personal responsibility instead of driving in a vehicle festooned with DVD players, iPod docks, tiny refrigerators and the ability to parallel-park itself takes all the fun out of driving, and definitely kills the adventure. Why stare at a tiny screen filled with the latest moronic reality show when we can look out the window and see a field bursting with wildflowers, or watch a 500-lb. man try to squeeze into a Volkswagen beetle with twenty pounds of cat food as we pass by the grocery store parking lot? Now that’s entertainment. We can even wave at a friend or neighbor, or, if we’re feeling completely nutty, pull over and chat with them for a while and enjoy direct face-to-face communication without the need to scrawl on their Facebook wall. Granted, most conversations start with the phrase “Did
something just fall off your truck or did you find another snake?” But hey, it’s still good to connect with others.

Driving along on a summer’s day with the windows rolled down, we feel our troubles drift away in quiet contemplation, mainly because the engine is too loud to talk over. But that’s okay. For a short, blissful time, there’s nothing beeping or ringing, just the sound of getting away.

Until we realize we’ve driven off without the gas cap.

nOObs and Boobs

I’ve never been good with video games. To me, a guitar hero is someone who stops a 17-year-old from playing “Stairway to Heaven” in a music store. My limited expertise with electronic entertainment ended right after they quit making the Commodore 64 and the Infocom text games. How I loved those! No graphics, no buttons, just a long night of attempting to figure out puzzles and type in the right sentences so you can advance. You could have conversations with the computer that made absolutely no sense, and enjoy doing it for hours on end. It was a lot like Twitter, actually.

Computer: You see a man on a floor buffer in the hallway.

Me: I do? Am I drunk?

Computer: He’s getting closer.

Me: Is he married? How much does he make a year? How’s my breath?

Computer: He was a follower of Cthulhu. He just killed you.

Me: Rats. And he seemed like ‘the one.’

When Mario Kart came along, my friend Mike assured me it was an easy game to learn.

“You can’t mess this up,” he said with a confident smile. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that my powers of messing up are truly cataclysmic in nature. There are rumors that the Tunguska Event happened because I tried to toast some marshmallows on a campfire.

Nevertheless, he turned the game on and handed me a controller, after slowly explaining how it worked. After I picked Mario to be my driver, we were off. It only took him a few seconds to realize that something was amiss.

“Where are you going?” he asked. “I’ve never even seen that part of the course.”

“Don’t ask me,” I shouted, twisting and grabbing the controller like I was trying to bathe a cat. “It’s not me, I think it’s Mario. Did anyone check to see if he had a valid driver’s license in this game?”

My kart zipped across the track and off into the dirt.

“You’re going backwards! Turn around!”

“I did turn around!”

“No, the other way!”

I passed the START flag, did a little four-wheeling through the desert, crashed into a monkey, and landed in a tunnel facing the wall.

“What’s that hand signal Mario’s flashing at me?”

Mike stared at the TV screen. “Huh, I didn’t know he had fingers. Guess he only needed one, really.”

I had played Dungeons & Dragons a few times in high school. I was a chaotic good elf, and when my unicorn was killed in battle (darn troll) I wrote a touching poem in its memory. The other players, all guys, listened intently. I suspect no one complained because I had boobs. At least, I was the only one who was supposed to have boobs. So when EverQuest came out, I felt right at home up until the minute I logged in. I was hopelessly lost, and typing in all caps “I HAVE BOOBS” gained no attention, unless I wanted to play To Catch A Predator: The Home Game.

It seemed that games were simply out of my reach; recently I watched kids playing the Playstation 3 demo unit at Walmart, and wondered when the new generation started mutating and growing extra thumbs. I’m pretty sure I saw one kid using a tail, too. But then I moved on to the Wii console. Simple. Elegant. I could imagine myself playing tennis or golf, gracefully swinging into high scores and better fitness. Before I plunked down several hundred dollars, I borrowed a unit from a friend. The grace factor went out the window in approximately the same time it took to piss off Mario.

I was working up a good sweat with Wii tennis when Mom called, and I was still breathing hard when I picked up.

“Hey Mom. I was just trying to Wii.”

“Honey, you shouldn’t strain yourself. Get some cranberry juice.”

I sighed and hung up. I thought the Wii would save me a gym membership, but after replacing two lamps and a vase plus donating to PETA because the cat was traumatized, I realized that the Wii wasn’t that big a value. Besides, if I’m going to sweat that much, I want someone to see me doing it so I can get some workout cred.

Ah well. I did see an old C64 for sale on eBay. Anyone got a copy of “Leather Goddesses of Phobos?”

Forked Tongue in the Road

Some people get along with snakes. I think of them as alternate air transportation; when I see one, I can travel for several yards without touching the ground. They also provoke my personal alarm system, a toe-curling scream that can startle small children and old dogs over a mile away.

I was sorting family photos one day when I saw a slight motion in the tree outside my window. The tree isn’t more than a belligerent sapling, a teenage oak that leans against the windowpane like a wooded version of James Dean. One slender branch had uncurled from itself and pressed its pointed green face against the glass. It blinked. Most people would say, “Hey, there’s a harmless green snake in the window,” or at least bang on the window with a broom to scare it away. But most people never saw my earlier giant-wolf-spider-landing-on-my-head hallway dance that made the cat piddle in his tracks. When I saw the snake, I wanted to scream, but no one else was at home to hear me. So I called my husband at work.

“Aaaaaiiiggggghhhh! Snake! Snake!” I yelled into the phone, getting immediately to the point. I heard some badly hidden snickering on the other end of the line before my husband began firing questions at me like a jaded crisis hotline counselor.“What color is the snake? Where is it? How long is it?” After determining that the snake was not, in fact, wrapped around my neck, and not actually ten feet long but perhaps two feet long and a leafy green, he gave his verdict. “It’s a blue racer,” he said.“But it’s green,” I insisted. “It’s still a blue racer,” he coughed before he hung up, but it could have also been a choked giggle.

After seeing me jump up and down, the snake edged closer to the glass, bobbing in a highly civilized attempt to communicate. Or maybe he was just laughing too, it was hard to tell.

His forefathers have been chuckling at mine for a long time. Snakes, both harmless and dangerous, are common in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas and Missouri. From one generation to another, we pass along superstitions and stories about these creatures. As a fourth-generation Ozark native, I am heir to this slithery paranoia, starting with my great-grandmother who swore up and down (and usually from a high branch in a tree) that she saw hoop snakes rolling like runaway wagon wheels down the hill, or snakes that would come apart when hit with a rock, then put themselves back together. These stories petrified me as a child, because snakes on the ground were one matter, but snakes that have discovered the wheel and glue were another situation entirely.

My mother, on the other hand, believed that the key to a good defense was a great offense. Although she would scream when she saw a snake, she would also grab a hoe and never give it a chance to laugh at her. One foolish king snake dared cross her path and lost its head, followed by an inch of its once five-foot long body for every post-mortem twitch. Every few minutes she would look out the window, and if the parts moved, she would take the hoe and whack the snake again. The snake was in one-inch, sushi-size lengths when my dad finally came home; he also had an annoying habit of badly hidden snickering.

After a while, the little snake in the window seemed to shrink from python proportions to his original size, and didn’t seem quite as vicious as I imagined. I looked down at the photos scattered around my chair; picking up a picture of my great-grandma, I decided that maybe it was time for a truce. After making sure the window was tightly closed, I watched the blue-green racer slowly retreat back into the leaves. It’s hard to let go of old fears, but I’m willing to give it a try. Perhaps I can learn to live in peace with snakes; they’ve been here longer than me. But the first snake I see rolling down a hill, I’m grabbing a hoe.

*A modified version of this essay appeared in the July 2005 issue of Country Extra.