How Laurie Notaro Saved My Birthday

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Kara

Okay, so I know I haven’t posted in awhile, but I’ve been busy. Plus I had a birthday. A big depressing very close to 30, but not quite, birthday. Back in February, I turned 28. Which, realistically, I know isn’t old. But it was the first birthday I had that I actually felt older. So, I decided I wasn’t having a birthday. And every time some asked me what I was doing for my birthday, I said, “I’m not having one this year.” So basically, I was cranky and disgruntled and determined that if I didn’t celebrate my birthday I couldn’t have one, and therefore would not get any older.

My mom agreed, but mostly because if I get older than so does she. And my best friend agreed because she’s like 305 days older than I am.

And now for a little back story: A few years ago I picked up a book called The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro. I read it, laughed till I cried, blew snot bubbles and very nearly peed myself. Then I called my mom and read her the chapter “All Smut and Perverts” because I’ve had very similar conversations with my mom about internet and various technology. Have I ever mentioned that my mom  got mad when I told her she didn’t have to sign her text messages because I knew who they were from? Heh. Then my mom laughed till she cried and snorted and blew snot bubbles.

Since then, we’ve made various friends and family members, like my former beauty queen cousin read the book. As it turned out former beauty queen cousin (BQC) was the only one who could attend the book signing when Laurie Notaro came to Memphis. And, she had my copy of the book with her and got it sign. And told Laurie Notaro the story about me reading my mom that chapter out of the book. When she signed my book, she wrote that I could sell it to my mom for a dime on ebay! It was the best thing ever. Until my birthday.

This year, admist the various Happy Birthday! notes on my facebook wall:

I squeed! Then I texted my mother, and the conversation went like this:

me: OH MY GOD Laurie Notaro left a happy birthday message on my Facebook page! Did you pay her?

mom: I could lie and say yes so I would be a most awesome mom… Or tell the truth and say no which means u must be memorable to her and rightfully so.

mom: BQC will be sooooo jealous

And that is how the worst birthday ever became awesome.

Posted in books, mom | 3 Comments

Have you read The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan?

Posted on October 23, 2010 by Kara

In case you weren’t aware, I read. A lot. One of my friends recently suggested that I shouldn’t waste all that good reading and write some book reviews. The thing is, with a few exceptions, I’m not really a fan of book reviews. I’d rather talk to my friends who read and see what they like and why they liked it. So with that in mind, I bring you, Have You Read?, a new feature on Curious Tales of a Southern Life.

I have a confession to make: when someone whose opinion I generally trust tells me they didn’t like a particularly book, I generally won’t read it. But, in the case of The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan, I’m glad I made an exception. And, honestly, I’m probably going to give anything with zombies a chance.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth is narrated by Mary, a girl who has spent her entire life living in village surrounded by a chain-link fence. On the other side of the fence is the forest of hands and teeth, the unconsecrated, otherwise known as zombies. Mary grew up listening to the stories her mother told of a world before the unconsecrated, of a world full of things Mary has never known, like the ocean. The novel progresses by looking for the answer to one question: Can Mary ever be happy in her small repressive caged world, where she’ll always wonder about the ocean?

Ten Reasons Why You Should Read This Book:
1. Zombies. Do you really need any other reason?
2. There’s a love story, if you’re in to that sort of thing. But, I warn you it’s a star-crossed sort of love.
3. Creepy religious sects. Creepy religious sects with secrets.
4. Post-apocalyptic tales are kick ass.
5. Tales that are post-apocalyptic because of zombies are even better.
6. This story was particularly appealing to me because it takes places after the zombies come back, where as most zombie movies (I think this is the first zombie book I’ve read) occur when the dead first start coming back.
7. It’s a YA selection, which means it’s safe for most reading audiences. There’s no graphic blood and guts and no strong sexual themes.Though I think one could make a case for some implied sex, but it could probably be argued either way and a younger reader probably wouldn’t pick up on it. I just have a dirty mind, I guess.
8. The personal relationships were interesting. Everyone had their own agenda, and it’s most obvious in Mary, the main character, but they all hurt each other for their own gain. I’m not sure there was anyone who didn’t betray someone’s love and trust.
9. It is, in its own way, a coming of age story. Mary’s young and trying to find out who she is and what her place in the world is. And if there is even still a world to have a place in.
10. Did I mention there are zombies?

Posted in books, post apocalyptic fun, zombies | Tagged | Leave a comment

I Want to Live with a Cinnamon Squirrel

Posted on July 21, 2010 by Kara

If you’ve ever seen a southerner portrayed on the big screen, or the little screen for that matter, the first thing you probably notice is the accent. I, personally, do not sound like Susan Sarandon in The Client and while I love Susan Sarandon that was an awful representation of the southern tongue. But, as much as I would like to deny it, even us lifelong southerners must admit that we have a penchant for mispronunciation, and even dare I say it? A twang. Even some of the brightest among us add an extra letter here or there, or like myself tend to drop the occasional “g” off the end of a word. Sometimes, it’s almost downright impossible to understand even native English speaker in the south, and sometimes, it’s just funny.

A few years ago I went to the fast food chicken restaurant near the place I was working at the time, to pick up lunch for myself and a coworker. I ordered two chickeny things, probably chicken finger baskets or something like that and a cinnamon swirl. The cinnamon swirl is like the holy grail of sugary, icing, cinnamon roll happiness. Except that when the young lady at the drive-though window repeated my order back to me what she said was, “… and a cinnamon squirrel.” They probably thought I was nuts but by the time I made it to the window to pay, I had tears rolling down my face. I relayed the story when I got back to work, and from then on they were always cinnamon squirrels.

The popularity of Jeff Foxworthy in the early nineties (and Larry the Cable Guy*, since then) has pretty much ruined this for anyone who ever wanted to make fun of their heritage, but here are a few other examples of ways in which we Southerners mangle our English.

Warsh- There is no “r” in wash. I won’t say who I know that says this ’cause they get a little tetchy about it sometimes.

Fixin’- There’s supposed to be a “g” on the end of that, and I admit to being the number one offender of this abuse of the English language. When you say you’re fixin’ to do something, you mean you’re about to do it.

Reyght (sounds like r-eye-t)- Right, wright, rite. Some of us have a tendency to draw out our vowels a little too much.

Y’all (sounds like yawl)- you all, all of you. Example: What are y’all doin’ on the Fourth?

And finally, something I never realized I said, but as soon as it was out of my mouth the other day, I twitched. The words out of my mouth were, “Idinit great?”

And, in the event that you are on the phone talking to, or meet someone with a Southern accent, it is not okay to say, “Oh! You’re Southern! How cute.” It might make me inclined to tell you what the phrase “bless your heart” really means here in the South.

*This guy is neither Southern, nor funny.

Posted in pet peeves, Southern stuff | 3 Comments

Kitchen Critter

Posted on July 8, 2010 by Kara

And now back to your sort of regularly scheduled programming, or something like that…

Apparently, I’m not the only one with critter issues. For about a week, my dad  thought their dog, Gracie, was eating the cat food. There was a lot of yelling and scolding, and I’m sure even more time spent outside for being a bad dog. Then, according to my dad my mother came running in their bedroom about ten at night, screaming bloody murder, in hysterics, because there was a possum in the kitchen. My mom doesn’t really do hysterics, unless there’s a very large spider involved (a genetic trait she passed on to me) so when my dad says she was completely freaking out, not only can I totally picture it in my head, I believe him.

Much like I did not believe that there was a R. O. U. S. in my backyard, my father did not believe there was a possum chillin’ in his kitchen.

The thing you need to know about possums is:  they are not cute. They are mean, they have beady little eyes, and they are not afraid of you even if they are in your kitchen eatin’ your cat food.They’re big, we’re talking cocker spaniel big, and they have teeth! Sharp, pointy teeth that can bite you and probably give you rabies.

The husband and I used to live in an apartment complex that had lot of trees and a walking trail through a wooded area. The main road through the complex was all twisty and turny. At the time I was working the late shift and it was usually about eleven at night before I was home. One night I was driving through the darkest part of the complex (huge trees on either side) and ahead on the road I see two tiny shining eyes. I thought it was a cat or small dog, until I get closer and can actually see the animal in my headlights. It was the biggest freakin’ possum I have ever seen. It was sitting in the middle of road blocking the way. It bared its teeth at me and hissed!

“Fine,” I said, “I’ll just wait on you. Be that way.”

And so, in the middle of the night I waited for this giant, genetically altered possum to decide it was done sitting in the middle of the road and move on.  Have you ever seen a deer hit a car? The car is totaled and the deer saunters off slightly stunned shaking its head? That’s how big this possum was, and I just wasn’t going to mess with that.

So, back to my mom and her hysterics. My dad gets out of bed and sure enough there was a possum in the kitchen fixin’ itself a midnight snack! Also, at some point, it had taken a dump on the bathroom floor. This little guy had made himself at home. Although according to my dad he wasn’t so little. When  I asked my dad how big it was he spread his hands out like he does when you ask him how big that fish he caught was. But my mom confirmed, much like my Bill, this guy was quite well fed.

It was also apparent from this creature’s familiarity with the layout of the house, that he’d been visiting via the pet door for quite some time.  My dad did a humane catch and release, but refused to name him.

I’ve heard if he comes back, they’re adopting him.

Posted in animals, critters, dad, mom | 2 Comments

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?

Posted on June 23, 2010 by Kara

A couple of weeks ago, I came home from work and my husband was standing in the middle of the kitchen, which isn’t that unusual or funny, but what he said was, and it went something like this:

“This morning there was a large thing in the backyard. It looked at me.”

“Was it a squirrel?” I asked him.

“I know what a squirrel looks like!”

“Fine,” I said wondering what kind of crack he’d been smoking. It’s not that I have a habit of not believing my husband, it’s more like I’m not inclined to think there’d be a large land mammal wandering around in our fenced backyard. It’s not like we have a dog or anything. One of our cats is a little on the weighty side, but she’s too much of a wuss to go outside. About two weeks later I was walking through the kitchen, sweating bullets (because it’s been 100 in Memphis since April), on my way to the fridge for a cold beverage. I passed the picture window, and stopped in front of the back door which is mostly glass, opened the fridge door, and did a massive double-take.

“WTF!” I yelled, except the actual words, I’m trying to keep this blog PG13, people. I immediately followed that statement with, “IS THAT?!”

About two feet off the the far edge of the patio was, in fact, a large land mammal of some sort. I’m peering through the blinds on the back door, trying to get a better look, when my husband walks in the kitchen and says, “I told you there was a thing back there!” It was waddling around eating weeds in my backyard, clover more specifically. I tried to get some good pictures, but that thing could move! I accidentally bumped the camera into the glass on the door, and The Thing heard me. It stood up on it’s back legs, looked around, saw me looking at it, and ran. Under our shed. It ran and hid under the shed, in my backyard. So, I called my mom. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t call my mom for everything, but unlike me she hasn’t spent her entire life living in the city. She can identify critters other than opossums, squirrels, and raccoons the size of cocker spaniels.

“What did it look like?” my mom asked.

“Um… sort of like a really big beaver and a porcupine had a baby?” Understand, my experience with animals other than the ones listed above extends to the occasional dead armadillo on the interstate, and nature documentaries.

“Well,” my mom says giggling, ” Maybe it’s a beaver. Do you have any standing water?”

“Oh, only when it rains. I don’t think the tail is big enough for it to be a beaver.”

“You should google it!” So after the extremely non-informative conversation with my mother, my husband and I started googling animals that we thought it might be and looking at the pictures. It wasn’t a badger, a beaver, a warthog, a porcupine, or an anteater. It wasn’t a two-toed sloth, a meerkat, or a chipmunk.   It was a groundhog! Also known as a woodchuck, and sometimes referred to as a whistle-pig (according to wikipedia, anyway). And, I think it’s important to note here, that my birthday happens to be on February 2nd. I accept presents and other bits of bribery, just so you know.

My husband has named him Bill. According to Wikipedia (which is where everyone goes for accurate information, right?) groundhogs typically weigh between 4 and 9 pounds. Groundhog Bill is apparently THE MOTHER of all groundhogs, because he’s bigger than my spoilt twelve pound house cat.

When I went to my parent’s house over the weekend, my mom gave me a carrot to bring home for Bill. I put the carrot on the patio next to our awesome raised flowerbed, and my husband said, “You’re not going to cut it up for him?” We’ve named him and yes, he is cute, but I am not cutting up a carrot for a groundhog that lives under my shed.

Posted in animals, armadillos, Groundhog Bill, mom, unidentified land mammals | Leave a comment

The Eyebrow Incident

Posted on June 16, 2010 by Kara
Okay, so now that I’ve told stories about other people, I guess I should tell on myself. I wrote the original version of this story down last year and entered it in a contest. And didn’t win! Didn’t even get an honorable mention! I assure you what happened was horribly traumatic and completely deserving of winning that contest! Oh well, I’m sure I’ll do more stupid things and there will be other contests.
Once… (deep breath). Once, I onlyhadoneeyebrow. There, I said it. Actually, it was more like one and one-third of an eyebrow. It was very traumatic. Seriously, what could possibly be more traumatic to a teenage girl than losing  two-thirds of an eyebrow? Two days before Senior Prom? I know! The thing is I have really dark hair. Now, the hair on my head naturally lightens any time I spend more than two seconds out in the daystar. This can not be said of my eyebrows, the hairs of which have an odd tendency to be curly. For some reason, I thought waxing my eyebrows would be a great idea and so much easier than plucking each friggin’ stray hair out.
There’s a lesson that every mother should pass on to her daughter. It’s more important than THE TALK. Well, maybe not more important, but definitely of equal ranking. While my mother always wanted to have THE TALK, much to my annoyance and grumblings of, “Moooom!” (because she has a tendency to get a little too detailed and travels frequently in to TMI territory) she somehow neglected to pass on this other extremely valuable bit of information:
You never do anything more complicated than a mani/pedi directly before a big event. You don’t try a new hair cut, or color. You don’t try out the newest fad brand of spray-on tan, and you never ever wax your eyebrows the day before a big event.


These are things that should be done weeks, if not a month before. Why? Because things can go horribly wrong, and you will need time to compensate for the disaster.

What happened was… well actually let me start with this: Remember how I said my eyebrows have an odd tendency to be curly? That was the problem. Unbeknownst to me (until it was too late) the little curly ends of quite a large portion on my right eyebrow had become trapped between the wax and the little paper strip. And so, when I pulled the strip off, well, you can imagine.
I cried. A lot.
Luckily (for me, not so much for my mom) my mother has quite a bit of experience in the missing eyebrow department. Her older sister “plucked” them for her when they were teenagers, and they never grew back. Needless to say, my mother knows all about drawing in eyebrows. This woman can work some makeup magic unknown to even the best makeup artists. I was probably the only one at the prom who knew I was missing most of my right eyebrow. I don’t even think you can tell in the pictures. Now, if only someone had told me my hair looked like that…
(p.s. I’m still getting use to wordpress and it doesn’t like me. I write these with paragraphs, I swear.)
Posted in eyebrows, hair disasters, mom | 2 Comments

Sugar Pie Honey Bunch (or: a way in which you can make me hate you)

Posted on June 9, 2010 by Kara
I am not particularly easily offended (though I do have things, causes if you will, that I am especially passionate about) but I do have a tendency to let things built up and then just sort of explode on somebody, and it’s entirely likely this will happen in the very near future. It is something akin to the “Sneaky Hate Spiral” as depicted by Allie over at Hyperbole and a Half. If you are not reading that blog, you should be! Read about the Sneaky Hate Spiral here:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/05/sneaky-hate-spiral.html

Basically, I have a big fat pet peeve. Actually, I have several and since I’ve started working in publishing, I’ve developed several more, but this one is not necessarily publishing related. Though, when I get a submission addressed to “Dear Sir or Sirs” it pisses me off. I am not a man and assuming the gender of anyone (especially when you don’t even know their name) makes you an ass.
My day job is not publishing related and I easily answer a hundred, if not more, phone calls a day. While I’m well spoken, my phone skills can be a little dry. I’m aware of this, but if you heard the same ten stale jokes, in a row, every day, and had to ask the same questions over and over again because people have no common sense, well you’d be a little dry, too. Jaded, I know, blah blah blah.
I have never had a woman do this.* Every time I’ve encountered this pet peeve, it has been a man and it happens on the phone more often than any other time. Perhaps because it’s easier to be a jackass on the phone than in person? I don’t know.
Honey, sugar, sweetie, darlin’, and even (gasp) baby. Really.
My husband thinks I’m overly sensitive about this. My ass. He doesn’t even call me any of these things, probably because he knows better and his momma raised him right. He has, on at least one occasion, pointed out that we live in the South, and, “That’s what they do here.”
You know what, I grew up in the South. I have lived in Memphis my entire life (except for a short stint in Mississippi which I don’t even count because it was so close to the state/city line you could spit on Memphis from the front porch). And, I was raised by parents who wanted me to know I was just as good as any man, and could do anything a man could do.
If you don’t have the song from Annie Get Your Gun stuck in your head now, there’s just something wrong with you… “Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything, better than you.”
I find it terribly offensive when someone (especially someone I don’t know) calls me honey, or sugar, or sweetie. And should any man other than my father (because I’m the baby of the family) call me baby and do it in person, let it be known–I don’t hit like a girl.
Where these men born under a rock? Have they not heard of women’s lib? The feminist movement? Where are their mothers? How would your mother feel if she knew you were speaking to a woman in such a demeaning manner? I can accept that some men don’t see this as disrespectful in any way. Maybe they just don’t know any better, in which case I would be more than happy to explain it to them.
It’s all about tone, and the words you choose. Most of the time, I gotta tell ya, the men who do this do it in a way that it sounds covert. Like they’re thinking, hey I’m gonna be condescending, but you’re not smart enough to figure it out. A gentleman you are not, sir. And, I’m much too nice to tell you what you are. Actually, that’s not true. If there had been a class about learning how to keep your big fat mouth shut, I probably would have failed it. So here goes:
Dear Sirs,
Please refrain from calling anyone of the female persuasion sweetie, honey, sugar, baby, etc. It’s condescending and degrading. People call their dogs sweetie. I am a woman. Bless your little heart, I have a name; learn it and use it often.
Thank you and have a lovely day.

P.S. And just in case you weren’t quite sure, darlin’… I can do anything, better than you. Except for maybe pee standing up, but I hear they make things for that.

*If you are a woman and you do this, shame on you! It’s not cute and it is not endearing. Stop now, you’re making the rest of us look bad.

Posted in people behaving badly, pet peeves, show tunes | 4 Comments

Stop! Thief!

Posted on June 2, 2010 by Kara
I am a cat person. There are some dogs I like, but it’s sort of on a case by case basis. I’ve had four cats. The first, Tucker, was a half feral tomcat and was not allowed in the house. He was missing an ear and had a permanently swollen head from an incident involving a car. I think the car lost. The next cat, the first one that was really mine, was Audra (named after a character in a Stephen King novel, and movie starring the fabulous Tim Curry). I had her from the time she was three months old until she died at the age of seventeen. She was the best and the worst cat ever. If Marley from the book Marley & Me had been a cat, it would have been Audra.
Currently in residence at my house are ceiling cat and basement cat. Whoops, wrong blog… I meant two year old Lulu and six month old Simi. When Lulu was four months old she was living in the parking lot at my day job. She was starving. Audra was alive at the time, but was not doing well. My husband was worried about how I would handle her death. He thought a kitten already established in the house would make it easier. So, we brought Lu home and Audra died about five months later. We took in The Simi (you get cool points for knowing where I got her name)  about three months ago. She was the victim of a stupid human who had no idea what taking care of a kitten would mean. When we brought Simi home she had ear mites, tape worm eggs in her poop, a crusty nose, and gunky eyes. Now she’s a tiny, but healthy. Simi’s beautiful and about as well adjusted as a seven month old kitten can be, and also possibly the spawn of Satan. Actually, most kittens are the spawn of Satan. Evil cleverly disguised in fuzzy cuteness.
With the exception of Tucker, because he wasn’t allowed in the house, all of my cats have had a history of thieving, hoarding, and hiding stuff. When Audra was younger I had an antique bed frame with a little ledge under the mattress; there was almost always a cat toy or five stashed under there. Or, she would take things like jewelry and hide them under my bed or my mom’s chair in the living room. One night, she shredded every roll of toilet paper in the house, under my bed.
Simi’s not terribly accomplished in the thief department, yet. She’s particularly fond of kleenex, especially used kleenex, which she shreds all over the living room floor. Mostly, she just takes Lulu’s toys. Before we brought Simi home all of Lu’s toys were her babies. She’d chew on them, kick them, give them baths, and carry them all over the house. The first week Simi was with us, Lulu would hiss if Simi came within ten feet of one of her toys. Then, Simi just started taking them and running away. She’s commandeered Squirrel, which is really a dog toy. Most cat toys aren’t built to accommodate twelve pounds of cat muscle, so most of the toys we have are dog toys. They hold up better.
Lulu likes to hide things in the pantry by shoving them under the pantry door, which serves as the goal in games of kitchen floor cat hockey. Any given day you might open the pantry door to find neon colored fake mice, q-tips, or cotton balls. Once, I even  found a small screwdriver she had pilfered from my husband’s computer repair kit. She also likes those jagged pull tabs from cardboard boxes, and the little plastic ring you pull off the milk carton to open it.
A few weeks ago I went to the local farmer’s market with my best friend. We picked strawberries, well we tried to anyway. It was one of the first weekends for picking and there weren’t a lot that were ripe. A day or two passed before I had time to wash my stash off and by that time some of what I picked was already going bad. I ended up with a good sized handful left. That night, I walked in the kitchen and found Lulu playing with something on the kitchen floor, but the light wasn’t on; I couldn’t really tell what it was. Lu was directly  in front of the pantry door trying to shove something under there that was obviously too large to fit. I flipped the kitchen light on and low-and-behold, she’s playing cat hockey with a big fat strawberry! I took it away from her and it was all squishy; I threw it away. I suspect she might have already had one, because one paw was completely covered in strawberry juice. We both yelled a lot. Me because she took my strawberry and her because I took her strawberry. Bad cat!

Up next week… Reasons why you should never call me sweetie, unless you want a knuckle sandwich.

Posted in cats, stealin', strawberries | Leave a comment

Dads Say the Darndest Things

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Kara
This not a story about people behaving badly in public. This is a true story about how my dad was attacked by a flying herd of armadillos. I have to tell you, it’s really hard to say, even type that, with a straight face but it’s completely true, or at least he swears it is. He was in his car at the time, but there were flying armadillos, really.
Just so you know, I have a day job to support my book habit and because I’m writer, and we all know how well that pays. Also, I’m cheap and I don’t mean cheap as in fishnets and orange lipstick. I don’t like spending money. I especially don’t like spending money on my ten year old hunk-of-junk car that has a hundred and fifteen thousand miles on it. Which is why I often make the thirty minute drive to my parent’s house, or as we sometimes call it: Daddy Don’s Garage. I needed an oil change, or brakes, or something like that. Probably both.
My dad is extremely mechanically inclined. Last summer, he came to my rescue when my washing machine started spewing water everywhere. We did have to buy a part to fix it, but it was only twenty dollars and new washing machine is probably at least three hundred. I nearly broke out in hives just thinking about buying a new washing machine.
Dad once fixed an above-ground pool pump with popsicle sticks, fake fingernail glue, and some duct tape. I write a lot of fiction and  I don’t think I could make up something that awesome, really. Unfortunately, he’s not particularly safety conscious and has nearly electrocuted himself three times that I know of. Actually, once was because of my cousin’s son and another time my husband was involved, so I can’t lay all the blame with my dad.
Upon arriving at my parent’s house, we immediately got in my dad’s car to go purchase the necessary items required for the upkeep of my junkmobile. Dad’s car is relatively new, but it has seen a lot of road. When not fixin’ (that’s what we say in the South, fixin’) stuff for various friends, family, and neighbors (or fishin’) my dad actually works. He’s worked for the same company for something like thirty years. He’s in sales and drives all over the city of Memphis and the surrounding area calling on customers. Once a week, he drives from their home in Mississippi all the way to Arkansas and back. Like I said, his car sees a lot of road.
Still, I have to admit that I was surprised to see that his windshield had a big old rock chip right in the middle, surrounded by a bunch of smaller chips and scratches. It looked more like it should be the windshield on my car. “That’s an awfully big nick,” I said pointing. I was not prepared for what my dad said in response.
“I just saw those armadillos flying at me and knew there wasn’t anything I could do about it!”

I cried. I laughed until there were tears. My face was even more red (I really had to stop myself from typing “redder”) than it normally is.  The thing is, it wasn’t just one of those things that pops out of your mouth because you think it’ll be funny. A family of armadillos actually hit his windshield. Apparently as my dad was driving down the highway, the car in front of him hit a family of armadillos trying to make it across the highway. They bounced off the asphalt and flew into my dad’s windshield. Or maybe he just told me that because he knew I’d write about it.
Posted in armadillos, cars, dad, dad fixin' stuff, roadkill | Leave a comment

Wanted: Exorcist

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Kara

I had planned and even written a post to share with you this week about how my father was once attacked by flying armadillos. Unfortunately life, as it has a way of doing, happened. And, so I feel compelled to share with you a list. This a very important list, and I think it’s extremely important to spread awareness to other people who may have a similar problem and not even know it. Awareness is the key to prevention, and in a worst case scenario: intervention. In case you’re wondering the armadillo story will be postponed until next week.

Without further ado, compiled from my own experiences as a homeowner, the top ten indicators that your house may be possessed by evil spirits:

1. Even though your house passed the termite inspection, you discover an active colony eating your closet the week before you move in.
2. The washing machine that came with the house breaks the day you moved in.
3. The only living things in your backyard are moles, ants, spiders, and wild strawberries.
4. The garage door occasionally stops moving half way up the track and starts caving in on itself.
5. Your house was built on something that could easily pass for a swamp. If your yard has ever sucked your shoe off, it qualifies.
Think Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail, “When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built it all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp.”
6. Your house is a cellphone dead spot for most carriers.
7. Every time it rains your backyard becomes a swimming pool, very much like that scene in the movie Poltergeist.
8. There are several holes in the padding underneath the carpet which you discover by managing to step in them and nearly break your neck because your ankle turns in a funny direction it was never meant to.
9. At least once a month your shower-head pops off and nearly beats you to death.
10. Your roof starts to leak because a hole magically appears in it near a vent. Luckily the water spot develops in the bathroom over the bath tub. Unluckily, your wall then starts to mold.

Also, a few months after we moved in our water heater very nearly exploded. It flooded our garage. Our walk-in closet is on the same wall, directly on the other side from the water heater. We didn’t realize until a few days later that it had also flooded the back of our closet. At least that didn’t mold. This is the kind of house where you never say, “What next?” Because our house takes it as a challenge.

So, um… does any one know a good exorcist? I don’t think there’s a listing for that in the yellow pages.

Posted in evil spirits, exorcism, home ownership, lists, mold, Monty Python, painting, water | 2 Comments