- Nail clippers always dash away to top secret retreats for grooming tools. They never stop to ask me first whether the timing is convenient, whether they could do anything for me before they leave, or if they'll be missed. They simply vanish. I swear they are laughing at me, knowing how I'll search through the house for them- in the bathroom cabinet where they're supposed to be, in the bathroom drawer where I sometimes hide them, and on the key holder where I stash my own, top secret pair. Currently, every single nail clipper known to the Hildebrands is missing. My nails are longer than a millimeter, which makes me feel filthy and unkempt. Possibly whore-ish. Probably not, but still, the possibility exists.
- Nose piercings have a bit of an odour. I'm only telling you this because I trust you and want you to be forewarned if you ever decide to pierce your nostril to spite your mother for not allowing you to have pierced ears when you were a teen-ager. Not that I would ever do that, but I've heard of some really bad kids who run around in the grass in white socks as adults, just to get back at their mother for complaining about laundry. I've even heard about people who crochet on Sundays to spite their mothers who always told them that needlework was work, and work on the Sabbath is a sin.
- Stuff is way easier to buy than it is to sell. This is a strange truth.
- There is a possibility of a snow storm tomorrow. I am not happy about this. While most people rejoice in school cancellations, I do not. I work at home, and when school is cancelled, it means that I will be taking my husband and three offspring to work with me. If you pump gas, imagine your spouse and children following you around at work and getting in your way and on your nerves. If you do heart surgery, imagine your spouse and your children making snacks and spilling ketchup all over your instrument tray while you're trying to reach your scalpel. Then feel my pain.
- My dad tells the same stories every Sunday. Every now and again, he'll let a new story slip, and that's always a super exciting Sunday for me. But for sure I know that he has a "part of grade seven education" and always wanted to have more; that he worked in Thunder Bay as a young adult, and would have gone back if it were not for his parents bribing him with farm land to stay put; I know that when he was a little boy, his grandpa held him on his lap and said; "Abie, Abie. Whatever will become of you? Maybe a fiddler, but never a farmer!" and that each autumn when my dad turned his great big combine to maneuver around the graveyard where his granddad rested, he imagined if grandpa could raise his head up above the grave and see him now! I know those stories for sure, and if I begin to forget, I have next Sunday to look forward to. Today he let a tiny little bit of a new story out, and it even contained sort of a bad word. I took an irreverent amount of pleasure in this. I really love my dad more now that the stroke has loosened him up and made him a little more uninhibited. It's like he's being himself now, and not worrying so much about being a good example, or "doing the right thing". He's just being real, and I kind of like real.
That means I have to stop or I'm a liar, and nobody likes a liar.
4 comments:
Oddly enough I texted my husband the other day telling him there was no need to hoard nail clippers when I found FOUR in his drawer. He told me he wasn't hoarding, just collecting. You may need to have a talk with him. There is a strong possibility that he may be a nail clipper klepto cop...
Valarie Ruth, does he come to my house and collect them too??? Joyce's house??? I have the same issue and 8/12 months I am the only one that lives there.
My Dad tells the same stories every 3 minutes, for an hour at a time. The loops gradually got shorter, over the last few years. We get to hear new ones, once in a while. Some are entertaining. Some disturbing - like when he breaks into tears every time he sees me because he knew I was dead, earlier. Tiresome, after the 20th time in an hour. But my elderly uncles, referred to as the 'little boys' is quite entertaining.
He talks to Mom a lot, but she is never there when we visit. He is so much happier, since he lost it -likely because he has forgotten mom's passing.
I think there is something deeply integral to the repetitive stories of the aging. They are like Sages, passing on legends to their progeny, and repetition means we won't quickly forget. The stories may not seem important to us now, but that's likely what Karate Kid thought when he sat at the feet of Miyagi and look what all that cryptic wisdom did for him.
Brenda, you are Pastor Dave's mom, right? He is Dad's pastor, and he told me when Dad used to come to church, every Sunday Dad would tell Dave 'Children grow fast, enjoy them while they are young'. Sage advice for sure!
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