Back in the 90’s my son ( who was about 13 at the time ) and his girlfriend went and saw the movie
” Titanic”
My son came home from his date, slammed a burrito into our microwave and demanded to know how long you could live in freezing cold water- like in the ocean.
” I don’t know- something like a half hour, not that you’ll know because I think you pass out after 10 or 15 minutes…why?”
” Because that stupid movie is two hours long and it takes that De Crappio hours…Mom….HOURS to die.”
I didn’t get it, ” Was he in the water for the entire movie? “
” I wish.” my son spat.
I’ll be honest, I never did see the movie…but who cares?
This version of ” The Titanic” looks MUCH more interesting.
On the seventh day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Seven swans a-swimming,
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
When I was about 10 I asked my Mom if she thought it would be a good idea if I gave her a Christmas list- Why not she said- so I pulled my list from behind my back and handed it to her.
Under the heading ” Anita’s Christmas List ” was one line:
” I don’t want Barbie dolls, I hate Barbie Dolls please don’t give me Barbie Dolls”
Anita
My Mom was used to my weirdness, I think she just put herself in a happy place and for as far as her mind’s eye could see I was but a dot on the horizon…. a dot that was too far away to actually be heard and if I by some weird twist of fate she could hear me- in that happy place in her head I was someone else’s kid.
” That’s not helpful…. what do you want for Christmas?”
” Anything? ” I asked.
The look on her face answered my question, so I took the list back turned it over and wrote two things:
Please give me a tape recorder and a hat.
Anita
She glanced down at the list and looked at me and said…” what kind of hat?”
Oh. I want a hat like Karl Kolchakhas, and I need a tape recorder so I can interview people about-“
” Monsters.” we said at the same time.
I was smiling my Mother was not.
” How’s about I get the hat then? Mom, I really need these things. They’re important. I’m going to write about monsters when I grow up- really! So please, please get me this stuff.”
My Mom lit up a cigarette and took a long hard drag on it-, which was never a good sign so I said, ” Okay fine, I want a bike. A stupid bike. Just like the kind Bonnie…”
My Mom started to walk away and I followed her saying, ” and Shelly and Janet and Darryl and Kimberly and Lita (at this point I just started to make up names) are getting.”
She never turned around, she just walked into her bedroom with me following her barking out these names and then she shut the door on my face.
Wow, I remember thinking, I may have gone to far this time.
So I was not a happy kid leading up to Christmas.
One evening I saw my dad bring in those long boxes that bikes come in and I heard him putting it together.
At this point I knew I was being a brat and believe it or not I was starting to feel really bad- bad enough that my stomach hurt.
To make it worse something with the bike assembly wasn’t going well, my dad was getting discouraged so his cousin came over and they put together my bike and my brother’s bike.
After awhile they started to laugh and it sounded like they were having a good time.
The lucky dogs.
I sat in my room drawing smiley faces with vampire fangs on the wall inside of my closet with my new box of neon crayons and listened to one comment after another about what a weird kid I was…” What is it with her and those monsters?” someone said.
Well, I wished I knew- instead I just sat there with my neon Smiley Face Vampires and cried.
That night we watched those Christmas cartoons and my parents wrapped some stuff to take to our Grandparent’s house and as I walked back to bed someone said “Merry Christmas. “
I think it was my Dad.
I didn’t answer.
So the next morning my brother and sister try to get me out of bed and I just didn’t want to open my eyes.
I felt awful.
My efforts to become a reporter in search of monster stories had been thwarted- instead of getting the tape recorder and hat I was going to get a bike and I was willing to bet my life I’d get a Barbie Doll too.
So I walk out into the living room and there’s my new bike, there are the three skinny boxes that only Barbies come in and lots of other nifty things that would probably appeal to me later and in one box were three yo-yos.
Score.
They were Purple, Orange and Green.
The Orange one had a Sun decal on it
Promising I told myself.
Not that I was going to let on that I was actually pretty thrilled.
So as my brother and sister settled down to play with their loot I stayed on the couch with my yo-yos and mindlessly ate Christmas Candy from my stocking and looked at my new bike.
It wasn’t bad looking as far as bikes went.
It was lime green, it had a gearshift and handbrakes and along the frame were tiny white daisies.
I reached out and poked at it with the big toe on my right foot.
It tipped over.
Whoops.
I got up and when I lifted it off the ground it hit me…this was my bike. I could go anywhere on it- I could ride to the woods (where my friends and I were building a fort) I could ride to Darryl’s house and we could ride over to the cemetery in the next town and look for the Witch’s Grave.
YES!
I had a bike.
So I go into my room dive into some clothes and put on my black rain boots and head out the front door- and just as I hit the street it started to snow.
Oh boy.
I hopped on and I was gone for almost two hours.
When I got home I had a bruised knee a huge bump on the back of my head and I’d sprained my ankle because at the age of 10 I had not yet mastered the art of riding a bike on ice and snow.
I was also covered from head to toe in Chicken Pox.
Oh.
In case you’re curious.
It was a great New Years too.
The Nightstalker
Kolchak: The Night Stalker was a television series that aired on ABC in 1974 about a newspaper reporter—Carl Kolchak, played by Darren McGavin—who investigates crimes with mysterious and unlikely causes that the proper authorities won’t accept or pursue.
On the sixth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Six geese a-laying,
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
When we were kids my little brother nicknamed me Cheeto La Frito .
It was a burden and everyone called me by that stupid name for years- family members, friends, the mailman and even a few teachers. My brother had convinced so many people I liked that name that it would have taken me fifty years to convince them it wasn’t true.
So I didn’t even try- I just lived with that stupid name.
But that’s okay because since my Christening at age 6 of my trademark infringing nick name my little brother’s hairline has receded and he drives a fuel efficient car ( I drive a Boss Jeep ) so revenge may have been slow but at least my hands are clean.
I mean, by nature I’m just not into the vengeance thing.
But I do have a taste for it and it’s true- revenge is sweet and I know that for a fact because I got my first taste on the Christmas just after I turned 11.
Most of the kids I grew up with participated in the ‘let’s peek at our Christmas Present Olympics’.
Leave a package on the car seat, an unwrapped gift peeking out from under a bed and the little Commandos I grew up with would be in and out of the Christmas present hiding place with stealth and efficiency that would have any branch of any armed forces anywhere in the world on their knees in fear and envy.
My little brother however had them all beat.
One Christmas my Parents restorted to putting a padlock on their bedroom door- and they also put a lock on the closet door AND they double wrapped the presents too- first in brown paper and then with Christmas paper.
Ha.
My brother not only figured out where they hid the keys he came out of that room with a list- you read that right- a complete list of Christmas presents and who they were intended for.
He waited until they went out on Christmas Eve and then he pulled out the list and proceeded to destroy me and our little Sister’s Christmas.
He did that every darned year.
So on that Christmas Morning ( as with the many before ) we opened our presents and gave our Oscar Winning ” gee what a neat surprise ” Christmas Performances and then I proceeded to pinch my little brother every single chance I got for the rest of Christmas Vacation.
The next year I was ready- I plotted and planned and I could hardly wait until our parents started their Christmas shopping.
I was walking around the house with little bells on my shoelaces and singing Christmas carols and I even helped my Dad put tinsel on the tree which was something I refused to do because my Dad believed that tinsel had to be hung on the tree one freaking strand at a time.
I used to hide in my tree house- sometimes in the snow- in order to escape the dreaded tree trimming.
But not this year.
I’d already figure the keys to the locks never left the house- and I’d figured they were near their bedroom because he and Mom would head down the hall, I’d hear them stop for a minute and then their door would open.
So one day I go take a look and on top of a bookshelf under a ceramic Santa-
were the keys.
That’s when my Merry Christmas began.
I spent the rest of the week I’m taking my Brother’s presents out of the closet after our Parents wrapped them and I start stashing them in my own closet.
My Mom caught me at it and when she asked what I was doing I looked up at her and said…
” nothing.”
She looked at the packages, saw who they were for and told me they had better be back in her room on Christmas Eve them and she walked away.
Just like that.
I gave up a couple of Christmas parties and a sleepover at my friend’s house just so I could hang around the hall that led into my parents bedroom waiting for the day my Brother would sneak down the hall and reach up towards that ceramic Santa…
And one day it paid off.
My brother sneaks down the hall and into our Parent’s room and then he comes out and leaves the door open and drops the keys on the floor and as he walks by I say, ‘what’d you get?”
” Drop dead Cheeto.”
Now, it’s not like he could go and ask our Parents why he wasn’t getting any presents- so it must have been a LOOONNNGGG three days till Christmas.
Well of course he had presents on Christmas morning and me and my Sister were really surprised and that night when my brother busted the eggs in my shoes and decapitated my Barbie Dolls ( I hated those things anyway ) I didn’t get angry- I didn’t yell or pinch or tie him to a tree.
I was just feeling to good to be mad -I was feeling happy and satisfied and the sweetness swam around on my tongue like sugar from a Pixie Stick
Years later I can put a name on the taste that I would one day know as the sweet taste of revenge.
LD 90/05 – indicates a 90% lethality within 05days.
On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Five golden rings,
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
My Great Aunt was my Grandfather’s younger sister and she had some serious class.
She always wore simple elegant black dresses and a strand of white pearls and she loved to drive those classic Cadillac Town Cars with Mozart blasting out of the speakers with enough force to rattle the windows of passing cars and scare the birds out of the trees.
Her house was also great and she had nifty antiques and a wine cellar.
Yes indeed, a big old wine cellar that the entire family would disappear into for at least two hours when she had her holiday parties.
When they were done ‘visiting’ down there they’d come back up and sort of pour themselves into the living room chairs and couches and they were pretty useless until dinnertime.
At least they told some good stories ( complete with side jokes) about other Christmases and the entire time they were talking they kept their watery unfocused eyes glued to the little table by the fireplace.
My Great Aunt had this Victorian marble top table that later in the evening would set a single giant silver serving tray on.
That tray and a pile of little round cookies dusted with powdered sugar were the only things on the table.
Oh wait, there was usually something from the wine cellar on the table.
Anyway.
All the adults would sort of hang out at this table and pop those little cookies into their mouths one after another and the more they ate the redder their faces got.
I thought it was from all the laughing they did.
Anyway, one year ( I had just turned nine years old ) I’m back in the kitchen listening to Mozart and my Aunt is making the Bourbon Balls and she’s talking to me about refining my ‘ manners’ which as far as she was concerned were very good (and let me tell you, etiquette was everything to that lady ) but that I had remember NOT to tell my chicken story when she brought the turkey out.
Wow.
Tell one story when you’re five years old ( just before everyone digs into their Christmas Turkey Dinner) about your friend’s Grandma who broke her leg chasing a headless chicken (that she just ‘hacked’) around a yard as it sprayed blood on the flowers and family cat and you pay for it for the rest of you life.
I promised and then she mixed the ingredients for her bourbon balls and then the phone rang and she told me to not eat the cookie mix from that bowl.
Oh okay- there were lots of other bowls on the counter so I scooted up her step stool and helped myself to a little this (hey, peppermint frosting) and some of that (yum, seafood) and I was about to help myself to the peanut butter cookie mix that was waiting for a turn at the old cookie sheet bound for the oven when her son (my Dad’s Cousin) walks in.He looks at the bowls and then down into the Bourbon Ball mix and I say, ” I’m not supposed to eat that “
” No ” he says as he picks up the bottle next to the bowl and splashes some of it into the cookie mix ” no you’re not.”
I remember he was whistling ‘ Silver Bells ‘ when he walked out of the kitchen.
I think it was the only Christmas song he knew.
A few minutes later my Dad and his sister ( my Aunt Sharon ) walk into the kitchen with their cousin ( who is still humming Silver Bells ) and my Aunt Sharon picks up the bottle and my Dad nods and she splashes some more of whatever was in the bottle into the bowl.
” What makes you think she won’t notice? ” my Dad asks.
My Aunt says, ” she’s in the Wine Cellar with Mother.”
Just then my Great Aunt’s other son walks in, they talk and chuckle and then my Dad points to the cookie mix and my Aunt Sharon hands their cousin the bottle.
” Those are going to be great cookies.” my Aunt laughed and then the four of them walk out and I’m standing there on my aunt’s foot stool-
looking down into the cookie bowl that I wasn’t supposed to get into to.
But hey, she didn’t say I couldn’t put anything into it so I picked up the bottle and added my own little touch to the cookie mixture.
And then my Great Aunt walks in and sees me.
She’s not upset and she says I can hardly ruin something like that because, ” all they want to do is suck the juice out of it anyway.”
So she takes the bottle from my hand and empties it out into the bowl and then she tosses in some more cookies and nuts and she starts to roll the mix into little balls and she tells me to scoot along.
So that night, after dinner and before presents my Aunt brings out the silver tray and sets it on the marble top table and the adults sort of stand around it and each one nudges the other and then they each take a cookie.
And then at the count of three they each pop a cookie take a bite and the next thing I know this tapestry my Great Aunt had (it had dogs and horses and women playing harps all over it) was covered with cookie crumbs, spit and booze.
And at that exact moment I had a new story to tell every single time anyone of them reached for a cookie-
On the fourth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Four calling birds,
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
One Christmas, I’m not sure how it happened, but I ended up with my 3 Nieces in the back of my Jeep ( and NO they were not in the trunk- Jeeps don’t have trunks ) and we were going to THE MALL to see Santa.
There are so many things wrong with that picture- but I was feeling all Holiday-ish and the girls are funny in a Grateful Dead Fan on heavy meds way so I agreed and off we went.
When we got to THE MALL there was a sort of line and my nieces who were 9, 4, and 6 were pretty quiet for once- which sort of had me worried off the bat because every once and awhile I’d see them looking at each other and winking when they thought I wasn’t I wasn’t paying attention.
Little did they know- I always know when fresh Hell is being unearthed.
It’s in my nature.
So it starts the minute we get our turn to take pictures with Santa.
The girls get posed and the youngest is on Santa’s lap and my Oldest Niece says, ‘ Tia, where’s baby Joe? “
So right away I see a bunch of people start looking around for ‘ Baby Joe’ and the Hell Raiser Alert light in my head starts to flash off and on.
For reasons yet to be understood my youngest son had nicknamed my cat ” Baby Joe ” and the girls had never liked that name so when I see them pass ‘the look’ to each other my Hell Raiser Alert goes on Full Alert Mode and my other Niece says, ” She locked him in the laundry room because he tried to steal food off of the counter again.”
” Tia, ” my oldest Niece says ” why won’t you let Baby Joe eat? “
” Cut it out ” I hiss- I mean it I HISSED because right there in front of Santa and his Elves my Nieces were doing something to me that their own Mother ( my youngest Sister ) had been afraid to do for her entire life
They were messing with my head.
Anyway, Santa and his Elves and a few Parents look like they’re going to make a mad run for Child Protective Services- which is conveniently located across the street from THE MALL.
” There is no Baby Joe ” I tell an Elf who is convinced I’m a liar but she goes to the camera anyway and sets up the shot.
The girls smile ( apparently through their pain and concern for ‘Baby Joe’), they get their pictures taken and wouldn’t you know it one of the Elves leans over and hands my oldest niece a candy cane for ” Baby Joe”.
” Oh for God Sakes. ” I start walking away and the girls are running after me and they’re snickering and giggling and every once and awhile they’d snort ‘ Baby Joe ‘.
When we got to my Jeep they’re looking very pleased with themselves and I’m trying to figure out which of my relatives put them up to this stunt when this guy- desperate to get into my parking space- tries to pull in before I’m backed all the way out-
and my Nieces are in the back- and when I turned I could see the headlights stop inches- inches away from the door my oldest Niece is sitting next to.
Well before I can get out of my car to tell this guy about my fully developed plans for his impending death he’s at my window in a panic asking if anyone is hurt, he’s sorry etc etc and then he shuts up and backs up and almost slips and falls and I’m thinking he’s drunk.
And I turn around and look into my backseat and my Nieces are doing something that I had spent countless hours teaching them-
they’ve pulled their eyelids up and rolled their eyes up so that only the whites were showing-
and they’re drooling.
My throat tightens up and I bury my face in my steering wheel.
And wouldn’t you know it- that Christmas morning Santa brought the girls exactly what they asked for that day at THE MALL.
On the third day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Three French hens,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
A few years ago my bus got caught in a snow storm and the going was slow.
S-L-O-W
So me and my friends told jokes, we told stories, we ate the Christmas Candy and food some of us had brought home from work parties that day.
Somebody busted into the wine bottle I had in my backpack (a gift from an oh-so generous Secret Santa) and someone else made a game out of the five of us drinking it without the other passengers catching on.
Oh Sure.
Nobody did.
Anyway.
Seeing that the other passengers were nervous about being stranded on the freeway and were openly worried about having to walk home or other such real and uncomfortable options me and my friends decided to cheer everybody up by telling stories at the top of our lungs
– about –
THAT TIME WE GOT STUCK ON THE BUS
The worst time was when there was a shooting, the gunman was loose on I-5 or was near it ( I forget the particulars ) so law enforcement shut the freeway down.
It was warm that day.
One of my bus friends decided after an hour or so to start talking about lakes and oceans and water fountains and Italian Sodas.
By the time he was done- (we remembered with hysterics) half the bus had to go to the bathroom, and we bet that the other half would have drank it.
AND THEN THERE WAS THAT OTHER TIME
The bus broke down and they promised that another bus was going to stop and get us…of course it didn’t and we watched it speed on by- but hurray! There was a second bus that came right up behind it about 15 minutes later and we thought it was going to pull in front of us so we could all get on.
Instead it stopped right along side of our bus.
I could see what was happening.
My brain locked.
” No.” I started to pound on the window like that kid in the horror film” Audrey Rose ” and I start yelling over and over ” No! For the love of God No!”
What is it? Everyone is asking me.
” It’s broken down…our rescue bus is BROKEN DOWN!”
AND WHAT ABOUT THAT TIME
We were stuck on the freeway because the Driver had called in and requested that someone come out and put chains on the bus because when the pavement is black and twinkling and big fluffy flakes are starting to fall, it’s safe to say that unless you’re a Polar Bear you probably shouldn’t be out there driving around without a little traction.
So thinking that no one was really listening except for my usual bus pals I told the story about that time me my friends and sneaked into this graveyard and built a massive snow fort and snow-people all around the grounds and how we even decorated one of the trees and how we later called the Funeral Home and blamed the entire mess on the college students who thought it was cool to hold seances and burn black candles on the headstones and things like that.
” Wow, you and your friends were evil little kids ” someone told me
Irregular Bones 