Thanksgiving, cornhole, and useful mantras.

Actual Thanksgiving vacation dinner conversations:

Going around the table saying what we are thankful for, in no particular order.

"I'm thankful I have a job."
"I'm thankful we made it here."
"I'm thankful I have all my limbs and they still work."
"I'm thankful 2/3 of my family is here."
"I'm thankful I learned how to play cornhole."
"I'm thankful you went out and bought that toilet plunger."

We are nothing if not thorough.


About cornhole (it's a real game, perverts!) which is similar to bean bag toss, except the bags are filled with corn.  I don't know.  It's Texas.  And when I say it's a similar game, I mean it's the exact same thing.

I found out I stunk at cornhole.  Because it requires hand/eye coordination.  Everything I was throwing was bouncing off the board, and forget about hitting the cornhole, that was not happening.  My own mother was beating me at this game.  My mom was beating me at a sport!  A physical contest!  Needless to say, I died a little inside.

Then I recouped.

I drank a glass of wine.  Then another.

Then it was rematch time.

I still sucked.

Until I found my mantra.

And my mantra, not surprisingly, was one word.

And that word was stupid.

I'm sure none of you are surprised.

I launched my corn beanbag into the air and hissed, "This is so stuuuuuuuupid!"

Bullseye.  Cornhole.

I tried again.  "Stuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuupid!"

Cornhole.

I was on fire.

Every once in a while I would whisper, "Stuuuuuuuuuuuuuupid."

We destroyed them.  21-2.

Everyone needs a mantra.

Even if it's stupid.

Career Opportunities

Conversation with Matt while driving to Easter dinner at Grandma's house.

Me:  If you could do anything you want, what would you do?

Matt: --silence--

Me:  Anything?  Any profession.

Matt:  Hmmm...

Me:  See?  You don't even know?  People always say they want to do whatever they want.  BUT THEY DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THEY WANT.

Matt:  Have you been drinking?

Me: I only had one..(burp) two glasses of wine.

Matt:  It's not even 3pm.

Me: stares blankly -- So you don't know what you want to be?

Matt:  I kind of always wanted to be an assassin.

Me:  Really?  Me, too!

Matt:  Yeah, that would be cool.

Me: Well, that's what everyone thinks.  But it's not really like that.

Matt: Oh, like YOU know about being an assassin.

Me:  Well, I've thought about it.

Matt:  Where does one learn to be an assassin?

Me: The military.

Matt:  Hmm..

Me: Dude, you need military background.  You need weapons instructions.  You need contacts.  You need top secret government clearance and shit.  Like, you don't meet these people and arms dealers and shit at your kid's PTA meetings.

Matt:  That would be cool, though.

Me:  No, it's not as glamorous as it sounds.  Not like James Bond.  I bet it would be stressful.

Matt: Yeah.

Me: And forget about sleeping.  You'd always need to have one eye open and wondering whose gonna try and shiv you.

Matt:  Shiv you?

Me: Kill you and stuff.  Forget about having a family too.  Nuh, uh.  I think being an assasin would not be very cool.

Matt: Yeah, but you get to kill people.

Me: Yeah, but your employers are probably the very people who DESERVE to be killed.  Not their targets.  It's always these rich, shadowy Dr. No people who hire trained assassins.  You'd be working for total assholes.

Matt: Yeah, probably.  But I do that now.

Me:  Yeah, everyone does.  You obviously did not think this through.

Matt:  I guess not.

We pull up to Grandma's house.  Sena is all ready to receive her second Easter basket of the day.  And I'm ready to eat all the candy in it. 

I look back at Sena, sitting calmly in her car seat, and I wonder how much of our conversation she understands.  More than she can say, I'm sure.

A few years from now I will be able to ask her what she wants to be when she grows up.  Maybe she'll even write an essay about it when she's in school.  What I want to be when I grow up.

And I'll be waiting for that special phone call from her teacher to call me in for a conference.

I am the cheese (head)

Can't describe how thrilled I am to have the Lombardi trophy back where it belongs.

Last weekend, we went to visit my parents in Wisconsin and my dad had to show me his latest "project".  It was an igloo.  It is an igloo.  It's about 8 feet high and he worked on it for two weeks or so.

Why?

This is why.

Conversation between my parents, I'm paraphrasing here.

Mom:  What are you going to do with that big pile of snow?

Dad: What?

Mom: The snow you shoveled off the deck.  That big pile.

Dad: I don't know.

Mom: You should go make an igloo.

Dad: Okay.

So he built an igloo.  And at night he sits in it and drinks a glass of wine.  Like a civilized person.  A civilized person who sits in a snow fort with Packers posters and drinking Cabernet. 

This is not a good quality picture but you can still get the gist.

After the Fall

Today we are supposed to get a combination of sleet/snow/freezing rain/insert other hellish weather option here/.

So instead of pictures of what it actually looks like outside (drab gray frozen crud with scabs of icy snow) I will post some pictures of what it looked like only a month ago... the blue and gold splendor that is October.






Also some of our family pictures that were taken down by Lake Nokomis and Minnehaha Creek by our house.

Our photographer, Andrea Rothstein, managed to get great shots of Sena smiling, while also managing to make me and Matt look like normal people. We usually look like our (drunk) idiot selves in photographs, so this is no small feat.








Thanks, Andrea!

Happy Thanksgiving

Shameless Nepotism

Wherein I post some information about my sister Kelly's Etsy website: Lilah Grace Creations.

If you are going to a baby shower in the near future or looking to pimp your infant's wardrobe, then this is the place for you.

I especially like the cupcake washcloths. For whatever reason, just looking at anything presented underneath the visible film of a bakery box makes me drool. You could probably put dog turds in one and I would think, "Yummy!" Then I would think, "Wait, that's dog shit!" But then I would think, "Oooh! It has sprinkles..."

Luckily, for you, my sister isn't selling dog shit cupcakes!

Instead, if you click this, you can see what she is selling.

See, Kelly? This is what happens when someone asks me to advertise something for them. I talk about poop.

Yeah, you're welcome.

Welcome to the Monkey House

Yesterday, the Braun clan took a trip to the Minnesota Zoo.

Matt had the day off, I had the day off, Sena had the day off, so we met at my sister-in-law's house around 10 a.m. They have a zoo season pass so if we all went together we would only have to pay for one extra person and not two.

We all climbed into the party mini-van and headed to Apple Valley.

Somehow we end up in Burnsville because Becca forgot where she was going. I notice this sometimes happens when I'm a passenger with her and we are talking. The last time it happened was when we were helping them move into their new house and I drove over with her and because she had a lot on her mind and we were talking, I suddenly noticed that we were in the left lane. On a two-way street.

"Um," I said nervously, "Are we in England now?"

So I was wondering if they had moved the zoo from Apple Valley to Burnsville, but no, they did not. Suddenly, Becca exclaims, "Where am I going?"

"I don't know."

But it's okay because Jack has to go to the bathroom. Right now.

"Mommy's on the highway, Jack!"
"I gotta go!"

Matt pipes up. "Stop up at the Super America."

We stop and Jack and Becca go in. I think, "Man, I'm glad Sena's still in diapers." And then I think, "Sometimes I wish I could wear diapers."

I suppose that day will come eventually.

Jack and Becca return to the minivan.

Jack says, "I'm hungry!"

"We'll eat when we get there."
"But I'm hungry now!"

Somehow we get him back into his seat and Becca throws back a bag of Goldfish crackers. I realize this will be me in a few years, unable to leave the house without bags of food, crayons, and other kiddie crap. As it is, sometimes it feels as though we are preparing to invade a small country with the amount of stuff we pack when we go anywhere.

And I was always the person who went out to the bars with only my i.d. and credit card in my pocket. No purse. No nothin'.

We finally make it to the zoo.

Sena does great the whole entire day. No crying. She is amazed to see all the kids. Kids everywhere. Babies everywhere. We went to the zoo to see the animals but Sena is more interested in the kids, although the zoo is very nice, too. They have a new attraction that I hadn't seen before called Russia's Grizzly Coast, which was very cool.

But the main attraction, I think, was near the main plaza, and it had nothing to do with animals. It was a splash pad, you know how the water shoots up from little fountains and there was just water spraying everywhere and kids running around in it. And I had to agree, as a kid I would have been much more interested in the water than anything else. Jack and George and Matt were soaked within seconds and I had a great time just watching the funny kid/water interaction. It was like an original zoo exhibit. Homosapiens Infantus Hydroinsanitus. Kids going batshit crazy in the water fountains.

I pointed at one little boy crouched over the jet stream and said to Becca, "Look! It's like their own public bidets!"

"That kid's gonna have one clean hiney."

Brief History of the Flood

It was a dark and stormy night. (Last Friday)

I had just put Sena to bed.

Matt left to go play poker.

ENTER THE RAIN.

More rain.

Then some more.

Add some hail. Plink! Plonk! Plunk!

Then I heard a different sound. Not lightning. Not thunder. Not a crying baby.

It was the sound of a giant tree limb hitting the ground. CRAAACK! Whoosh! Thud!
I didn't know what it was at first, so I had a few thoughts in my head. Actually, only one: "What the hell was that?"

I ran to the window and saw the tree limb. A biggin. Landed on the sidewalk and thankfully not a car. It would have crushed a car. As I'm contemplating this my eyes are suddenly draw to a sight I was unprepared to see.

A geyser.

A geyser was geysing! Is that a word? I don't know, but that's what it was doing. It was the manhole in the intersection at the end of the street. I actually ran outside into the driving rain to watch it, my mouth agape. A geyser! We got Old Faithful in the middle of South Minneapolis. It shot up once, blowing the manhole up into the air. It gushed again. The third time it went over ten feet high.

I thought, "Holy Shit!"

I wasn't the only one that saw it. And while I stood like an idiot in the rain I watched as it took approximately 2 minutes for the entire street to flood.

Our street has done this before. It's low on our end and the storm sewers can't handle massive amounts of water. The last time it was bad was five years ago. But this time I have pictures of it.

Because our neighbors hadn't been here when that flood happened and I noticed they had cars parked out front I ran next door to warn them. They had seen the whole thing and were in the process of getting on their galoshes to go move them. By this point the water is halfway up the tires on the cars.

"Better move them!" I say. Because I still have the memories of what happened five years ago in October.

SCENE: 5 YEARS AGO (OCTOBER) NIGHT

There had been a heavy rain all day. I remember because my brother was flying into Minneapolis that night. He was coming back from a trip in Scotland. He'd been gone two weeks and I was going to pick him up from the airport.

Because of the rain the flight was delayed. And delayed.
And delayed.

I stop checking at the airport and wait until he calls me to say he's arrived. It's about 9pm. It's still raining.

I fall asleep on the bed holding the phone.

At 9:45 I awake to a heavy pounding on the door. I'm disgruntled, and stumbled downstairs, thinking, "What the fuck?"

I open the screen door. It's still raining.

I see my neighbor. And some other dude. They're both soaking wet.

"Is that your car out there?"

"Huh? What?"

"Your car?"

I peer out into the dark. The street looks weird; it's all shiny and shimmery. I rub my eyes and see the reason the street looks weird is because it is now a lake of water.

I'm still confused. "No, I don't have my car out front."

Then I have a horrible thought. A terrible thought. Mindy had a horrible, terrible thought.

My brother's car is out front.

I see it. A maroon station wagon island. In the middle of the lake.

I run outside without putting shoes on. I run toward the lake, run into the water, screaming like a loon. I keep repeating one thing.

"My brother's going to fucking KILL me!"

I don't even feel the water. I'm wearing sweatpants and suddenly they are all soggy. Then I remember something. "Shit! I need keys!"

I run back to the house. Matt is standing at the door, taking in the scene. I wave my arms like a baboon on meth. "Bucket! Keys! I need a bucket! Bucket! What are you doing? I need a fucking bucket!"

Matt looks at the lake with the dispassion of a stoic. He disappears while I run back to the car with the keys.

I get the door open and when I sit down to start the car my butt freezes. I'm sitting in water. I don't start the car. For some reason I'm afraid it will blow up. I put it in neutral and my neighbors push me out, back up toward the high end of the street. I sit there like a ninny with my ass in the water, trying to think.

Then I get out. Open the doors and start scooping out the water with my hands. Like a ninny.

Matt shows up with a small plastic cup. He is wearing his swim trunks and water socks. Talk about presence of mind.

I look at the idiotic cup. "I need a fucking bucket!" I think I say the F-word about fifty times, in various incantations.

"Does the car start?"

"I don't know. I haven't tried it."

I try it. It starts. I drive around to the back and park it by the garage. I get out and look at it. "Shit! He's going to kill me."

We had just gotten a shop vac, thank God. I start using it. Trying to suck the water out. It is slow going but it does work.

Eventually my brother shows up. He took a cab from the airport. I think by now it is almost midnight. Luckily, he doesn't kill me. He actually doesn't seem that upset, probably because he thinks his car is okay.

His car is not okay.

After a long involved story, the car is totalled. The electrical system is ruined. He tells me it's fine because the insurance will cover it and he said he wanted a new car anyway. I still feel like a shithead. Right now, typing this, I still feel bad about it.

But anyway, that's the story. And here are the pictures, which weren't as bad as the storm from 5 years ago. Sena slept through the whole thing and missed it.

Crazy Apple Doesn't Fall Far From The Mental Tree

Last weekend my parents came to visit.

Every time they come my mom has a new present for Sena. This time it was a little pop-up thingy with numbers and animals. Little buttons to push or turn and up pops a panda or lion from their hidey-hole. I was just happy it didn't have any blinking lights, noises, or other epileptic fit inducing stimuli.

So I need to go to the store to get something to make for dinner. My dad stays to watch Sena, who is taking a nap, and my mom decides to come with me. It should be a simple trip.

But something always happens. It just does. It just has to, I don't know why.

I pull out of the alley and drive down the street to get onto Cedar Avenue. To go south. As I approach the intersection I see a guy walking the same way. He is not walking on the sidewalk, however. Even though the sidewalk is about 5 feet away. He is walking in the street, like a dip shit.

You ever just see somebody and your inner bell goes off. I mean, you see someone in a group of people and think, "I bet that guy is a total freak. A real fucking weirdo. I bet he humps farm animals. He better not try to talk to me or I'm gonna kick him in the shins." He could be dressed like everyone else but somehow you know he just isn't right.

I do.

So I immediately see this guy and think, "Oh Jesus, problem person twenty yards ahead."

He's wearing regular clothes. I think he has a back pack. He is listening to his ipod. He has really long dreads. But he is white and skinny and looks like one of those dirty hippies you see milling around the outside of a Phish concert. The ones who smell like patchouli and have B.O. that smells like old bologna and Fritos and are always pestering you to see if you got any "good bud".

But somehow as I approach I still know he's an asshole. Very assholey. If he wasn't he'd be on the sidewalk.

So because I'm trying to turn right onto Cedar I can't. Because dirty hippie asshole dreadboy is standing in the way. He sees me, too. He is trying to cross Cedar and he turns his head back and forth watching the cars. He sees me behind him with my blinker on. He knows I want to turn. But he doesn't move.

Because he's an asshole.

I debate several things at once; the things I could do.

Honk.
Honk and creep forward.
Honk, creep forward, wave him to the curb.
Honk, creep forward, wave, hit him with my bumper.
Honk, creep, wave, hit him with my bumper, run him over, and flip him the bird.
Honk, creep, wave, hit, run him over, flip him the bird, get out of the car and use my car's cigarette lighter to burn off his nasty dreadlocks.

These are all the things I think as I sit there not doing anything. I have bad thoughts but I try not to act on them. I need the karma points for all the stupid crap I did as a kid.

But I forgot one thing.

My mom is sitting in the passenger seat.

As I'm thinking how much fun it would be to blowtorch this dude's hair and give him an atomic wedgie, my mom rolls down the window and calls out in a very aggravated voice. The voice I heard so much growing up when I was doing something I shouldn't. Something that warranted that voice.

That voice makes me flinch.

I flinched good. About .2 seconds after she yells, "Excuse me! Do you mind? We're...." My hand shot out and whacked her arm. "Don't!" I hissed. "He's wearing headphones. He can't hear you."

That wasn't why I said that. It was because all of the inner bells that this assholey dude has a bone to pick. Of course he does. He wasn't oblivious to what was going on. I knew he knew what he was doing. He wanted to be in the way. He wanted to make me wait behind him. It was his little power trip of control. There are some people in the world that are just looking for a reason to go ape-shit. And all the behavior I was seeing told me that he could very well be one of those people.

Plus, I didn't want anything to happen to my new car.

I don't know how many people think like me, but I don't think my mom does.

My mom will say anything to anybody, consequences be damned. You can bet she would have told this dumbass to get back on the sidewalk where he belonged. My mom is not one of those passive-aggressive types; she could be a taxi driver in New York City. She doesn't swear at people, however. She just shames them into proper behavior. With that voice.

But I didn't know what dipshit hippie was going to do. And I really didn't want to find out. So I whacked her arm.

Sorry, Mom.

Deja vu all over again

Last weekend we took a trip up to Bayfield to visit my brother and his family. We went mainly because they are moving at the end of this month. Out to Wyoming to work at Teton National Park, which is very close to Yellowstone. So now instead of going up to the Apostle Islands, we will be heading west to the mountains, something I'm very excited for. I've never been to Wyoming, except for on the way to Colorado and I've heard it is amazingly beautiful.

I was a little worried taking the 4 hour drive from Minneapolis to Bayfield, but Sena LOVES to sleep in the car. She loved it so much that she slept the entire way. It was awesome.

But then she woke up at 12, 2, and 4 am screaming her bloody head off. Which woke up her cousin Gerard, who then chimed in with his own banshee interpretations. Lovely night music. So I told Sena she needed to be quiet or she would never be invited back to visit. She didn't care.

So last year when I was up at Bayfield I took pictures like this.



And this.



And this. So artistic...



Which now have been replaced with this.



This...



And this...



This picture is more than a little bit weird. It is kind of freaky how much Gerard and Sena look like me and my brother at that age. Jimmy and Mindy, the next generation. God help us....

My in-laws

Here is actually a post where I'm not talking about poop. Amazing.

My mother and father-in-law, Marie and John Braun, are very active in the peace and justice movement. In this video they are talking about their experience being arrested in Washington D.C. during a peace protest. I can only hope that if I'm lucky enough to reach their age, that I still have not only some chutzpah left but also a desire to make things better where I can.

I'm lucky to not only know there are still people like this in the world, but to actually have them as my family.

No Reservation

Sena has graduated to the big high chair and already has two little teeth coming in. My little baby is growing up, and has sampled the following culinary delights:

Rice Cereal
Apple sauce
Bananas
Pears
Sweet Potatoes
Prunes

Did you know prunes look the same coming out as going in?

I will only post pictures of the latter.





Plus, here is a little how-to home video. I made creme brulee over Easter weekend for the very first time.

Because I'm fancy.

However, I didn't have a creme brulee torch so I asked my dad to bring his. He doesn't have a creme brulee torch, either. He has a blowtorch. The concept, however, is the same. I'm pretty sure this demo will get a thumbs up from both Bob Vila and Anthony Bourdain.

I'm narrating this video and because I had a bad cold I sound a little bit like Dorothy from the Golden Girls. Also, you will notice a Scottish tam and a pint of Guinness, which are both very necessary for the demonstration.

If you have ever wondered why I'm insane you will finally see and understand that it's genetic.

No reservation from Melinda Braun on Vimeo.

The cake is on fire

This past weekend we celebrated three birthdays.

Matt: 36
Will: 16
George: 2

To celebrate all in one fell swoop, the entire passel headed to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner, or what I call: The place with the never-ending menu.

Seriously, have you seen their menu? It's a book. A picture book of food, drinks, and advertisements for no-wrinkle pants and denture cream.

Because I'm still trying to get off the last few pounds of baby weight I ordered the "Weight Management" salad, which said it was under 590 calories.

590 calories. For a salad. Which makes me wonder what the hell is in the other dinners. A tub of Crisco?

Well, the salad was huge so I only ate half. I made up the other calories by drinking wine. Oh well.

Sena behaved herself. Though it wouldn't matter if she screamed her head off in that place. It sounds like drunk soccer hooligans took over the jet engine test room at NASA. Somebody could get shot in that place and you would think it was just the busboy dropping a bucket of silverware.

So Sena alternated gnawing on her toys and then throwing them on the floor. Matt went to the restroom several times to wash them. Lesson learned: Always bring anti-bacterial wipes. Or a shitload of toys.

Then we went home to open presents. Matt who is 36, going on 12, got golf balls, wiffle baseballs and a really neat wiffle ball bat.

We got George a book and a solar system puzzle. I still feel sorry for Pluto, who is no longer considered a planet.

For Will, who is 16 today, Matt found a funny book called: 400 Secrets of Chuck Norris. Or something like that.

The problem was that Matt didn't READ the book he bought a sixteen year-old boy.

I did.

As I was getting ready to wrap it I decided to read it. I had heard a few funny Chuck Norris lines before.

Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. Chuck Norris waits.

Chuck Norris counted to infinity. Twice.

The boogey man checks his closet for Chuck Norris.

Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas to bed.


I opened the book and read a really dirty anecdote about Chuck Norris. REALLY DIRTY.
They used words that rhymed with Chuck but started with the letter F.

Then I walked into the other room.

"Umm, Matt? Did you read this book?"

"Huh?"

"You didn't read this book, did you, before you bought it?"

"No, why?"

"Uhhh, maybe you should read this..."

"Oh. Oh! That's pretty bad."

"Yeah, I don't think you want to give a teenage boy this book. At least not in front of his mom."

"Probably not."

"I still have the receipt. You can take it back."

"Ummmm...."

"Or are you going to keep it for yourself?"

"Mmm... maybe for myself."

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

A Mad World

So I've just started watching this show on Netflix called Mad Men. You may have heard of it.

I don't know why they call it that. (Actually, I do because they explained why). But I think a better title would be: The Smoking and Drinking Show.

It's about smoking and drinking. And drinking and smoking. Plus a little about advertising in the sixties. Plus smoking...

Seriously, I felt like I had a hangover after watching the first episode.

I had to ask my parents when they visited if it was really like that. With the smoking and drinking and drinking and smoking.

Short Answer: Yes.

Long Answer: Oh God, yes!

No wonder everyone was thinner. I think I lost my appetite just SEEING all that smoke. Because you just can't stuff Krispy Kremes in your gob when you are busy puffing on Lucky Strikes every two minutes...

No wonder no one made it past sixty.

But anyway, it's a good show. Besides the drinking and smoking it is insane the way women were treated, let alone any other minorities.

I asked my mom if it was like that. Now, my mom graduated high school in 1970 and she did public relations for the S.C. Johnson company. You know, the Glade people? (I have a whole separate story about growing up with Pledge and Glade products). She worked in an office designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and she even said the chairs were designed by Mr. Wright with only three legs. She said you had to sit on them properly or you would tip over. Another way to keep people from falling asleep at their desks. And another reason Frank Lloyd Wright is considered a genius. An evil genius.

Confession: I still remember going into the S.C. Johnson office building as a kid and looking up and seeing these giant lily pads soaring up to the ceiling. I thought I was on some weird spaceship and it creeped me out - the reason why today I don't really care for that style of architecture. Also, everything was seventies burnt orange. And not a good burnt orange.




So I asked her: Were men that bad?

Short answer: Yes.

My dad didn't have any experience with that culture since he worked in manufacturing and didn't work with women, but my mom definitely said men talked to her like that and there was not much they could do about it.

But back to the smoking and drinking show. Good God.
Now, I'm one of those people who has a hard time separating facts with fiction.

Case in point, when Betty Draper wakes up and gives her husband Don a passionate kiss, I'm revolted. Not because I'm eight and think kissing boys is gross.

Because she just woke up. In the morning. And smoked a Kent. And made out with her husband whose breath has to be nearly as bad as hers. This is what I'm thinking when I see stuff like this: "Eeew! Morning breath! NAAAASSSSTEEEEEE!"

I would never do that.

I would never make out with Matt after I just woke up. I might as well be licking a toilet seat - a public one. That's how appealing that idea sounds. Sometimes when he breathes on me in the morning I think that someone has slaughtered a cow. Three weeks ago. And stuffed it with load of rotten fish. And cat turds.

And I know my breath probably isn't much better. So it bugs me when I see stuff like that in movies. Because it isn't realistic. I can't help it.

This is me when I'm watching a period piece movie. You know, one of those victorian romances with the bodices and knights and ladies. The romantic ones? This is my commentary watching one of those sexy scenes.

Me: Why are her legs shaved?

Matt: What?

Me: Her legs. And her armpits. What year is this? She's supposed to be all hairy. People didn't shave back then.

Matt: I don't want to look at hairy armpits.

Me: And they must just stink. I mean, they never take baths. They never brush their teeth. I bet they don't even have toothbrushes! Yuck. I bet their teeth would be all rotten and black and nasty.

Matt: It's a movie...

Me: Oh, and the sheets! Look at them rolling around in those sheets. I bet they didn't wash those either. I bet they have lice. At least bed bugs... Man, that is gross! Oh man, I bet they are just INFESTED. Bleck! It must stink in that room like a sewer. And they poop in chamber pots by the bed!

Matt: Thanks for that thought.

A little while later.

Matt: Where are you going?

Me: I'm gonna change the sheets.

Lake Woebegone - part deux

So shortly after my conference with Garrison Keillor we only had a few classes left. I revised my story. Revised it again. Thought about it. Then revised it one more time. Then I turned it in, feeling pretty good about what I wrote.

Near the end of the class, Mr. Keillor made an announcement. How would the class like him to compile some of the best essays and other assignments people have done into an anthology to be published? Would people be interested in that? Um....yeah, I think that most writing students would be more than a little pleased to be published in a book, edited and produced by you-know-who.

So, needless to say, everyone was very excited.

I remembering thinking, "I hope he picks my essay. Because it's good." This I know, just like you know when you do something and you just KNOW it's good. The only question is, "Is it good enough to make the final cut?"

Eventually the semester ended. I finished my degree in English. I also found out that spring that an independent publishing company is interested in publishing my picture book, Luella. This is in May of 2006.

In December 2006 I get an email from Prairie Home Productions, saying they have chosen twelve essays for the anthology and mine is one of them, and please contact this person who is a photographer and wants to take everyone's picture for the book.

I'm insanely happy. Happy that the story I worked so hard on will be published. Of course, I tell everyone....

In January 2007 I go to get my picture taken. I do not like any of them because for some reason the photographer insists on shooting from beneath me, making me look like I have a double chin, though I can't bring myself to say, "Um, this is not the most flattering angle to take a picture." I can't say this to someone who has a degree in photography and is supposed to be an expert on these things. I'm not a professional photographer but I do know that crouching in front of someone to get a picture of the inside of their nostrils will not get you a Pulitzer. I look over some of the photos that are emailed to me and try to vote for the least hideous one.

I spend the next 9 months working on drawings and the story to get it ready to be published.

My picture book, Luella, is published in late July 2007.

In September 2007, I have my book party at Common Good Books in Saint Paul, which is coincidentally owned by you-know-who. The party goes really well.

Fast forward through 2008. My mom keeps asking when the book is coming out. "I don't know," is all I can say.

Fast forward through 2009. Umm...still waiting.

I have decided that this book is probably not coming out. I understand these things happen. Plus, I have learned my lesson, which is: Don't ever say anything about anything until you know for sure. Knowing for sure in the book world is when the finished product is in your hot little hands. And the checks clear.

The only positive thing about this is that my awful author photo won't be published. But anyway, I thought the story was worth something, so I'll post it here.

THE POWER AND THE GLORY
(unfortunately not on the same level as the Graham Greene version



The Power and the Glory
By Melinda Braun

When I was eight years old I didn’t believe in God. I went to a Lutheran school and went to church every Sunday. I prayed before dinner, before bed, but when I started thinking about it, the stories I’d been told didn’t add up. Penguins lived in Antarctica but Noah was building his boat, cubit by cubit, out in the middle of the Holy Land. How did the penguins get on the boat? What about the polar bears in Canada? How did the lions not eat the Holsteins? No one seemed to know.

When my spiritual conversion finally came I was ready to see the truth. The believers liked to say the Lord worked in mysterious ways. In my case, it took one great-grandmother, three dogs, and the Girl Scouts of America.

As I rode along with my mother in our Pontiac station wagon one afternoon, I was informed that I would be busy every Tuesday after school. “Brownies,” my mother said. “You’ll like it.”

“Brownies?” I hadn’t been listening. My mother talked a lot, and after a while I only paid attention when the tone changed or she said my name, like calling a dog. There was a point in a conversation where I knew it was in my best interest to pay attention, but my mother’s voice hadn’t hit that octave yet. I think it was a C sharp. “Brownies to eat?”
“No, it’s a group,” she explained. “You’ll learn how to do all sorts of things. Cooking, sewing, arts and crafts. I did it when I was your age.”

She might’ve as well said I would be going to the dentist every Tuesday so I could practice getting my teeth pulled. No Novocain, to build character. I didn’t want to cook. I didn’t want to sew. I didn’t want to glue macaroni to construction paper. “I don’t want to be a Brownie.”
“You have to be a Brownie if you want to be a Girl Scout.”
“I don’t want to be a Girl Scout!” Cookies were the only good thing about the Girl Scouts, but I did like the uniforms. And the hats.
As usual, my mother knew my weakness. “You’ll get a special outfit with a sash for your badges.”
I leaned my head against the window. I was a sucker for fashion, especially anything I could decorate or embellish. A sash. A sash to cover with pins and badges. I would be somebody, and the sash would prove it. I had to have one, if only to wave in my brother’s face.

My uniform was not what I imagined. Brown polyester skirt. Plain white shirt. Brown wrinkled sash, naked of medals. No French beret. My brother smirked at me across the breakfast table. “You look like a dog turd.”
“I’m a Brownie!”
He swirled his spoon in his oatmeal. “Brownie turd, then.”

Tuesday after school Troop 918 met in our classroom. There were eleven girls, all classmates, and Mrs. Rouble was the troop leader. Mrs. Rouble was a large woman, with short paprika red curls around her face. She wore round tortoiseshell glasses that magnified her brown eyes so she resembled a gigantic screech owl, but an owl who wore shirts embroidered with kangaroos and koala bears. Apparently, Mrs. Rouble was a fan of marsupials.

That morning my mother gave me a quarter to bring to the meeting. “For dues,” she said. Dues, as it turned out, went into an empty Folgers coffee can to buy treats. Mrs. Rouble decided what the treats would be, and for our first meeting she brought powdered sugar donut holes. She passed them around the circle, admonishing us to “only take one” to make sure there would be enough. We then recited the Girl Scout pledge and sat around the large table stringing yarn around twigs. We were supposed to be making something called a dream catcher, to hang in our bedrooms, but when I got home I knew mine would be going in the garbage. I sat with my friend Jenny and watched Mrs. Rouble eat the five remaining donut holes when she thought no one was looking.
“God, she’s fat,” whispered Jenny.
“Because she eats all the treats.”

Next Tuesday I decided to keep my quarter. When we passed around the coffee can I threw in a rock instead, but Mrs. Rouble didn’t notice. She was too busy eating slices of cherry Kringle.

By the third meeting I discovered Troop 918’s mission. Selling cookies. For our troop to do anything other than make dream catchers or macramé pot holders we needed money. We had no special interest groups in Washington to lobby on our behalf, so it was left up to the entrepreneurial spirit of young girls. I felt sick. I hated talking to adults, strange adults were even worse, and the thought of going door to door to sell anything made me feel like the time I hid in the garage and ate an entire box of Dreamsicles by myself. My stomach turned over and sweat beads blossomed on my forehead.

I kept the cookie sheet buried at the bottom of my backpack for two weeks before my mother found it; I’d been planning to fill in a few names to make it look like I’d done something- John Smith, Jane Anderson, Seymour Butts. But too late it occurred to me that I should have burned it, destroyed all evidence, which was what any good scout would have done. I told her I forgot, but she knew I was lying.
“But I don’t want to sell cookies.”
“Too bad, everyone has to do it.”
“Not me.”
“Quit whining.”
I pleaded to my father. “Can’t you bring it to work with you? Just for a few days?”
My father believed in a strong work ethic and pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. He believed that hard work was its own reward, that sloth was the worst of all mortal sins. “I’m not doing your work for you. You need to learn some responsibility.”

I was sent out the door and I wandered around our neighborhood for an hour, feeling sorry for myself. I sat on a snow bank and waited until my toes went numb, thinking up lies. “No one was home.” I told them. “They didn’t want any. They already bought all their cookies.”

In the end they bribed me with what I had wanted most. I had been begging for a dog. Every birthday. Every Christmas. I also begged for a horse, a spider monkey, and a baby tiger, but a dog was the most reasonable compromise. I was told I would have to sell twenty-five boxes of cookies.

I began knocking on doors, and if anyone answered I would shove the laminated sheet at them. “I’m selling Girl Scout cookies!” I screamed, bug-eyed and sweating. When I was nervous I tended to increase my pitch and volume, and most people took a step back and looked me over with concern. After an hour I had only sold three boxes, to an elderly lady who was senile and deaf. She thought I was delightful.

I dragged along all weekend, and by late Sunday afternoon I had sold nineteen boxes. I was running out of houses. Because I had waited so long most people had ordered their cookies from other girls. I knocked at a brick and stucco house at the end of the subdivision, and a short, bald man answered the door.
“I’M SELLING COOKIES! WANT SOME?”
He stepped back, the whites of his eyes showed like a startled horse, and he made a strange sound in the back of his throat. “Ahh… um.” He coughed. “No thank you, young lady. I’m diabetic.”
“Okay.”
A small Scottish terrier weaved around his shins, looking up at me with a happy, bearded grin. “Hi, doggie,” I said.
“His name is Angus.”
“My parents said they’d get me a dog if I sold twenty-five boxes of cookies.”
“That so?”
“Uh-huh, I’m up to nineteen.”
He took the sheet from my clenched fist. “I’ll take six.”

The next weekend I strolled down the cement aisles of the Racine Area Humane Society, and stopped in front of the kennel where a small blonde Cockapoo shivered in the corner. I named him Muffin.

Muffin lasted two weeks. No one could figure out how to housetrain him, and whenever we left to go somewhere my mother would shut him in the laundry room with his food and newspaper. Every time we came back we found the newspaper shredded and dog poop smeared everywhere, even on the ceiling. We couldn’t understand how such a small dog could defecate that much, or manage to get it on the ceiling, even if he was trying.
“Cockapoo?” said my father. “Cockashit!”

Small dogs seemed disastrous, so we exchanged Muffin for Nikki, who was the size of a small Shetland pony. The doggie card said she was an Irish wolfhound mix, and a perfect match for families. Loves kids, it said. We found out later that Nikki also loved chasing cars and chewing upholstery. When she ate the damask skirt off the living room sofa my mother screamed, but when Nikki destroyed the teddy bear my brother had owned since birth she cried. So did my brother. I sat in my room with Nikki because I knew she’d be gone tomorrow. I bawled, but she only wagged her tail, licked my face, and tried to chew off my ponytail.

On Sundays I sat silently in church, thinking hateful thoughts, while the pastor delivered his sermon, droning on in his monotonous voice. Ask and you will receive. Fat chance. When God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window. What a crock. I sat there on the hard wooden pew squinting at my hymnal with fury. I decided that God was for suckers and dummies, and that I would become a heathen. Heathens did what they wanted and never worried about it. They picked their noses in public, farted in crowded elevators, and belched without excusing themselves. Heathens ate cake and ice cream for breakfast, drank as much soda as they wanted, chewed with their mouths open, and watched dirty television shows. They never, ever went to church to be reminded how sinful and wicked they were because they knew it and didn’t even care.

I thought being a heathen would be fun, but it ended up being as much work as being good, and I also had a lot less free time because I was either sitting in a corner “thinking about what I’d done” or writing sentences like, I will not push my sister down the stairs in a laundry basket. My parents were sick of me, my brother and sister was sick of me, I was sick of me, and I think I was even starting to annoy Jesus. So much so that He decided to take a little time off from the world’s problems to teach me a lesson. If God could create the universe in only six days, He could certainly take the time to show one miserable brat the power and the glory of the Lord. So He did.

That Friday night I went to stay with my great-grandmother Luella, as most weekends my siblings and I spent with her in her little apartment. We loved going, and I think our parents loved us going even more. We got to stay up late, eat ice cream sundaes, drink coffee, and watch Johnny Carson. Grandma Lou thought all her grandchildren were complete and utter geniuses and didn’t hesitate to remind us on a weekly basis. She told us we could do or be anything we wanted and that nothing was impossible. Of course, we believed her.

I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want ice cream, or coffee, or Johnny Carson. I wanted to sit in my room and feel sorry for myself and have everyone else feel sorry for me, too. I wanted to be dead because I couldn’t think of anything more entertaining than sitting and imagining my funeral and how horrible everyone would feel that they hadn’t been nicer to me. I could picture the flowers and music and my beautiful coffin lowered into the ground while everyone I knew wailed and gnashed their teeth, overcome with guilt. It was wonderful.

I sat sulking on the sofa that night, refusing to laugh at Johnny’s jokes. When Grandma Lou asked what was wrong I told her. It came out in pathetic sobs and broken gasps, and when I finished crying she sat next to me, put her arm around my shoulders and squeezed me with sympathy. She was an old, thin woman who had had lost a sister during the Spanish influenza and buried two husbands, but she could still appreciate the heartbreak of one small girl.
“Now you listen to me, if that’s what you really want you will get it. You must believe in that. You must believe in God and yourself.”

That night we knelt down alongside the bed and recited the Lord’s Prayer in German. Vater unser im Himmel, Geheilgt werde dein Name… It was the first time I meant every word.

When my parents arrived Saturday morning they were pulled through the doorway by a skinny brown dog who strained towards me with unabashed excitement, her panting tongue unfurled from her mouth like a slimy pink streamer. I stepped back and sat down on the kitchen chair. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t cry. I just blinked with my mouth open; a paralyzed mute with an eye twitch.

Grandma Lou wasn’t surprised. She smiled and shrugged and started making coffee on the stove, and when she winked at me I realized she had probably witnessed a handful of miracles in her lifetime. Since this was my first she let me have my moment.

“Her name is Paws,” my mother told me. “We picked her up this morning from a man who got her during a special event called Pet Awareness Week. He asked us so many questions,” she said. “It was so strange, like an interview. He was very concerned that she was going to the right family. He said he didn’t want to give her up but he had too. He said she was a very special dog.”

I tried to speak but nothing would come out, only a gurgle. I petted Paws and she smiled at me, in the way that some dogs are able. Her eyes were the color of butterscotch candy, and I suddenly understood what true love felt like.

“Here are her toys, her brush. All her things.” My mother emptied a paper bag, and Paws picked up a tiny Cookie Monster doll and shoved it in my lap.

She stayed for thirteen years, until cancer took her. I was twenty-one when I got the call, late at night and alone in my college apartment in a city far away, the time it seems when such calls arrive. I thought I was an adult but I’d only begun to understand love. I still have the Cookie Monster, stashed in my closet and zip-locked for protection. Once in a while, when I go through my childhood things, my yearbooks and class pictures, the varsity letter jacket and trophies and ribbons, the things that remind me who I once was, I will take the time to unwrap my dearest memory. The scent of her breath, despite my best efforts, has long vanished, but I cradle it to my face anyway, close my eyes and breathe.

The House of Why

This past weekend I turned 34. But in some ways I missed it. It didn't even seem like a birthday. There was a marble cake that my husband made. Thanks, Matt! Which I then had to piece together with frosting because he didn't grease the pan enough and I had to chisel them out. But it was still good.

But there was no party.

There were some presents. Two books (which I will post a review about later) and a traveling coffee mug.

Despite liking the presents I ended up sitting on the sofa in my crabby Jack Nicholson mood and thinking, "What if this is as good as it gets?" A coffee mug, books, and a lopsided cake.

And because I am a greedy turd, I then thought, "Jesus Christ, is this it?" Where are the balloons, the glitter, the crepe paper, the pony rides and animal balloons? Where is my damn crown and sceptre?

This is the bad part about getting older.
The good part? Well, I can go out and buy my own presents because Visa IS everywhere I want to be.

But anyway, I guess I have to get used to the idea that it's never going to really be about me anymore.

So what did I do for my magical birthday weekend?
Babysat.

Since my sister-in-law and her husband were on vacation, we spent Saturday evening and most of Sunday watching Thing 1 and Thing 2. And because Thing 1 is 3 years old, he talks. A lot. And asks questions. A lot. Which gives me the opportunity to fill his head with a ridiculous garbage heap of lies... excuse me, I mean, creative explanations.

Example:
Jack: Do you like my dinosaur?
Me: Actually, I think that's a dragon.

Jack looks confused.

Me: Dragons kind of look like dinosaurs, but they have wings and fly.
Jack: Dinosaurs fly, too.
Me: Some do, but dragons also breathe fire. I have one at my house.
Jack: Where?
Me: It lives in the basement.
Jack: I never saw it.
Me: Dragons are afraid of kids.
Jack: Why?
Me: They just are. Aren't you afraid of dragons?
Jack: No.
Me: Well, they live in the basement and that's how you get heat in the winter. They breathe fire into the furnace.
Jack: Why do they breathe fire?
Me: Because they have horrible breath.
Jack: Why?
Me: Because they never brush their teeth.
Jack: Why?
Me (waving my clawed hands uselessly): Because their little front arms are too short and can't hold the toothbrush.

I realize I am confusing dragons with T-rexes, but oh well.

Jack: Well, you could brush their teeth for them.
Me: Maybe. But the toothbrush would probably melt.
Jack: Why?
Me: Well, because dragons breathe fire....

This kid is going to have his science teacher confused when I get done with him. I can't wait for the day when he asks me why the sky is blue.

24/12

This picture was taken about four weeks ago, when my sister was visiting, and in it you can see the difference between being 24 weeks pregnant (me) and 12 weeks pregnant (my sister).







We are standing in front of the arbor that my dad had recently built for me as a birthday present. Or I should say, project no.47 that he has completed on my house since I've moved into it, eight years ago. Thanks, Dad!

Conversations with 3 year-olds

"Jack, don't stick your crackers in your water."

"But they're fish." He is eating goldfish crackers. "Fish, fish, fishy! Swimming!"

"You're making a mess. Your water is going to get gross."

"Swim fishy, fishy!"

"Your fish will get all soggy."

"Fishy, fishy, fishy...Hee, hee..."

"I'm gonna take it away if you don't stop."

"Yummy fishy...I'm gonna eat you!"


LATER ON

"Jack, why can't you just eat it. Please sit there and eat it." He is mutilating a cheese tortilla.

"I want a popsicle."

"You have to eat your dinner first. Don't poke holes in it."

"I'm making a hole for the cheese. And the mouse."

"The cheese is going to get out. You're making a mess."

"Cheese is hot! Hot!"

"It's not hot, it's warm."

"It's burning me!" Jack gets up and grabs his plate.

"What are you doing?"

"In the freezer." He puts his plate in the freezer.

"It's going to get cold. It won't taste good."

"It's too hot."

"You'll wreck it. It will freeze."

"Like popsicles... Can I have a popsicle?"

"No. You have to eat your dinner. Why can't you eat like Georgie?" George is inhaling his dinner like a Hoover.

"I want a popsicle." It looks like his cheese tortilla has been exploded by a grenade. He is ripping it to pieces.

"Are you done?"

"Yes."

"You can have some fruit." I give them pineapple and blueberries. Both of them gobble it up.

"Now, popsicle."

"You got a one-track mind, don't you?"

He looks at me blankly.
I go into the freezer. There are Minute-Maid juice popsicles. "There's one left."

"Yes," he says sadly. "Grandpa ate them all."

I give him the last one.

"Oh, it's hot. It's burning me!"

"It's not hot. It's cold."

"It's burning me!"

"You mean it's so cold it feels like a burn?"

He contemplates this. "No, it's HOT!"

So it goes....

Northern Exposure

A few weeks ago Matt and I went to visit my brother and his wife up in Bayfield, Wisconsin. My brother actually lives on Little Sand Bay, which is the furthermost northern point of the state of Wisconsin, and the gateway to the Apostle Islands. Needless to say, it is incredibly beautiful.

Here are a few pictures, including my first attempt to paddle a real kayak; they are much tippier than canoes so I was glad the water was completely calm. Despite that, it was also the first time in my life I second guessed myself whether or not I should go out on Lake Superior. I realized it's not just about what I want anymore - I had Baby Moo to think about it.

So I thought about it.




And then I went. But stayed within 150 yards of the shore, in case I happened to tip over and had to swim for shore. I knew it would be difficult if not impossible for me to get back in the kayak if I tipped out. And in that water it only takes about 20 minutes for hypothermia to set in.

But I had to decide then how I was going to live the rest of my life. I've never been too afraid to try things that many people would think as dangerous, and it made me wonder what kind of parent I wanted/needed to be. I don't want to be the type of person to be afraid of everything, even though there are a lot of things to be afraid of. It's hard to know where to draw the line. If baby girl wants to go skydiving when she's older I have decided I will take her myself. On her eighteenth birthday, of course.

So many things to think about. And this is a pretty good place to think those deep thoughts.

Weekend of Firsts

The past weekend has been an interesting one. Last Friday my sister and her husband flew up from Texas to visit. It was the first time I'd seen them in over two years. Pathetic, I know. And now with everyone having a baby (all within a year of each other because the Dahlstroms are nothing if not competitive) it will probably be harder to get together to see each other.

I know my sister isn't moving back to the Midwest any time soon; on Friday night we all went down to the Lake Harriet band shell to see a concert and she complained she was cold. It was TOO cold out for her. Actually, the weekend was kind of cool considering it's July, but still...

On Saturday me and Matt went over to my sister-in-law's and sort of quasi-babysat the boys while they worked on staining the backyard fence. And that's when I got a glimpse of my future. Me and Jack were playing with his toys when he suddenly turned to me. "I got to poop!"
"Okay," I said. "Let's go."
Everyone else was busy so I shepherded him to the bathroom and opened the toilet lid. "Okay, climb on."
He squatted down over the tiny floor potty. "No," he said. "Not that one."
"Oh, ummm..." I said, not sure what to do.
"I can't use that one. I might fall in." By now he was seated and sort of grunting his explanation to me. Well, I wasn't going to argue now.
"Okay, yes, you don't want to fall in," I said.
"Uh-huh," he grunted.

I wasn't sure what to do, exactly. Should I shut the door? Give him privacy? Talk him through it? I had no idea, so I stood there like a half-wit. Jack picked up a book and started to read it.

Then he said something no person had ever said to me before.

"Mindy, you have to wipe my butt."

It wasn't a question. It was a fact. I had to wipe his butt. It never occurred to me that butt wiping isn't some instinctual reflex, like closing your eyes when you sneeze. You have to be TAUGHT to wipe your butt. It's a skill. Like tying your shoes, knitting, or launching a space shuttle. There are specific steps involved.

Still, I panicked. "Matt!"

Matt was in the next room, changing Georgie's diaper. I walked in there; Matt is a good diaper changer and I realized I had ever only assisted changing. I'd never done it by myself. I had to start out slow; I couldn't just jump to wiping a 3 year-old's backside on the first try.
"Jack needs his butt wiped," I said. I must have looked scared because he laughed at me.

Matt walked over to the bathroom door. "I can wipe your butt, Jack."
"Not...done...yet..." said Jack.
"Okay, that's fine," said Matt. "Sometimes it takes a while."

Indeed.

Grandpa and the Mule

I have many things in common with my dad. Same hair color. Same eye color. Same near-sightedness. The same ability to flame up with righteous indignation about all the morons in the world who running around being stupid. Doing stupid things. Making stupid rules. Stupid people...they're everywhere! And no one smart is doing anything about it. Dammit!

My father will listen to political talk radio just to hear himself scream at the blowhards, who are ALL STUPID IDIOTS!

I can get pretty worked up about all the stupid people too, until I remember one small little detail.

I'm stupid.

I did so many stupid things when I was a kid I can barely believe I'm still alive and have all my extremities. For a while I thought it was just me. Then I learned I descended from a long line of relatives whose famous words are, "I don't know...It seemed like a good idea at the time."

So when baby girl is old enough to start being really stupid, I will have to tell her the story of my father (her grandpa), who even though he seems pretty smart now, was really just a stupid kid once, too.

It's called: Grandpa and the Mule

Baby Girl,

When your grandpa was your age (eight-years old) he and his friend Peter decided to go for a bike ride. In those days (the 50's) eight year-old kids didn't have any cell phones or video/computer games or parental supervision of any kind, whatsoever. Really, a lot of people didn't even have T.V.s, I know, hard to believe. And there would only be a few channels to watch if they did have T.V. Yes, yes, it was absolutely terrible. Kids back then had to entertain themselves. Outside! So your grandpa and his friend decided to ride bikes. They rode their bikes (without helmets) eight miles out of the city. On the highway. And eventually they came to a farm. A farm with horses! And your grandpa decides he's going to ride one of those horses, because well, isn't that what horses are for? So he climbs the fence and walks up to a horse. Except it isn't a horse. It's a mule. What's a mule, you ask? Well, a mule is kind of like a horse, except smaller and meaner. So your grandpa walks right up to the mule, grabs its mane to pull himself on and the mule turns his head right around and bites grandpa. Right in the stomach! Can you imagine getting bit in the stomach by an angry mule? I know, it sounds terrible.

So your grandpa, who has no cell phone to call his parents (and wouldn't if he did, because he would have gotten into big trouble for being so stupid as to try to ride a strange mule), has to ride his bicycle home, one-handed, blubbering and clutching his stomach in pain, and you can bet that was probably the longest bike ride of his life. Luckily, the bite didn't break his skin or he'd probably have to go to the hospital. Instead he had huge teeth marks on his belly that turned black and blue and stayed like that for a whole week.

So did you learn anything from this story?

That's right, don't ever try to ride a mule.

Why don't you go ask your grandpa to tell you about the time he sprayed his high school gym class with the fire extinguisher and got suspended....