Forty-one years ago, a group of male adolescents and I spent the night before our last day as high school students camping out in my rural Indiana school's parking lot.
Well... we didn't actually camp out. No tents were pitched nor sleeping bags unrolled. No fires were lit, except for a propane-fueled camp stove for some bacon and eggs in the morning. But oh, the havoc we wreaked.
- Using a couple pick-up trucks, we rounded up a few outhouses to decorate the school grounds.
- Also part of the decor was an eclectic gathering of For Sale signs.
- We took all the cement parking space thingies (they may actually be called curbs, but they're the individual ones, you know?) and put them in front of the entrance doors.
- With the remaining cement parking space thingies, we built a cabin.
- We found a couple old tires and ran them up the flag pole. Then Steve Z. shimmied up the pole and flipped a tire over the top like the world's largest ring toss. NOTE: Steve was probably drunk when he went up, but was most definitely sober when he got back down.
- Someone had brought an Army-surplus smoke canister, and about 45 minutes before the start of the school day, we hooked that baby up to a car battery and watched the smoke roll.
I've got to admit, the school principal, SexyLexy, was very good-natured about it all. His only communication to us about the whole evening was when he came out after 30 minutes of smoke screen activity and said, "Okay, men, you've had your fun. Now let's put that thing out and get to your classes."
Did I mention this was an Army smoke canister?
There simply was no Putting That Thing Out. We emptied three fire extinguishers and all of our bladders into That Thing and the smoke just kept rolling.
And then the wind shifted and blew the smoke INTO the school building. NOTE: We were kind of The Popular Guys when the evening started, but our approval ratings definitely hit a low mark as everyone coughed their way through the last day of school.
I've never been accused of being overly intelligent, and now I've got a three-year-old's testimony to back up that evaluation.
While Beloved gets the privilege of spending time with our granddaughter, SweetCheeks, almost every Thursday evening, it's more of a rarity for me to have the night available for performing grandfatherly duties like reading bedtime stories and sneaking pieces of chocolate past the watchful gaze of her parents, KayJay and TheWind.
It's enough of a special occasion that when I arrived one Thursday night a couple weeks ago, SweetCheeks had painted a picture to commemorate the event.
She handed it to me and said, "I painted a picture of you!"
"Oh! That IS me!" I proclaimed, as I pointed at the circle in the upper left, next to the long reddish line, "There's my head!"
SweetCheeks looked at me as if I had just declared that turtles could fly and said, "No...that's an 'O'!"
This is not to say that many movie actors and actresses AREN'T animals...but...well...not in this sense.
The way I figure it, women must be pretty fierce.
Tough.
Fearless warriors, who refuse to run away from a challenging situation.
Here's what I'm talking about...the other evening, Beloved and I were strolling through a big box retailer where all the associates wear red polo shirts. We were in the aisle for eye makeup (a good place to be, because Beloved was wanting to purchase some eye makeup) and I noticed what Covergirl has chosen to call some of its offerings.
If you're in the market for mascara, some of your choices are fairly violent, if you ask me.
Lashblast Fusion...sounds like something Han Solo would use to neutralize a greedy bounty hunter.
Plumpify Blastpro...I can hear this being shouted in a munitions development lab. "Prepare to plumpify Blastpro!"
A third name just makes me cringe in sympathetic pangs of pain...Clump Crusher.
And the ladies are using these things right next to their eyeballs! Amazing bravery!
One particular eyeliner caught my attention as well...Liquiline Blast.
I'm almost certain it takes an extra person to help apply this; standing about 20 feet away: "Alright! Brace yourself! I'm going to blast the left one first! One...two..."
"Wait wait wait! Is that YOUR left or MY left?"
"Three!"
"AUGH!"
