Lois the Antenna

When I was younger (in the days before cable), our TV would only get good reception if someone sat BEHIND it. Since I was the youngest, I was always relegated to the position of "antenna."

One Halloween my siblings wanted to watch "Trilogy of Terror" starring Karen Black. I'm telling you, the only thing worse than watching a scary movie as a child is LISTENING to a scary movie as a child. I still have nightmares.

That Explains a Lot

Nigel's very first memory is of a Frankenstein statue in his room right next to the crib. That explains a lot.

"I'm Boiling a Tongue"

Disclaimer: My mother, Dot, is actually a very good cook -- in fact, she makes the best scrambled eggs ever -- but sometimes she has some SCARY food ideas. Here are just three:

We always dreaded a special occasion, because these inevitable words would come out of my mother's mouth, "Dad got a raise, so I'm boiling a tongue." You could smell it a block away. Not only would there be a huge cow's tongue coiled inside of a pot of boiling water, but she would stud it with cloves. CLOVES! I still can't go near those orange pomander balls at Christmas time. Actually, tongue is very delicious, but it's best eaten with your eyes closed.

Dot is anemic, so we ate a LOT of liver. I loved the onions that went with it, but it was hard choking down that liver. We ate so much liver that we used to collect the "liver lids" and use them to make home-made "Shrinky-Dinks" (for those of you who don't eat organ meat, liver comes in a little tub with a clear plastic lid).

My mother is best known for her "butter sandwiches." After making school lunches for nine kids and five foster kids every day, you can quickly figure out why. The sandwiches consisted of two pieces of white bread and one pat of butter (Butter? Who am I kidding? It was margarine, or "Oleo" as Dot likes to say). The margarine was always straight out of the fridge, so it couldn't be spread at all. It was just a square of solidified vegetable oil in the middle of the bread. So lunch time usually went something like this -- bite bread, bite bread, bite bread, bite a HUGE CHUNK OF MARGARINE, gag, try not to throw up, bite bread, bite bread, bite bread. Needless to say, I quickly got a job in the school cafeteria and ate school lunch everyday.

From the Scary Minds of Toddlers

I was sound asleep and Alice-Grace crawls into bed with me. No big deal. Then a few minutes later, Jeffrey crawls into bed with me. A little crowded, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Then I smell something really weird. Why do my kids smell so bad? I go to ruffle Alice-Grace's hair and and instead of her usual tangles and dreadlocks, I get a hand full of goo! I touch Jeffrey's head -- again, a hand full of goo! What is going on here?

I turn on the lights and realize that Alice-Grace and Jeffrey had gotten up in the middle of the night, gotten into a can of Cheez-Whiz (why we even HAD Cheez-Whiz, I'm not sure), and made themselves toupees out of processed cheese product! I guess you can say that they had "Cheez-Wigs."

It was so gross. It was all over me and all over the bed. Nigel and I had to get up and give them baths in the middle of the night. We had to wash their hair about eight times before we got all the grease out of it.

I know that I should've taken a picture of this, but I was too tired and too angry at the time. Let's just say that there's nothing scarier than two bored toddlers up in the middle of the night.

"Lick the Spoon!"

I just had a baby and I was feeling miserable and I must've been suffering from postpartum psychosis or something because this happened:

Nigel had killed a spider (a real spider this time) and for some reason, his weapon of choice for killing spiders is a spoon. Not a shoe, not a book, a SPOON! Being Nigel, he left the spoon with the squished spider still attached to it on the dresser.

Every time I walked by that dresser, the voices in my head kept saying, "Lick the spoon! Lick the spoon!"

Of course I never licked the spoon, but it was scary enough that I even THOUGHT it (or the voices in my head thought it).

Are you technically "crazy" when you can realize that what you're thinking is crazy? Now whenever I'm afraid I may start "gardening with the fairies" (Rena's phrase for going cuckoo), I call it a "lick the spoon" moment.

"Spidos!"

So I was pregnant AND sick with the flu and just felt miserable. Then I started hallucinating that I had been bedridden for so long that spiders had spun webs all over me.

I sat up in bed and freaked out. The next thing I know I've dragged my husband out of the bed, across the floor and into the closet. The whole time I'm yelling, "Spidos! Spidos are going to get me!" (Good to know that in times of stress, those six years of speech therapy go right out the window)

My husband then stripped the bed and started smashing my (imaginary) spiders. By this time, I realized that it was just a dream and I crawled back in bed and went right to sleep. Poor Nigel was so confused. Here I was freaking out about spiders one minute, and then happily sleeping the next.

"No, But My Cat Can"

This is a favorite family story. I wasn't there when this happened, so hopefully I have all the details correct:

Late one night, my parents, Dot and Ardale, were sound asleep. A loud KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK came to the door. Dot and Ardale cautiously opened the door to find police officers on the porch asking if they were OK. My parents said that they were all right and asked the police what this was about. The police replied that they had received a 911 call from this address and were here to check it out. Neither Dot nor Ardale had called.

"Is there anyone else in the house?" asked the police officer.

"Just our son, J.D." answered Ardale.

The police and my parents went up to J.D.'s room. Sure enough, they could see that the long extension cord that connects to the upstairs phone was in his bedroom, but the door was closed. Dot and Ardale were starting to panic, wondering what kind of danger their son was in. The police motioned that they had to enter the room first.

The police kicked open the door and swarmed into J.D.'s bedroom. Of course, J.D. wakes up freaked out of his mind to see himself surrounded by police. They soon realized they he was OK and hadn't called 911.

Ardale finally asked, "Are you sure you have the right house? What phone number did the call come from?"

The police told him the number and they realized that this was the other phone line located in Ardale's office in a small building in the backyard. Now my parents' minds were really racing. Did someone break into the office and get hurt? What's going on?

The police went through the backyard to the small back house. They gingerly opened the door and there they saw our cat -- sitting on the speed dial button for 911 with the receiver knocked off the hook.

Many months later, a salesman telephoned to try to get Dot to purchase a security system for the house. She replied that she wasn't interested because she has dogs to protect her home. The salesman said, "But can your dogs call 911 in case of an emergency?" Dot answered, "No, but my cat can." And promptly hung up on the salesman.

Scratch, Scratch, Scratch

When I was a young tween (back in the days before anyone knew what a "tween" was), my parents were gone for the evening and left me, my sister Rena, and my brother, Stillwell (and Stillwell's friend, Red) alone in the house.

I went into my parent's bedroom to find the TV magazine, which was usually on the organ bench. Yes, my parents have a full-size organ in their bedroom (the kind that plays MUSIC, not a kidney). As I was looking through the newspaper, I heard a "scratch, scratch, scratch" coming from the organ. I stopped, looked around. Nothing. Again I searched through the pile of newspaper. "Scratch, scratch, scratch." I looked closer at the organ just as a big black, hairy thing came out from the keyboard! AAAAAHHHHH!

I ran to get Rena (a bad choice since Rena is the most paranoid person there is on the face of the planet, but Stillwell and Red were busy playing "Risk" and didn't want to be bothered). I dragged Rena into the bedroom. She didn't even have to wait to hear the "scratch, scratch, scratch," she was already running out of the room.

Finally, my parents (Dot and Ardale) got home. Rena and I told them what was going on. Of course, they just rolled their eyes and ignored us. We begged and pleaded for them to check, and finally they relented.

With Ardale lifting the top of the organ off and Dot lecturing us about how we shouldn't watch scary movies -- BAM! A huge black cat leaped out of the organ and ran terrified out of the house. We, of course, all started jumping up and down and screaming.

Somehow, the neighbors cat had gotten into our house, crawled up into the organ and then couldn't get back out! Who knows how long it was in there! (And judging by the smell of the inside of the organ, it was a while)

"Because I'm Worth It"

Someone once asked my mother-in-law, Lilu, why she dyed her hair. She said, "Because I started going prematurely gray at such a young age." The person retorted, "Well, but now you're 45, it's not premature anymore." She thought this over logically and replied, "You're right." And she never dyed it again.

I've always been impressed by that since I am also one that started going gray way back in high school. Well, I'm not quite 45, but I've decided that it's not premature anymore and I've stopped dying my hair.

Those old L'Oreal commercials ended with the tag line, "Because I'm worth it." Well, I think that I'm worth a lot more than a box of hair dye at the local drugstore.

Watch It Jiggle?

Here's an entry from my mother, Dot, who lived through the Great Depression, so she's totally awesome at staying within her budget:

"I have always prided myself in the fact that I could whip up a meal from my food supply or find a substitute for a missing ingredient.

"One time I even looked through a cookbook for a recipe that used just the staples I had on hand (I found one that was called Tuna Roll-Ups. It was made with tuna and celery wrapped up in Bisquick like a jellyroll, and then topped with gravy -- I substituted Cream of Chicken soup. It turned out great). With such experiences, I began to feel confident in my ability to "make do."

"Then came the day -- we were having guests for dinner. I believe they were the missionaries serving in our ward at that time. I had everything prepared, except for the beverage. I wanted a fruit punch to give color to the table, but did not have any on hand. No problem. I would substitute Jello and use it like Kool-Aid. I heated the water to dissolve the gelatin. It would be a delightful cherry flavor. I added the cold water and then poured up the "punch" into the crystal goblets. It all looked so pretty. I had tasted it, and it even tasted better than cherry Kool-Aid. It just needed to be a little colder, so just before sitting down, I put ice cubes in the goblets. BIG MISTAKE! After saying "grace" and starting our meal, to my horror I discovered too late, the the ice cubes had "set" the Jello!"