Lego Wars

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for Diplomatic Immunity

My eight-year-old purchased a Lego set with the Christmas gift cards he had received.  I would have preferred that he purchase a small country instead, but he wanted Legos.  When he got home, he piled all 514 pieces on a dinner plate and proceeded to separate them out.

“Have fun!” and I left to take the twelve-year-old to ballet class; then I would have another Wal-Mart walk-about while I waited.  When we returned home, I found the eight-year-old with frustration streaming down his face.  With my teeth artfully imbedded in my tongue “I told you not to get such a complicated toy” came out as “I bet your sister can assemble that in no time.  Want her to try?”

With the pre-teen throwing dartful glances at me, I whisked the eight-year-old to the kitchen for the universal magic cure-all…chocolate and Diet Coke.  With caffeine and endorphins coursing through his veins, he raced outside and up a tree while his sister assembled micro Lego dots.

An hour later, the eight-year-old once again came running in with anger streaming down his face.

“She put my Super Secret Police all terrain SWAT mobile together, then took three pieces off and won’t tell me which ones they are,” said a little future-hubby-without-a-clue.  I bit my tongue, again.

“Well I spent a whole hour putting that thing together when I could have been doing something really important like texting my bff" came from the future-wife-in-training.

 My teeth attacked my tongue.

“Wid  ooo ahwebble it an hi wee pieces wike he ed?”  My tongue had doubled in size.

Translation:  “Did you assemble it then hide three pieces like he said?”

“Yes, but he wouldn’t come down out of the tree to even look at it after I spent all that time putting it together."

At that point Dr. Hubby entered the playroom.  He spoke not a word but went straight to work and scooped up all the logo pieces and turned with a jerk.   Sorry, wrong season...poem.

He placed the logos in the center of the table and declared it the DMZ.  Eight-year-olds to the north, twelve-year-olds to the south.  It didn’t matter.  The eight-year-old had already lost interest and retreated to the tree and the twelve-year-old had gone to her room for uninterrupted texting.  I was in the kitchen soaking my tongue in a glass of flavored alcohol and ice.  Hubby followed close behind looking for his universal tranquilizers: “Where’d you hide the Snickers?  Not even any chocolate bars left? Who drank all my Dr. Peppers? “

With the Lego Truce in effect, I am once again going to Wal-Mart.   I will avoid the Lego aisle.  I don’t think I could resist the temptation. With my current frame of mine and swollen tongue, tomorrow’s lead story on CNN might be “Wabbit Woman Wacks Wego aisle.” 

Leg-oooooooo Noooooo!

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for First Aid

I am what you call a Wal-Mart frequent shopper/walker.  My face appears on their security tape entering and leaving their store more often than anyone in town.  It is not that I am an avid shopper; it’s just that I find myself with many separate hours to kill while I wait for ballet lessons, violin lessons, Boy Scouts, basketball or whatever to be over.   Because of this, I am acutely aware of their clearance aisles and their ever changing rotation and migration of merchandise and have a closet similar to a Wal-Mart warehouse.

At Christmas, not trusting anyone over four feet five inches, the eight-year-old had me put his many Wal-Mart gift cards in the safe.  This served a dual purpose. It prevented impulse buying on his part, and I could see which defective toys made it back to the return counter at Wal-Mart after Christmas.  On one of my recent walking tours, I noticed all the Christmas junk toys were gone, and the good stuff like Legos, were now being marked down.  Time to retrieve the boy and the gift cards.

As the Wal-Mart greeter called me by name, we headed for the toy aisle.   As usual, the clearance Legos were Legos no one wanted.  The eight-year-old headed straight for the good stuff.  When he showed me the box, three things immediately jumped out at me, first the price.  When did a toy cost as much a mid-size compact?  Second, how can 512 Legos fit into such a small package?  And third, why was a grenade wired to the box? 

I had promised myself that I would bite my tongue before I said anything negative about his selection.  It was his money, his choice, his Lego.  With my teeth clamped tightly on my tongue, he put his selection in the shopping cart. Why is it that every Wal-Mart has at least one cart with a wheel that is locked, lopsided, or lists to the left and I always end up with that one? We lurched toward the checkout stand with the loaded Legos.

 
As the cashier scanned and removed the detonating device from the Lego box, the eight-year-old pulled out his gift cards.  Card number one had either been next to my cell phone or had been used and forgotten because it was blank.  I bite my tongue.  Card number two was ok as was card three and four and my tongue began to swell. Card number five was for McDonald’s and so could not be used to purchase Legos, and card number six completed the purchase with $5.22 to spare.

 
“What’s the matter Mom? Are you crying?” 

“No, just bit my tongue.”

Next week, The Lego Wars

 

"Thar She Blows!"

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for WD40

When the shipboard intercom blares out "Whales on the starboard bow," I don't want everyone on the cruise ship turning to look at me.  We are taking a cruise in four months for our 50th wedding anniversary and I must admit (mirrors don't lie so I have to admit it) I have known a few cheeseburgers, known as in the Biblical sense.

So I once again dusted off the "Sweating to the Oldies" DVD and vowed I would not miss a day until my ship comes in and we leave on it.  You would think my family would be supportive since, sans 50 pounds, I would have more energy to take care of them.  Not so.

The very first day of “Sweating to the Oldies”, right in the middle of "Peggy Sue", the eight-year-old walks into the den and quips "I don't even know how to respond to this."  The next day at the beginning of "Am not No Mountain High Enough" as I was groaning and attempting to ratchet my left leg out straight with the floor, Dr. Hubby rushes in to ask if I had fallen. Ok, you might count that as supportive, but I think it was concern for the tiled floor.

I have sweated to the oldies for seven days now. The only difference that I have noticed is that I have a few thousand more muscles than I remember having in my twenties and they are all telling me exactly where they are and to what major body part they are connected to.  Also the beat to "Wipe Out" seems to be accentuated by the crunching of shoulder bone against shoulder bone.  The knee bones get into the act about the middle of "He's a Rebel" which I have renamed "He's a Rebel and My Whole Body Knows It".

Since I refuse to wear a “granny” bathing suite with a skirt, I will have to keep sweating to the old and moldies. 

Whale sightings are going to be likely on this upcoming cruise.  I just don’t want to be one of them.

Two Hooters and a Holler

By Jody Worsham

All rights reserved for a Day Away from the Home

Now that the children can make their own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and as I head toward my eighth decade, I am rediscovering girlfriends.  Yes, I had friends in high school but after graduation I spent the next five decades getting a college degree, working, marrying, working, raising children, working, then raising another set of children.

My two retired neighbors and I had taken a day trip to First Monday, which is a gigantic flea market that begins on a Thursday.  We had such a good time we decided to take another little outing.  Friend One likes to shop; Friend Two likes to gamble.  I like to do both and since I am the kind of gambler casinos like, Margaritaville sent me a free room.  Well “free” in the sense I lost enough in the past to pay for three rooms.

Had I been driving, we would have been shopping and gambling in an hour and a half but evidently Friend Two observes speed limits.  Much much later, we arrived.  It was still too early to check into the hotel so we decided to introduce Friend One to slot machines.  After an hour and a half, Friend One had invested $10 in a penny machine and checked out $12.  Friend Two and I made a partial payment on the casino’s electric bill for the month.

After we checked into the hotel, it was way past time for lunch.  I steered them toward “Hooters”.

“There are only men in here,” commented Friend Two as she balked at the door.

“That’s ok.  They have to eat, too, besides the hamburgers are great”.  I failed to mention that I had never eaten at a Hooters.  But hey, it was girls’ day out.

Our waitress arrived with the menus.

“My goodness.  She looks like my granddaughter,” said Friend One.

“38? You have a granddaughter that’s 38?

“No, she’s 24.”

“I think you have to be at least 38 to work here.”

“Years?????”

“INCHES!!!”

We ate our delicious hamburgers amidst giggles and quick glances at the other waitresses.  After we finished I said to our waitress “Would you take a picture with us in front of the Hooter’s wall size poster? They don’t let us out of the home very often and we want proof that we were actually here…you know, in case we don’t remember tomorrow… or this afternoon.”

She was a good sport, especially since it took a while for us to figure out how to take a “selfie” picture with our new cell phones.  If you see the four of us on Facebook, Friend Two is the one covering her eyes and Friend One has the reddest face.  If our Hooter girl looks a bit shocked, it is because just before I snapped my “selfie” I asked for three applications for part time waitresses.

We shopped till we dropped.  Friends One and Two went to the room early and left me to make another installment on the casino electric bill.  I had just about covered this month’s bill, when I decided to give the Double Diamond bandit one more chance.

The first reel spun and stopped on the Double Diamond.

The second reel spun and stopped on the Double Diamond.

The third reel spun and the Double Diamond stopped…along with my heart.

JACKPOT!  Two Hoots and a Holler!

I took another “selfie” beside my three Double Diamond jackpot and headed up stairs to tell my friends.  When they found their glasses and could see my phone, they were sufficiently impressed.

With a Jackpot in my purse, I won’t have to turn in those Hooter applications.  I know that will make everyone happy, especially the customers at Hooter’s.

Wonder where we will go next?