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Follow the Yellow Brick Road, Follow the Yellow Brick Road

By Jody Worsham
All rights reserved for red slippers.

Confused once said “All paths lead to the Rome..if you start from there and travel in a cirlce.” I also remember advice from Glenda the Good Witch to just follow the Yellow Brick Road. I was neither in Rome nor did I have a Yellow Brick Road. What I did have was a temporary job that required me to travel to a nearby city.

It had been fifteen years since I had been to this particular city. I thought I remembered the way but to be sure I consulted “Never-Need-a-Map Hubby. I also got the Tom Tom out of the glove compartment, and just for added insurance, I drove the car that had On Star installed in it. I also left an extra hour early in case, just in case I got lost. Heck, I left an extra hour early because I knew I was going to get lost.

I began by following Hubby’s directions since I had asked him twice just to be sure I had the right turn off and I even wrote it down. “Yes, turn at the Y”. Ok. Somehow that did not match the highway signs I saw so I decided to plug in the Tom Tom. Tom sent me down a back road I had never traveled before. I decided I had better consult On Star.

At one point the Tom Tom was telling me to make a u-turn at the same time On Star was telling me to bare left while the notes from No-Map-Needed-Hubby said keep going straight, and I am telling no one in particular "I don't remember ever seeing that red barn before." I decided to consult the next human I saw face to face. The highway worker confirmed the directions from On Star. I unplugged Tom and threw the notes from No-Map out the window.

The first 81 mile trip took me 2 1/2 hours. On the way home that first day, I passed the same McDonalds three times on the loop before the guy at On Star could stop laughing long enough to get me on the right highway and headed home.

The second day of traveling to this city, I chunked the Tom Tom in the backseat, reminded myself that hubby got his PhD from Texas A&M, and called On Star for directions. That time it only took me two hours because I stopped for gas. On the way home that evening, I thought I knew the way well enough to go it alone. When I got lost in the parking lot, I called On Star. They had put the GPS locator on me my second trip around the parking lot and were taking bets as to how soon I would call.

On the third day I waited until I got to the city limits of my destination before calling On Star. I thought I was close, but I wasn’t sure. “Oh, you’re Jody. Just let me look that…oh,..well… it looks like you are just two miles…now one mile, ok, look out the window on your left. You are there. Is there anything else I can help you with?” “Yes, I need coffee now!” “If you look to your right you will recognize the McDonald’s you passed three…” Click.

That was the day of the Texas tornados. When the storm let up enough for me to head home that evening, I wasn’t sure I could get On Star with all the lightening and the pouring down rain, so I followed one of the directors out of Longview as far as Kilgore. From there, I knew the way home...head south, don’t turn till you see your mailbox. The car was on auto pilot.

When I arrived home, Hubby was waiting at the door. “I was worried. I was afraid you might have gotten lost” he said. “Not me.” Technically I hadn’t this time. “Just tapped my ruby red slippers together and said “There’s nothing like On Star! There’s nothing like On star! There’s nothing….”

Twister Crime

By Jody Worsham
All rights reserved for bail.

I am, by all accounts, an honest law abiding person; but last night during the Festival of Tornadoes, I knowingly and willing committed a crime.

I was at Longview High School at the one-act play competition, which really isn’t a one-act play competition because nobody does one-acts, just 40 minutes from a longer play. The last play had finished and the winners were announced. The judge had just finished critiquing the first play when the Longview host came in and said we all had to get to an interior room because the tornado sirens were going off. Well, that auditorium emptied faster than a Sunday service when the Cowboys kicked-off at noon.

The interior choir room was too full, so the company I was following was sent to the back of the auditorium to huddle behind a half brick wall where the spotlight sits. The cast members were crammed together so tightly that I think everybody now has a date for the prom.

If you are from Texas, you know nothing stops a Texas UIL contest except a direct hit. As the tornado spotted was a good 13 miles away, we continued. The judge who was judging the not-really –one-act play contest went right on telling the kids what they did that was good and what they needed to work on. The kids were peering over that half brick wall at the judge listening to every word. They looked like those little hermit crabs peeping out of a shell. All you could see where their eye-balls. After about ten minutes, the contest manager took the judge in search of the other play companies.

We didn’t know what to do next. We knew a tornado was close by cause our ears were popping; plus a boy that didn’t have an Afro haircut a few minutes ago, had one now. We hadn’t heard the all clear sound so it was possible the tornado warning system had already been taken out.

And that’s when I knowingly and willingly committed a passionate crime.

On tax payer funded public school property, I lead the group in prayer. I don’t mean one of those moments of silence type things; I mean an all-out call to the Lord at the top of my voice. I know. I know. What was I thinking? I'll tell you what I was thinking. I was thinking a Texas tornado can suck you up in East Texas and spit you out in Arkansas; where, if you wake up, you’ll think you’ve died and gone to Hell. Jail time was preferable over landing in Arkansas.

The tornado tuckered out before it got to us. By 10:00 the wind had died down enough for me to head for home. I guess jail time will be in store for me next. I’ll just sit on the front porch with the light on and wait for Dog the Bounty Hunter to show up. Don’t want him breaking down any doors unnecessarily.

Wal-Nut

By Jody Worsham
All rights reserved for nut cracker

I am a Wal-nut. I admit it. I fancy myself as the true shopper all those in the blue vest seek. My face has appeared on their security cameras so often that I expect to see my face on the Wal-Mart Wall of Fame. I shop there two, three times a day.

When I walk through the door their stock immediately jumps 3 points. I head for the red helium balloons with “clearance” marked on them. If the balloons are above the cat food aisle, that’s where I go. It matters not that I have no cat. I might someday and it’s always good to be prepared.

And I am not alone in my quest for Clearance. Dr. Hubby came home with a truck load of clearance items marked 75% off last night, so of course we had to go back this morning in case there was anything left. There was; now there isn’t.

As the result of our quest, we have six backpacks because they were $3.50 each and 10 cases of assorted worms, hooks, lines, and sinkers because they were $10.75 and were now $1.25 “The boxes alone sell for $3,” my logical husband reasoned. We also have baseball gloves and two tennis rackets in case the kids decide they want to play tennis in the future and our dollar has shrunk even further. We own enough Deer Scrape, lick, salt, and scent to keep Santa’s reindeer happy till the next millennium or until deer season opens. Eight bright orange knit caps were acquired for 50 cents each so that each member of the family would have one to wear should we ever decide to have a family picnic in the woods during deer season or a family reunion on the side of the road. A crock pot for a Coleman stove (who knew?), two seven foot diameter inner tubes to pull the kids behind the ski boat, 2 nylon clothes lines advertised as solar dryers, six popup trash cans, seven hammocks to be strategically placed around the property (never know when you might need a nap and you are too tired to walk ten feet to the house), canvas cylindrical nylon bags with carrying totes (why would you need a bag to carry a bag? but they were only $2.25 each so we got two,) a knife and fork probably inspired by Jim Bowie judging from the size, two first aid kits because well, we have two kids, and thirty-five packets of assorted things that were extremely cheap and well, you never know when you might need an extremely cheap packet of something, and nine feet of red rope lights (I have no idea what he had in mind for those) rounded out our purchases.

I know there are those who are Wal-Nots, even Wal-Nevers. There are even the extremists “Rather be Wal-Dead” and that is ok. Everyone to their own addiction or affliction. But when the dollar shrinks to the size of a postage stamp, and with as much buying power, and you didn’t buy gold off the internet, you’ll be coming to me for some of my 75% off clearance items. You won’t have any trouble finding my place. I’ll put a yellow smiley face on my mail box and I’ll be wearing a maroon vest, a step above the blue vest. And I will gladly share…for a price.

Sam Walton would be so proud…a mini Yard-Mart!

The Never Ending....Spring Break!

By Jody Worsham
All rights reserved to lobby for year round school, again.

It has been two hours, thirty-six minutes and four seconds since Spring Break Started. The family feud has already begun spurred on by the fact that the school provided peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, an apple, chips and a cookie for lunch today and the children ate the chips and the cookie. Hunger always makes them ornery.

The first skirmish began with a property dispute over whose identical tennis racket the other child had. This was followed by a whiney repeated request to go outside and smack tennis balls against the house in the pouring rain.

Failing that, the enemy retreated to my bedroom/office where I was trying to write. They turned on “Bridezilla”, a TV show that was of no interest to the six-year-old who began to antagonize his older and stronger sibling in the hopes of a) weakening my defenses to the point I would let them hit tennis balls in the pouring rain (a prospect not as objectionable as it once was) or b) provide practice in case he decided to take up Karate or sumo wrestling. What it got them was the opportunity to move the battle front to another part of the house.

Our house has 3,000 square feet, two, count them two, designated play rooms, four television sets, an air hockey game, plus a Wii game and some kind of connect box that has yet to be connected. They each have their own bedroom with enough books to fill a small library, costumes from 7 previous Halloweens and 3 ballet recitals, enough toys to rival Toys R Us, and enough craft items to start their own Hobby Lobby. No matter, they want my undivided attention….and they are about to get it.

Only eight days, sixteen hours, twenty-nine minutes and fifty-four seconds before Spring Break becomes the topic for the next therapy session.

The weatherman is reporting more gloom and doom for the next forty-eight hours.
He doesn’t know the half of it!

Author? Arthur? Writer? Book Writers!

By Jody Worsham
All rights reserved for an app that will accept loose change or find the missing link.

“Please, Miss Wanda, I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout birthin’ no E Book!” which is what I said to Wanda Argersinger when she approached me with the idea of writing a book. “You don’t need to know how to format the book to Kindle, I can do that, you just have to help write it.”

And with that the egg was laid in the nest.

We just had to incubate ideas until they hatched. With the Erma Bombeck Writer’s Workshop approaching, the chatter on the humor-writers yahoo group centered on who was attending, who was coming for the first time, what to wear, and will I fit in…to my clothes or the group? This led to reminiscing about my first Erma Bombeck Workshop in 2010.

A heartbeat was heard in the shell.

This prompted a search back through two year old e-mails that were flying back and forth between me and e-mail friends I had met through the chat group. Since my computer had crashed twice since then, it was up to Wanda to resurrect the e-mails, which she did. “You don’t remember writing this?” she asked me. “I can’t remember what I wrote yesterday, much less two years ago,” I admitted.

“Remember when you asked how you could find you friends that you had only met on line at the dinner that first night and I said “Look for the Bird,” Wanda queried. “Yes, the bird,” I said.
The bird became the subject of our book sort of, a three foot blue heron decoy that first made his appearance as a centerpiece on a table at the opening dinner of the Erma Bombeck Writers Conference in 2010 to guide me to my friends. And he would do it again for others attending the workshop for the first time in 2012 and for anyone who has ever felt like a pair of white shoes worn after Labor Day. And he would do it with his first humor e-book, “EB and the Ladies of the Bird Table Take Flight”

The egg has hatched!

So dig beneath the sofa cushions, look under the floor mats in your car, or search in the bottom of your dresser for any loose change. When you’ve found 99 cents, here's the link:
http://www.amazon.com/Ladies-Bird-Table-Flight-ebook/dp/B007K0QSX6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331736603&sr=8-1

If the link is missing…something, then go to Amazon.com and type in Jody Worsham. The book title should pop right up. I hope you will download this cheap book and learn what this bird has been up to for the past two years, real or imagined.

How you get the coins into the USB thingy is your problem. I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout buyin’ no books you can’t hold in your hand or dog ear the pages. Hope you do.
If you can’t, well I guess I will have egg on my face.

From My Mouth to God's Ear

By Jody Worsham
All rights reserved for a muzzle

It was Service Sunday, a day when the members of our church gather together for a quick sandwich and then grab paint brushes, hammers, rakes, trash bags, or drills and set off in groups to help out the community, a sort of grass roots local missionary trip without going out of the city limits.

Sign-up sheets were provided so people could find the right job for their skill level. There were houses that needed to be painted, porches that needed railings, nursing homes that could use some Color Splash, trails that needed to be cleared of trash, and dogs that needed to be walked.

Guess which one the six-year-old and the ten-teen picked? Yes, we were going to walk dogs even though you have to bribe, conjole, or threaten to get them to walk their own dog. These dogs were in training as senior companions. I’m thinking “Ok, this isn’t so bad. They are all probably small dogs, poodles, shih tzus, other little fluff balls.” We got our map and off we went, dog leashes in hand.

The map was from Map Quest. Need I say more? Ok, I’ve lived in this community for 50 years
and I have driven down Hwy 7 many times but I was always looking down the highway or checking in the rearview mirror to see if I still had the horse trailer behind me. I was not looking at what is on the sides of the road.

I found the highway and also several white fences, one of the landmarks that was to mark the dog kennel place. The map said two tenths of a mile. When we had gone five miles, I decided we had passed it. I gripped the steering wheel and made a hard turn to the left, saving wear and tear on two of the tires as I did so.

“This is where she starts screaming”, said the six-year-old, a veteran of at least three
skirmishes and one all-out war with a paper-never-to-be-folded-correctly-again
map.

“Not this time, this is a church trip,” replied the ten-teen.

“Nu uh, the back of her neck is red. She’s gonna start yelling any minute. Even God is gonna hear her!”

“I’m not going to scream!” I shouted over my shoulder to the back seat. “We can find this place.” I pulled over on the shoulder of the road and pulled out my GPS, Tom Tom. I punched in
the numbers but Tom didn’t know where it was either. I checked the number of the address. I back tracked to the starting point. “This time look for the numbers on the mail boxes and tell me if we are going up or down. Now what’s that number?”

“1704”

“And this one?”

“There isn’t a number on this one,” came from the ten-teen.

We drove on for another mile. “And this one?” I asked.

“2289”

“Are we going up or down? I can’t drive and remember numbers.” Truth is I can’t remember numbers whether I’m driving or not.

“I forgot” came from the ten-ten.

“She’s getting frustrated. She’s gonna start screaming. I don’t care if it is a church mission. She’s gonna start screaming,” came from the Been-there-heard-that-before six-year-old.

“I’M NOT GOING TO SCREAM. JUST READ THE MAILBOXES!”

“See?” said the youngest.

I took a deep breath and continued down the highway. I pulled over at every mailbox with a number. The people following me thought I was an unmarked mail carrier practicing some kind of fake curbside delivery. After twenty minutes of mail-box hopping and shouting, we found the kennel. “Found it!” I hoarsely whispered. “We made it.”

The lady who owned the kennel greeted us and said “Hope you didn’t try to find this place
with a GPS. GPS doesn’t recognize this place. Guess we don’t exist. Hope the other family coming finds us.”

For the next three hours the children walked dogs; big dogs, medium dogs, but no small dogs. They petted dogs and they brushed dogs. They took the dogs through obstacle
courses. They asked questions. They even listened to half of the answers. They had a great time.

The other family never did show up. I guess they used On Star.

When it was time to leave and we were backing out of the drive-way, the six-year-old
timidly asked “Do you know the way home?”

“Yes,” I calmly said “I do.”

“Good,” said the six-year-old, “Cause I think God’s ears might be kinda sore.”

From my mouth to God’s ears… and back. Oops!