"Toe Story" aka "I Toe You So"

Again, I have nothing to blog about. But that's never stopped me
before. I was thinking about school starting Monday, and then I
read a few blogs. I ended up at Rachy's place, and she had a
toe blog as one of her items posted today. I, too, have a toe story.

A few years ago I only had 4 students in my third period class.
They came in one day, sat down, and shuffled their books around
(to find some work to do before I started grilling them on what
assignments might be missing when I checked with their teachers).

'Susie' said, "I'm really tired today. I spent all last night at the
emergency room." We all leaned forward. The work could wait.

"Dad was outside chopping wood. Mom and I heard a scream,
so we ran outside. Dad had hit his foot with the axe, and cut off
his big toe, right through the shoe. Mom hollered at me--'Susie,
run in the house and get a baggie and some towels!' I ran in. The
baggie was to put the toe in. Mom wrapped the towels around
Dad's foot, and told me to put the toe in the bag. I said, 'Uh-uuhh.'
Mom told me 'Just do it!' but I couldn't. It had big black hairs
growing out of it. I didn't want to touch it. But Mom kept telling
me we needed the toe."

"I went back in the house and got a pair of tweezers and picked
up the toe by those hairs and put it in the baggie. Then Mom
said to get some ice to put in it, and we put Dad in the car and
took him to the emergency room. There was blood all over the
towels."

"When we got there, they took him in and said they were glad
we brought the toe. It took them a long time, but they sewed
it back on."

We were all on the edges of our seats, hanging on to every
word. "So he's still at the hospital?" I asked.

"No, they let him come home. They gave him some pain medicine."

"They let him come home last night? Didn't they want to observe
him after the surgery?" I couldn't believe they didn't watch him
closer--even though this was a hick-town hospital.

"No. They just stitched it back on in the emergency room. He
said the pain medicine worked really good. But then last night
he was supposed to keep it propped up, but he wanted some
more ice to put in his soda. He got up to walk to the kitchen,
and he hit his toe on the leg of the table."

"Owwww!" we all said together.

"Yeah, it hurt him a lot, because when he hit it, his toe popped
off, and we had to put it back on with duct tape."

The room was silent. We looked at each other. "Hey...you're
making that up," I told Susie.

"Yeah. First hour believed me, too."

She really had me reeled in. I was buying every minute of it
until the part about where they sewed the toe on in the emergency
room. I watch ER. I know that you need a specialist and an
operating room to hook up the nerves and blood vessels again.

But she told such a good story.

Like a Squirrel on a Wire

I have nothing to blog about today. It's back-to-school time. The
air has that back-to-school smell in the mornings. A few years
ago, before I had to drive my kids to school with me every day,
I could enjoy the sights along the way. I didn't have to bend my
arm backwards to give someone a tissue, or dig in my purse for
nacho money, or try to sign some permission form at a stop sign.

This one morning I noticed movement on a telephone wire on
the road near school. I looked up and saw a little squirrel. Aww,
how cute! I thought. Gee, he sure is a little squirrel. He must
be about half-grown. He's got good balance to run along
that wire. Hey, what's with his tail--he doesn't have any fur
on it. Maybe young squirrels don't grow that bushy tail until
later.

All this happened in a couple of seconds. The road curved,
and I had to pay more attention to my driving. And in that
split second when I looked back down to the road, the horror
of it hit me. That was a rat. And while it was small for a
squirrel, it was big for a rat. This is the country. We don't
have any giant city rats. In fact, it was the first rat I had ever
seen. No, this was no cute little field mouse with the Mickey
ears. It was a rat. And it ran along the wire in the direction
of school.

The hair on the back of my neck stood up, because it was
kind of creepy to watch a cute little squirrel turn into a rat.
I never saw it again, but I spread the word to my fellow
teachers that a rat was running along the telephone line toward
school. They had a good laugh at me, and asked if I needed
glasses.

Teachers. Not as compassionate as you might think.

"Don't you ever buy a new one and pay on time, when you can get a used one for a dime...

...a book's no good 'til someone's turned a page." Did any of you
recognize these lyrics? Any Ozark Mountain Daredevil fans out
there? I didn't think so.

Wednesday we loaded up 23 pairs of jeans, 7 pairs of shoes,
10 shirts, a camouflage hooded sweatshirt (size 12 mo.--yeah,
we're rednecks), and 2 shirt/pants/vest/tie outfits and headed to
town to pick up Hillbilly Grandma for an outing to the new
Goodwill store. After dumping--DONATING--these items, of
course we had to shop. #2 son bought 2 Pokemon tapes and a
Pokemon CD for $8.00. He thought it was a bargain, because
he didn't have these.

#1 son wanted to buy a $12.00 computer, but I talked him out of
it. He is saving for a laptop, and doing odd jobs (such that a 10-year-
old can do). My haircutter hired him Monday for 2 hours of computer
lessons, and paid him $10.00. He was thrilled. He had not expected
to be paid anything but snacks while working. He decided that he
has already taken our other computers apart enough that he didn't
need that one. The parts alone would have been worth it. Keyboard,
mouse, speakers, monitor--even if the main thingy didn't work, this
would have been worth $12.00. But we don't have room for all the
clutter, since he still has parts of an old computer #2 son's teacher
gave us last year, and it would have been HIS money, so he decided
against it. And in case you're worried about buying something like this
there, the Goodwill people say if you buy something electronic and it
doesn't work, you can bring it back and pick something else.

After our shopping spree, we headed to Ci Ci's Pizza. I don't like
their pizza, except for the Taco Pizza. Ole'! They put one out just
as we were going through the line. That's my karma for taking the
kids somewhere they wanted to go. I am mad at Ci Ci's, because
they no longer have cheese on their salad bar. What's a salad
without some shredded cheese? And they no longer have (look
away, Rebecca, look away!) mushrooms for salad fixin's, either.
But they did have some sweet banana pepper rings, so I will
remain neutral in this restaurant review, and not give them a
thumbs down.

Then, minor trauma: #2 son had eaten his fill of noodles with
red and white sauce, and those breadstick things, and went off
to the arcade room. #1 son soon followed. Next we heard a
scream, followed by another scream. That could only mean one
thing. My kids were involved. A little blond boy about 4 came
running out of the game room. Next came #1, who marched
right up to that kid's family and said, "Uh...in case you're
wondering...he grabbed the air hockey puck and put it in the
goal." The first scream had been #2 son, who lost the game.
The second scream was the little boy, who was scared by
the first scream.

Next came #2, crying to me, because that made him lose. I
told him that the little boy didn't know any better, that he was
too little to understand. The boy's grandma came over and
said, "Awww, honey, we'll make it right." She gave him a
dollar to play another game. He didn't want to take it, and
turned away from her. I said it was OK, she didn't have to
give him money. Then she gave it to #1, who persuaded #2
to play again, and #2 took three quarters out of his pocket
and asked #1 to give it back to the grandma. So everything
was settled.

After this excursion, we took Hillbilly Grandma back home,
and returned to our Hillbilly Mansion to find that we had
no internet connection. !!! I called and found out that lightning
had struck across the street from the local office of our
internet provider. Quick-thinking #1 son called Hillbilly
Grandma to get her dial-up number, and we mooched off
of her service. Of course he knew her sign-in and password
--he set the whole thing up for her.

Two days left of my summer vacation. But who's counting?

Ready For School?

Monday I have to go back to work. But I really have to go back
to work now. Monday, I will sit in meetings all day. Oh, they say
we will have time to get our rooms ready. But if you have two
rooms and two sets of meetings and two of everything in the world,
it takes longer.

I took #1 son to school with me this morning to hook up all of my
equipment. The first building was great--they had even hooked up
the computers already. We spent about 2 hours there, loading
stuff on the computer (him) and putting stuff back on the walls (me).
We don't have to take it down, but it usually falls down if I don't.
And you never know when they might just decide to touch up the
paint. Nothing was missing. All systems go at this location.

The other building took a little more work, and I will have to return.
We spent an hour. #1 son hooked up my computers. I rearranged
the desks to my usual pattern. I put all of the drawers back in my
desk. We take them out so the desks can be moved more easily
out into the hall so the floor can be waxed. I must say that both
buildings looked great. The custodians have done a great job.
I will need to hang my maps back on the wall, and put back the
things that fell off ( I left the things up here). All that was missing
was my power strip that I bought myself last year. I gained a
wooden door stop. I'll have to find out who that belongs to.
Last year my rubber door stop disappeared, even though I had
written my name on it with Wite-Out. Much better than the year
I lost my TV/VCR, 3-hole punch, and stapler (they were returned),
and 24 student desks and chairs from the other building, which
were given to a different building and replaced with carved-up
desks from the cast-off room in the basement.

Now all I will have to do next week is to attend the district-wide,
high school, and middle school meetings on Monday, run copies of
my class rules and course description, write dates in the gradebooks,
fill out lesson plan books, look over class rosters, get my record-
keeping stuff organized for each class, go to open house at both
buildings Tuesday night (and make a sign for each building of the
times I will be at each location, go to Wal-mart to get my purchase
order stuff, pick up the Attendance, Discipline, Incentive policies and
the technology agreement forms for the first day of school Thursday,
make sure my printer will print, pay off someone to do my after-
school bus duties and game duties, find my end-of-year inventories
to update, make substitute folders, and I'm all ready for another
year. Ya gotta love it!

A Jury of Your Peers

Oh, people...you don't want to have your jury composed of the
folks I had jury orientation with. Me excluded, of course, since
I would make the perfect decision every time.

The judge told us that a computer program selects the jury pool,
based on eligible residents of the county. That means they have
to be 21 years old. So out of that 240 people who were sent a
jury letter, you would expect about the same amount of people
in each age group. No. I am no spring chicken, but the vast
majority of juror prospects were definitely my elders.

I saw one boy with a fresh military haircut who looked about 21.
There was a girl who appeared to be in her early twenties. About
20 people looked like they were thirty-something. Hmm...forties...
about 50 people. This leaves the rest of them, about two-thirds of
all the future jurors, in their 50's, 60's, and 70's. Not that there's
anything wrong with that. They have a lot of life experience to base
their opinions on. But the way I figure it, there should have been
about 40 people in each age group.

Age was not the only problem. The letter that was sent out clearly
stated that this was ORIENTATION. It said to complete the form,
and bring it to the courthouse at the specified time to find out what
was required for jury duty.

Here are some conversations I heard from the rows in front and
behind me.
***************************************************
"Why do we have to sit so close?"

"They said we'll know by 9:00. I guess they're expecting a crowd."

"Yeah. After we're done, they're gonna move all these pews against
the wall and we're having a dance."
***************************************************
"I have to go to the bathroom. Is anybody allowed to go to the
bathroom? Ma'am? Are there any bathrooms on this floor?"

Deputy Gal: "Right through those doors and turn left. You can go
now."

(It was 8:45. Why didn't she just go downstairs before she came up
to the court room?)
****************************************************
"I got called one other time when I lived in the city. I told the judge
I couldn't do it because I didn't drive"

"Did that work?"

"He asked to see my drivers' license. Then he said I could drive,
so that excuse wouldn't work. But I never got called."
**************************************************
There were two older men and a woman with a cane sitting up front,
in one of the jury boxes by the door to the judges' chambers. I
assumed they had letters from a doctor, since the deputy at the
door had been asking as people went in. Some folks behind me
thought this was a trial.

"Which one do you think is the criminal?"

"Not the lady. She looks grouchy. I bet she's the court stenographer."

"I think it's that one by the wall. I think he did it, too."

"That other one must be his lawyer. He sure didn't dress up."
*************************************************
"How long do you think this trial will last?"

"I don't know. I hope we're out of here by 2:00."
*************************************************
Spindly, the frail old lady who rode in the elevator with me, said,
"I didn't fill out that paper. Do you think I should fill it out?"

"Yes. It said to fill it out and bring it."

"Well, I don't have a pen."

"We need one of those clipboards." (I told Deputy Gal.)
*************************************************
"It's gonna take a long time for them to interview all of us."

"They won't call us in separately. They ask 'Does anybody here
have someone in the system?' and then we raise our hands."

"Oh, and they count the hands?"

"Yeah. Then they might ask 'Who has something against plea
bargaining?'"

"What's plea bargaining?"

"When you give them some choices."
*************************************************
Yikes! There needs to be a common sense test to see who can
qualify for jury duty. I don't even want to know what the other
17 rows were talking about.

Civic Duty

Saturday morning I had the pleasure of traveling to the county
courthouse for jury duty orientation. First time ever. My sister has
done it three times, and has never been called for a trial. I hope I
am so lucky. I don't like things to interrupt my routine. That would
mean I had to write out understandable lesson plans, and turn
my students over to a substitute, who would spoil them, and then
I would have to train them all over again. My students would
miss me. Seriously, my students like me. What's not to like?

My official letter said to be at the 3rd floor of the courthouse
by 9:00 am SHARP. It was capitalized like that. Being the anal-
retentive goody-two-shoes suck-up that I am, I arrived around
8:10. There were already about 10 cars there. Those people
went in, but I waited until 8:30 to make my grand entrance.
I rode up in the elevator with a spindly, fragile, little lady about
70 years old. "I've never done anything like this," she said. I
don't know if she meant ride in an elevator, go to the courthouse,
talk to a hillbilly mom, or leave her little shack with 47 cats.

We entered the courtroom, and were directed where to sit
by a female sheriff's deputy, who looked and talked like
comedian Kathleen Madigan. (Kathleen, I know things didn't
work out last summer on Last Comic Standing, but I think
you should play it safe and stay in St. Louis. Do not go south
of Lindbergh. There are no streetlights beyond that point.)
Deputy Gal performed her seating job like a rent-a-cop parking
cars at the County Fair. All she needed was a flashlight with a
long red thingy on the end. She made the second row scooch
over to make room for us. "Seven to a bench," she commanded.
WooHoo! I got the end! Thanks, Spindly, for showing up the
same time as I did.

People straggled in. Deputy Gal filled 3 rows on our side, then
3 rows on the side by the door. That's when the creep arrived.
He looked like Hannibal Lecter, but without the charm--and
without the hockey mask. He was wearing a plain dark-blue
t-shirt tucked into gray slacks, with a black belt, and gray
Wal-mart tennis shoes. He was short. His graying hair was
combed straight back from his forehead, and greased with
some type of product. Probably fat rendered from the people
he had eaten and made lampshades and garments out of.

Hannibal stepped in the door and sat down on the end. Oh,
no no. He was supposed to move down next to the first lady
in that row. Deputy Gal said, "Please move down, sir. We need
seven to a row." He gave her a look like he wanted to eat her
liver with some pinto beans and a nice warm can of Busch. He
walked over and left about 2 feet between himself and that lady.
Hannibal squinted at Deputy Gal's chest. "Where's your badge?"
She was not at all flustered. "It's broken, but I have a name tag.
Tracy Jones." (She gave her real name as far as I know, but I
can't recall it.) Hannibal took out a pen, licked the end, and
wrote it on his jury summons letter. More people came in.
Deputy Gal said, "Let's move on down. Seven to a row. "
Hannibal wouldn't move. They only got six in that row.

After everyone arrived, all seats were full, plus the jury boxes,
and some chairs up front for the "alleged" criminals and lawyers.
People stood all around the walls of the room, and down the
middle aisle. Somebody said there were supposed to be 240
people. A man deputy said, "You fellas who are like me, and like
to wear the cap--you really need to take that off in here. Any of
you men who feel uncomfortable sitting while a woman stands,
feel free to give her your seat." One man did. Deputy said, "Take
it, Ma'am. This doesn't happen very often."

The two circuit court judges, one man and one woman, came out
and explained the procedure for being called for a case, and how
to check if it was still scheduled, and how it is virtually impossible
to be excused unless the doctor says you can not serve. Then we
were given a pamphlet, and set free around 9:20.

Tomorrow: Be very afraid if you have these people on your jury.

#4 Official Answers What Would Rednecks Do?

The question this week was: What would Rednecks do with the
old cabinets made out of paneling when they remodel their house?

The answers this week were all compatible with the Redneck
lifestyle. Misha comes out the big winner, with three (count 'em)
three solutions to the problem.Scoring was:

Misha: 3
build a cubby house for the kids
use as firewood
build a dog kennel

Babs: 1
decorate the den in a faux-cabinet look

Michele: 2
panel the outside of the pick-up
woodgrain dashboard interior

Rebecca: 2
patio funiture for BBQs
can't have two kitchens in a trailer house

Thanks for playing. All of your ideas could work for the general
Redneck population. Some are not plausible, though, for the
hardcore Rednecks. For example:

Cubby for the kids? Why, when you have a perfectly good
sinkhole available?

Build a dog kennel? I believe the hardcore Rednecks call that
a chain and a metal spike.

Decorate the den in a faux-cabinet look? Not unless those
hardcore Rednecks are puttin' on airs. The "den" is called a
"family room," and is mainly unfinished and filled with junk
that you don't want to put anywhere else. And a "faux" is
what you send Ol' Blue after so you can getcha a tail to tie
to your pick-up truck's antenna.

Use it on the side of the pickup? If the pickup has sides.

Woodgrain look for the dashboard? If your truck isn't full of
old swimming pool parts.

Patio furniture? Most BBQs are "BYOLC" (bring your own
lawn chair), many of which collapse after a few too many
cans of beer in Bubba's tummy.


Official Answers:
Use some of them as storage cabinets in the toolshed that
you build on a skid and haul to town for the back yard.
(My teacher-friend-without-a-blog was very close to this
one, as she emailed me: "put the cabinets in the barn."

The rest of the paneling cabinets shall be officially disposed
of in the big sinkhole (not to be confused with the clubhouse
sinkhole).

#4 What Would Rednecks Do?

You and your Redneck spouse (or "common law" Redneck spouse)
have decided to remodel your little shack. (It could happen!) When
you tear out the kitchen cabinets that are made of wood-grain
paneling, what do you do with them?

There may be more than one correct answer. The "official answer"
will be posted on Monday, August 8.

This will be the end of the Redneck Quiz for awhile.
It has become tiresome.