HM Is A Big Whiny Baby!

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is not a happy camper. Her parade has been
rained on today. One bad apple spoiled her whole bunch, and then
somebody upset her applecart. She can't see the forest for the trees.
She can't see the light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps a vision exam
is in order.

I am getting tired of being a day late (but not a dollar short, by cracky,
because I have a gambling system that works!) I can't get caught up
with my 6 preparations per day. One of them is not too bad, because
it is mostly tutoring. But the others are a constant drain on my energy.
One 50-minute prep time per day is not enough. Even adding the
22-minute lunch time does not help. I still have 25 classes a week to
prepare. Oh, I don't mean plan. I can get that done in 30 minutes
each week. I KNOW what I'm going to do, it's just finding materials
that sucks the energy out of me. I don't have textbooks for my classes.
So I am constantly scrounging from several resources per class to
come up with what I need. If I can't find one on the internet, or in
my resource books, I create one. For each class. 25 times per week.
That's five per day. Try it some time. Waaaa, waaaa! Hillbilly Mom
is a big whiny baby! But she achieves the incredible each day, by
cracky! HM pulls through in the zero hour.

Take this morning, for instance. I had to type up a worksheet 1st hour
to use 3rd hour. And get it printed or copied. I had no time to chat
with Mabel in the hall. It helped that my class was doing the weekly
writing prompt, and only one had questions about why petroleum is
not a crystalline solid (it's a liquid, duh, and its molecules are not
arranged in an ordered crystal pattern), and what the two most
abundant elements on Earth are (oxygen and silica), and what very
common compounds do they make when combined (silicates).

I managed to get all the writing prompt thingies graded while my 2nd
hour did the writings and took a quiz (got it graded too), with time to
discuss the worksheet for 30 minutes with 3rd hour. They have a lot
of trouble with root/prefix thingies, like circum means 'around' (ex.
circumference) and man refers to 'hand' (ex. manipulate). We did
23 of them today, with 22 more to follow tomorrow. It's already done,
thank you very much, because I made the decision to give my young
Math 7 kids board work for their Box & Whisker Plots instead of
creating a worksheet, and the Math 8 had a test, and I got all the
grades entered on my lunch time, so all I had to do on my prep time
was write on the board and type up those prefixes. Oh, then the
Lang 7 kids had a writing prompt, and I dashed out of Lower
Basementia to speed back to a faculty meeting at the other building.

I will say that my day flies by, once I get there. Tonight I need to
come up with a Solving One- & Two-Step Equations practice
sheet for Math 9. I think I have one that I've used already for Math 8,
which can be easily adapted. Oh and some more Whisker stuff, which
can be done tomorrow just before class. I don't really like to bring
work home, but I've got to fill out work for some kids in the after-
school mandatory tutoring group, and some ISS work. There won't
be time in the morning. Oh, and we have all new writing assignments
to create for this quarter, and I have duty after school tomorrow,
which eats into the hour I like to stay to finish up, and then I have
to go vote, so my schedule is pretty much booked for the next few
days, what with Wednesday being backwards day due to an early
out, and me having to be in two buildings at one time, which even
The Magnificent Mrs. Hillbilly Mom can't do, so thank the Gummi
Mary that a fellow traveler volunteered to take my students for
thirty minutes so I can cover my class in the other building.

Whew! Did you know the school year is almost over?

HM Returns To The Mansion

I am back from my gambling excursion. I would like to report that
I won. And I did...yesterday. But of course I couldn't let well enough
alone. I had to continue. I was ahead by $90 last night. That was fun
while it lasted. I don't know the grand total yet, because I haven't
had time to count up all my sessions. That's what I do. I divide up my
money into sessions. Not sections. Sessions. For instance, I took some
money to Ameristar. That was a mistake, because I left about $40 of
it there. But I still have $90 of the $100 worth of lottery ticket winnings
that I took. Then I had afternoon, nighttime, and morning sessions of
gambling money laid out for Harrah's. Not so much laid out as folded
and stacked in my purse. My new Wal*Mart purse that cost me $9.97.
Just so you know where my priorities lie. And the money was all facing
the same way, in order of highest denomination to lowest. Can you say
OCD? I know you can, Diva. With me it is not about alphabetizing the
canned goods, but about sorting the money. Over and over.

Don't worry about my young 'uns going without Christmas presents...
I only take what I've squirrelled away from years worth of gambling
excursions. I keep it hermetically sealed in Dollar Store fake
Tupperware. HH is not allowed to get into it. HELLOOOO! He had
the same chance to bring back and squirrel away his winnings. Ahem.
If he had winnings. He keeps putting his back into the slots until it's all
gone. I know when to stop. When the session money runs out. You
can't go back and cannibalize your profits. In a perfect world, or with
a little luck, you can come back with 90% of what you started with.
Which was illustrated by my scratch-off ticket money. Go figure!
All you have to do is keep a mental total of what the machine has
paid you, and CASH OUT when you get down to that level. For
instance, if you put $20 into a quarter slot machine, you get 80 credits.
Each time it pays, you think, "That's 10. 15. 17. 22. Whatever, you
keep adding it in your head. If you're at 38, cash out when your credits
go down to 38. You've only got about half your money back, but the
more you play other money in other machines, the more it will even out.
Just don't spend that 38 credits ($9.50). That way, you'll never leave
empty-handed, and you'll always have money to play again.

Wake up! Hillbilly Mom's gambling seminar is now over. That will be
$495, please. And don't let the door hit your a$ on the way out.

I got home around 4:00. I have unpacked. I stopped on the way home
for milk and bread (the store won't sell it to HH, apparently), and left
the milk sitting on the sink for an hour-and-a-half. Do you think it's
still good? I put it in the fridge. I kind of forgot about it. It blended in
with the sink. That never would have happened if HH had given me
my stainless steel sink when he built the Mansion. But nooo...HH had
to have an off-white, almondish-colored ceramic sink. Like he was
the one who was going to spend about 5 years of his life with his
hands in it. So really, it is HH's fault the milk was left out. Oh, well.
I don't like milk. The kids will let me know if it's no good.

HH is gone to Fort Leonard Wood to receive his 2nd oldest boy,
who returned today from his 2nd tour in Iraq. HH says the families
only get them for the night, then Uncle Sam gets them again until
Thursday. That is, unless the boy takes a job training recruits, which
he has been talking about. In that case, supposedly he can come
home until the end of the week. We'll see. I'm not sure on all the
details, because it was a big hush-hush affair, and the little soldiers
could not even call their families to tell them what time they'd be
arriving until they touched down in Maryland. I'm glad he's back.
He said the last two weeks were the worst fighting he's seen in the
two years he was in Iraq. His job was finding and detonating bombs.
He has said he loves his job, because he feels that he has a purpose,
and that at home he's just a regular guy, nothing special. Nope.
Nothing special. Just a 24-year-old sergeant who spent two years
of his life fighting in Iraq. Oops! Hillbilly Mom is about to get
sentimental. With the emphasis on mental.

With HH gone, I plan to relax and do nothing except watch bad
reality television. On the agenda are The Amazing Race (which I
consider GOOD reality television), Girls Next Door, and possibly
Intervention. Some of them are on at the same time, so I have to
catch them later in the evening. I might also make some Boy Scout
popcorn for the young 'uns. They don't know that back in the day,
before microwaves were invented, people actually poured oil and
popcorn into a pan and heated it on the stove!
It was like the Stone Age!

No cracks about Hillbilly Mom being a fossil. Lantern! Stew!
This means YOU!

Leaving Las Mansion

By the time you read this, I will be well on my way to a casino. All
work and no play make Hillbilly Mom a dull gal. I hope HH will be
able to take care of the Mansion and the offspring this weekend.
I am a bit concerned.

Driving to meet HH for supper Friday night, we saw a man burning
leaves in his yard. "See that, boys? I saw a man doing that when I
drove through the state park last week. Remember, the day the wind
was 50 mph? He had about 5 fires like that in his front yard."

"Oh," said #1 son. "That is what Dad wants to do at home--burn off
the grass in the yard so that it will grow back thicker."

I did not like the sound of this idea. "Well, he did burn it one year.
He'd let it grow too high, and after it turned all brown, he lit it and let
it burn. He said the cats laid down at the edge, and ate the mice as
they ran out."

"You mean the field out front. He's talking about the actual yard now."

"When your house is made of wood, that's not such a good idea. We
have cedar siding."

"Dad says the bottom three feet of the house are concrete, and it
won't be able to catch on fire. He said all we have to do is spray the
porch with the hose."

"Doesn't sound like a good plan to me. He'll burn the house down."

"Oh, for a price, you can hire someone to do it for you."

"Ha! I'm not paying anyone for that. I can light a match my own self,
by cracky! What are we, idiots? I think we are capable of burning
our own house down. We don't have to pay anyone else to do it."

"I'm just telling you what Dad said."

"Can't we just go back to his plan to mine copper out of the back yard?"

****************************************************

And since I will be gone until Sunday night, I will leave you with a
little joke.

A man lay dying in the upstairs bedroom of his home. He had been
in a coma for a few days now. His grandson sat next to the bed to
keep him company.

Suddenly, the old man sat straight up in bed. "I thought I must have
died and gone to Heaven. I could swear I smelled your grandmother's
delicious strudel."

"It's OK, Grandpa. You are right here at home. Grandmother is down
in the kitchen, baking strudel. That is how you smelled it."

"Will you please go down and get me a piece of your grandmother's
delicious strudel?" asked the old man. "I fear that I may never have a
chance to taste it again."

"All right, Grandpa. I'll go ask. I'll be right back."

The boy returned. "Did you bring me some of your grandmother's
delicious strudel?" asked the old man.

"I'm sorry, Grandpa. Grandmother says it is for the funeral."

A Friend In The Hand Is Worth Two On The Desk

Another day of hilarity in the trenches with Hillbilly Mom...a kid
came to class waving a glove. It was actually one glove stuffed inside
the other, a regular pair of kid's black gloves. "See this? It's my only
friend." He drug it out, too, like 'It's my oooooonly friiiiiiiiiiiend.'
I do have a heart. He did not say it in a sad, lonely, I'm-going-
home-to-kill-myself kind of way. No, it was more like taunting, like
showing-off. As in 'See this? I've got one, and you don't--nyah, nyah.'
That kind of way. He went on into the classroom. I stood sentinel in
the hallway, which is required of me between classes. I kind of rolled
my eyes. Yes, I know it's a stretch for you to believe that. After all,
this was the poop-dancing kid, so in fact it may have been his only
friend. But why advertise the fact?

Upon entering the classroom after the bell, I saw that another student
had kidnapped the only friend, and was holding it over his head. Oh,
he was sitting in his seat, but the other was afraid to get too close to
snatch back his only friend. I commanded him to reclaim it, and to
place his only friend on my desk, as he had disrupted class. What
did the boy do but turn his only friend inside out, making him give
birth to his own twin, and tried to keep one and give me the other!
Everybody knows it is wrong to separate twins! I made him put both
on the corner of my desk. "If you can keep from disrupting class the
rest of the hour, you can take your only friend home with you when
the bell rings."

The other kids moaned. "He has been driving me crazy with that thing
all day. It's just a glove!" Another added, "He went up to Mrs. Next
Door Teacher and waved it in her face and said, 'This is my only
friend'. She grabbed it and threw it on the floor!" Ha ha. I couldn't
stop myself from laughing at the only friend's expense. I could just
picture her doing that. And she really likes that kid, too. But it was
just too much, this only friend business. This is why we don't allow
toys at school.

In other news, I took my boys to the doctor today for a tune-up. They
need the Zyrtec refills for winter, and #1 also needs some Nasonex.
I inquired about FLU SHOTS for them. They are just children, you
see, and powerless to resist my bidding. Just my luck, the flu shots
are indeed elusive. The nurse who took their blood pressure said,
"We were supposed to get it the week before last, but our shipment
didn't come in yet. So we are telling people to get them whenever
they hear someone advertise it. There is going to be a shortage of
vaccine again this year."

You may think that is the end of it, but NO! This is Hillbilly Mom's
life we are talking about. After #2 boy was poked and prodded, I
took him out to the waiting room. #1 is old enough to see the doctor
alone now. As we sat waiting, the receptionist answered the phone.
"No, we don't have it. We are expecting it next week. You can call
and check. If we have it, you can get your shot that day. We will
have plenty of it." Hmm...it's not nice to fool Hillbilly Mom. You can
bet I will have my Hillbilly Mama on the phone each day, calling to
track down that elusive flu vaccine.

You're not going to believe this, but something odd happened just
as I was thinking up that paragraph. I am typing this Thursday night,
because I have places to go and people to see Friday evening. I
plan to copy and paste it onto Friday's blog. I thought I was going
to be all clever and say something about not wanting to chop down
any of HH's pine trees for a pine box. Like DeadpanAnn and the
Redneck Diva reference in the comments, since they are dead-set
(heh, heh, dead set--I really didn't plan on that little pun, it just came
out that way and then I noticed it) on being shot up with the flu vaccine.
But just as I thought of 'pine box', I got the smell of carnations. That
was kind of creepy to me, since I am sitting in my dark basement all
alone at 10:50 p.m., and nothing says ' hillbilly funeral ' like a whiff of
carnations. It lasted about 3 minutes, and was gone.

Perhaps it is past my bedtime. I really must go upstairs now.

Issues, Issues, and More Issues

Hillbilly Mom has issues tonight, my friends. Issues which can not
be discussed in this forum. All I can say is: If you have issues with
something I have done, bring it to me, not my child. Just sayin'...

So this will be short, if not so sweet, and then I will burn up the
internet phone liney thingies to my buddy Mabel. Who IS NOT
imaginary. She will give me good advice. She has a cooler head
than I. Perhaps it is the Royal Crown of Hillmomba that makes
me such a hothead. Mabel has always been able to reason things
out with me. Except y'all should make a Note To Self: Do not
walk on Mabel's concrete stepping stones from the parking lot
to the back door when it is pouring down rain, just because you
do not want to get the girly Italian shoes on your mannish feet
muddy. They were not meant for you, so feet off, you heathens!

OK, now for something completely different. No, I'm not going
to quote Monty Python lines. Here's something funny. I know,
that really is something different for a post from Hillbilly Mom.

Today a kid asked to go to the bathroom. My room is right next
to the bathrooms, so I don't have an issue with it unless the same
kid asks too frequently, because then I think they are in there
TEXTING or otherwise doing phonish things. Years ago, it was
a smoking issue, but in this building, there are no outer doors to
the bathrooms. They are concrete maze thingies, like in casinos,
and it is waaayyyy too easy to get caught.

Anyhoo, the kid says, as only a freshman boy can say, "Can I go
to the bathroom? I need to drop the kids off at..." I cut him off,
because I've heard this line from him before. I told him he could
go, but not to ask that way again. (I'm sure you know exactly
which kid I am talking about, Mabel, and I think you should take
it upon yourself to educate him in the proper etiquette for bodily
functions).

So the kid was gone about 10 minutes, and I sent another boy to
tell him to get off the phone and come back to class. Heh, heh.
That way, I figured he would know I was on to him, and come
right back. But nooooo. The second kid came back and said,
"Uhh...I think he's really in there to use the bathroom. You don't
want to go in there. It really stinks!" Ya got that right, kid. I
don't want to go in there!

Five more minutes went by. A kid stood by my desk and hit an
old lunch card that I found in a desk, so that it scooted over and
hit my gradebook. I pushed it back, and he did it again. Yes, this
is the one who greeted me that day with "Hillbilly Mom. My
archnemesis." I lectured him on NOT touching things on my desk.
I was in the midst of lecturing the class on their behavior, telling
them that it was ninth grade now, that I shouldn't have to watch
them every minute and treat them like babies, when we heard it.
A baby's cry!

They all looked at each other. "It's Bathroom Boy!" I told them.
OK, so it's not so funny to you, but it was funny to us. "He can't
stand it anymore," one kid said. Another wail. That got us to
laughing again. Every time someone said something about him,
it was punctuated perfectly by a baby's cry.

Then Bathroom Boy came back. "We heard you crying," they said.
He replied, "Yeah, I sure wish I hadn't eaten so much hot sauce
last night."

It really wasn't him crying. Sometimes, somebody brings a baby to
the kitchen, to the cooks. NOT to cook, silly people. That would
just be OH SO WRONG. Some relative. Or sometimes a teacher's
baby is brought in, or a former student's. I'm sure there was a logical
explanation.

I just don't know what it is.

A Tale of Terror

Yesterday, my 9th graders were all a-buzz about Halloween. Oh,
most of them did not plan to go out begging for candy. They had
more mischief on their minds. Then, talk turned to a certain haunted
house that a certain teacher hosts every year. It's a big deal. People
line up down the street waiting to get in. It is free.

I asked my class if it was scary, because last year, my little #2 son
was only 7, and he closed his eyes and refused to open them until
he got to the car.

One of the boys said, "Mr. Halloweenmaster hides up in a tree, and
when you walk by, he throws babydoll arms and legs on you." OK.
That made another ask, "Where did Mr. Halloweenmaster get a
bunch of babydoll arms and legs?" I couldn't resist. "Duh! From
his childhood!" They kind of liked that. He has two sisters, but I
doubt they gave up their doll limbs for him. Then the first kid said,
"There's a store in Nearbytown where you can buy babydoll parts."
I was dying to ask, "And you know this because...?" But I didn't.

HH took the boys to town. #1 would not dress up to trick or treat,
but he wore his pizza slice costume in the haunted house. The minute
he got home, he reported that little #2 was so scared that he wouldn't
talk all the way home. "Leatherface scared him when he started up
the chainsaw, Mom! It was great! Mr. Lastyearsteacher was out
front on his hands and knees, dressed as a clown, but acting like a
dog, chewing on bones over a dead body. He had a collar, and was
tied up with a leash. When I came out, he tried to chase me, yelling
'Eat him, eat him!' "

I asked HH how it went. "I thought I was going to have to carry #2
out of there. When we went in, Old Man Halloweenmaster hollered,
'We have a little one.' They didn't even bother him. He tried to pull
his hand out of mine and run off. I held on, but he was shaking all
over. He was still shaking when we got in the car."

Poor baby. Maybe he shouldn't go next year.

Stalking the Elusive Influenza Vaccine

Well, now. I was hoping for some sympathy after I reported that I
had been shot yesterday. But NO! No sympathy for Hillbilly Mom!
I have reached a disturbing conclusion. Y'all are JEALOUS of my
flu shot! Yep. That's all it could be.

Sure, we ALL want to pay $30 to have a disease-riddled needle
speared into our muscle tissue. But only a few of us who are covered
by two insurance companies are allowed this privilege. Don't beg me,
now. I am not letting y'all pretend to be me so you can experience it
for yourselves. Aunt Polly is mighty particular about who I let
impersonate me for overpriced medical procedures.

I am not pointing any fingers. My shot-arm is too sore for that. It has
a lovely red ring around the needle site, too. But I digress...Don't
think I am picking on the commenters. They have not told me anything
that regular people haven't told me over the years.

What are we, a nation of lily-livered pansies who are afraid of a
pointy little needle? Where would we be if people down through the
ages had refused vaccinations? DEAD, I tell you! Don't you think
those people who died in the great flu pandemic of 1918 are wishin'
they had a vaccine back then? Oh, I guess not, because THEY ARE
FREAKIN' DEAD!

What if we older generations had refused the polio vaccine? Y'all
young whippersnappers would be lounging around in iron lungs,
twiddling your shriveled fingers, wishing you hadn't gone swimming
in the public pool last July. Sure, you don't have that unsightly round
scar on your deltoid. It's a mark of valor, by cracky! Because we
took the needle, you don't have to. Where's my thank you for
eradicating polio in your lifetime?

Oh, let's just forget this vaccination mumbo jumbo. Maybe when
someone gets the flu, we should just have a good ol' fashioned
bloodletting. Perhaps some leeches should draw out the poison.
Or we could put them all on an island with those Lepers. Surely
they are getting lonely, and need some new faces, new blood.
Hey, I hear that the Waverly Sanitorium is empty now. Those
darn TB patients finally moved out. IN PINE BOXES!

Gosh darn it, people! Does a shot of painkiller give you pain?
Nope. Does a shot of Old Grandad turn you into a crusty aged
man with white unruly eyebrows? Nope. Does a shot of B12
give you B12? Uhh...let's forget that last one.

This is not the Dark Ages. We have technology. A photograph
will not steal your soul. The television is not really full of tiny actors.
Live a little. Take that vaccine. It might just be good for you. By
' good for you ', I mean that you won't catch disease and spread
it to ME.

And you know by now, IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!

Hillbilly Mom Gets Shot

All right, I admit it. I only used that headline for sensationalism. Do
you know how hard it is to get people to come up in here and read
this stuff every day? There...whack my knuckles with a ruler. I won't
do that again...todaaaaayyyyy.

What I really meant to tell you was that I got a flu shot today. So
I did get shot...with a hypodermic needle full of dead influenza
virus. That's nothing to sneeze at, by cracky! I had the flu one
time, and I never ever want it again. I lost my voice for 3 days.
Do you know how hard it is to answer the phone with no voice?
People hang up on you! Even more than they do when I really
answer. It must be those people who don't want to play Trivia
with me, ya think?

Tomorrow is Halloween, so I am going to tell my ghostly encounter
stories to my classes. Then they will write plausible explanations
for the ghostly hijinks. We'll see how many doubters I have.

Today's writing prompt was: "I believe/don't believe in ghosts,
because..." One little fellow said that he did not believe in them,
because if they were real, somebody would have caught one by
now, and we would see them all the time, not just around Halloween.
Another one mystified me by declaring that he did not believe in
ghosts. Then he told the following story. "I never have believed in
ghosts. We moved into a house built in 1941. From the time we
moved in, I kept my closet door shut. One night, I stayed up late,
watching TV. All at once, my closet door flew open and hit the wall
so hard that the doorknob made a hole in the wall. Ghosts are not
real." Hmm...I think that would pretty much be all the evidence I
needed to convince me.

This is a busy week. First I got shot today (OK, I promise, I won't
say that again). Tomorrow, we have to pick up 3 packages at
the post office, get home, and eat supper in time for HH to take
the boys traipsing about town to beg for candy. One of the teachers
has a haunted house every year, so they are going there again. On
Wednesday, I really need to go to Wal*Mart for a new purse. I
need it for gambling. It is too hard to clean out the old one. And
I've had it for at least 8 years. The leather handles are all broken,
with stuffing poking out. I think I'm entitled. Thursday, the boys
have doctor appointments for Zyrtec refills, and possible flu shots.
Yep. I'm going to have my boys shot, too. (Heh heh. I didn't say
I got shot, now did I?) Friday, I will have to do the weekly
Wal*Mart shopping, because on Saturday, I am going
GAMBLING. It's an overnight trip, by cracky!. My aunt and I are
going to spend the night at Harrah's. I plan to have a most excellent
time. I may or may not cash in my $175 worth of winning scratch-off
tickets to take on the trip.

Wow! The school year is almost over, you know.

Oh, and if you want to read my haunted stories again, they are at:

Hillbilly Mom's Tales of the Supernatural
Haunted Bedroom
Haunted Basement?
Here's the bad light bulb (picture)
Mr. Chest O. Drawers (picture)
Smells, Sounds, and Night-Time Visitors
Haunted Gym?
Haunted Gym (picture)
Haunted Gym Haunts Others Too

Hillbilly Mom's Booty

Aaarrrrrrrgghh! Not THAT kind of booty, ye scurvy misfits! The
treasure kind of booty. The spoils. The something-for-nothing swag
that I won playing Trivia last night.

First of all, don't go thinkin' we won. Let's get that out of the way
right now. We placed 6th. Out of 10 teams. That makes us 5th losers,
methinks, what with the 10th, 9th, 8th, and 7th place finishers being
worse than us. Oh, well. We didn't have our regular team.

I didn't actually win something for nothing, because I had to pay the
$10 entry fee. But I had to pay that anyway. The charity was for
dental hygienist screenings for public school children or some such
thing. We expected the door prizes to be stuff like toothbrushes or
floss. Hey! We are teachers. We are memorizers, not noted for our
imagination skills. The booty I won: a Dairy Queen ice cream cake, a
Commerce Bank cooler cup (green), some golf tees, and a large can
of mushroom pieces and stems. Hoo boy! I'm a winner!!!! My Hillbilly
Mama also won a door prize. Hers included: a can of hair spray, a
Little Caesars sand bucket (with shovel) that contained a stuffed Little
Caesar, 4 bags of Little Caesar cookies, two mini dry-erase marker
boards, and a bunch of Little Caesar coupons. Oh, and we both got
some coupons for FREE Sonic Route 44 drinks.

This event was held upstairs in an old historic building. Heh. Like
there is such a thing as a new historic building! It would have been
very creepy in there alone, with no lights. Instead of the Domino's
Pizza that we have delivered at our Trivia events, this one had a pot
of chili, a selection of chips, cheese, crackers, homemade cookies,
popcorn, fun-size candy bars, and soda. Our teame ended up with
four teachers, two mamas, two husbands, and an 8-year-old. OK,
I will claim the young 'un. I didn't pay for him, so he didn't play,
except for his GameBoy. Maybe we should have let him play. He's
in 3rd grade, and I found out at parent conferences Friday that he is
reading at the level of 9th grade, 5th month. You ROCK, Nintendo!
You have taught that boy to read. He used to get frustrated asking
people what the words on the games meant, so he picked up reading
rather quickly.

Our scores for the 10 categories were:
5 Slogans
5 History
8 Movies
10 TV Theme Songs
4 Famous Faces
8 Music
8 Dead or Alive
5 1990s
4 Sports
7 Animals

Let me brag a bit about our perfect category. We are a team of
couch potatoes, it seems. Here were the theme songs they played
for us to guess the TV show. They only played about the first 10
seconds of them. See how many of them you can hum to yourself.
The Wonder Years, The A-Team, Get Smart, The Rifleman, Taxi,
The Jeffersons, The Bob Newhart Show, The Courtship of Eddie's
Father, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, That Girl. I am quite proud
to say that I am responsible for That Girl. The others wanted to
guess The Flying Nun. But I was certain. I knows me some Marlo
Thomas.

I'll also pat myself on the back for one in the music category. Who
wrote Harper Valley PTA? Oh, sure, you want to say Jeannie C.
Riley just like my team, don't you? But NOOOO! She only sang
it. She was a secretary, and Tom T. Hall came in with the song,
and they needed someone to cut a demo. One of the people in
power said, "How about that secretary? She sings pretty good."
And that is how Jeannie C. Riley made her one and only hit.
I was ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN of this answer, you see,
because on Thursday afternoon's parent conference day, time
stood still. Nobody came. We were all trapped in one room,
and dusted off the Trivia book. That was one of the questions.

I also knew one of the 1990s questions. I stood up to my team,
who wanted to overrule me on the fact that Nicole Brown Simpson
was slain by somebody who may or may not have been her ex-
husband, O.J. Simpson, during the summer of 1994. They said
it should have been 1998. Oh, no, my friends. Do not argue with
a pregnant woman. Pregnant back in the summer of 1994 with my
#1 son, driving back from getting a chocolate waffle cone at a
local custard shop. Pregnant women do not forget. Nor do the
birthing women, as one of my teammates knew that the Oklahoma
City bombing was in April 1995. She watched it on the hospital
TV while birthing her baby boy.

I must also take issue with my team for doubting me on a history
question. Usually it is a safe bet to overrule Hillbilly Mom on history.
It is her achilles heel. But when the question involves 7th/8th grade
history books, do not underestimate the power of Hillbilly Mom.
The question was: Who was the leader of the Nez Perce Indians
in the 1800s? My team argued over Sitting Bull and Geronimo. I
knew they were not Nez Perce. I held up my answer. They laughed
at me. Oh, it was not a polite smirk and a little snicker, a chuckle,
a giggle, a snort. No. It was a collective GUFFAW at my expense.
They chose Geronimo. Ahh...the sweet revenge when the correct
answer was revealed to be mine: Chief Joseph.

And another thing...they also doubted me on a sports question.
Usually, I know nothing of sports, but this time, I knew that Rich
Brooks was the first coach of the St. Louis Rams. They accepted
it. I suppose they didn't think I had another one in me. What number
car does Dale Earnhardt Jr. drive? I knew it. Does my HH not have
an entire bathroom devoted to NASCAR? Do I not gaze at Dale
Jr. memorabilia each time I sit on the toilet? Perhaps that is too much
information. But I KNEW it was number 8. I look at the #8 clock
on the wall, at the custom-made countertop with a #8 car, at a thick
book sitting on that countertop, at collector cars hanging on the walls.
Maybe I should have described my view from the toilet. Perhaps
then, they would not have written down #57 as the answer.

Anyhoo...we all had a good time. My young 'un was so good we
didn't even know he was there. My Hillbilly Mama wouldn't speak
during the competition, but said she enjoyed herself.

And Hillbilly Mom brought her great booty home to the Mansion.

Shiver Me Trivia!

I am having trouble moving on from the piratey lingo, after spending
a whole quarter studying Treasure Island with my young DoNots.
Sorry, Mateys!

Guess who's playing in another Trivia Contest tonight? You are OH
SO RIGHT! Y'all must be psychic! It was a last-minute kind of thing.
We were planning it on Tuesday, but couldn't gather enough team.
We need 8, but were willing to play with 4 or 5. Then on Friday, the
day of unending rain, we picked up a member when his annual family
hayride was cancelled. WooHoo! But then we realized we'd told our
third member that the brainfest was off. She had already made other
plans. So we were back to 3. Which brings me to the point of this post.

I am quite unpopular. Or so it would seem, because I'm not a blithering
idiot, or any type of idiot, as far as my brainpower is concerned. I am
really kind of intelligent. I was valedictorian of my high school class,
by cracky! And mentioning it here is all the glory it has ever brought me.
Anyhoo...it would seem that people should be able to consider playing
Trivia with me without cringing. I am not the Elephant Man. I am not
Rocky Dennis. I am not the Phantom of the Opera. I am not Michael
Jackson. So nothing about my appearance should scare anyone away.
My personal hygiene is adequate. I bathe. I shampoo (though I don't
rinse, repeat). I brush my teeth. I don't have any rotton teeth that give
me stinkbreath. I don't have a hairy back. I don't fart or belch in public.
I am not a close-talker. I don't touch people and tell them they are
SO PRETTY. I don't argue over answers. In fact, I give in and put
what other people want. (Well, except for last week, but that was
only ONE answer). So why won't people play with me? Sniff. Snuffle.

My Trivia Buddy and I stood in the hall with our new third teamster.
Trivia Buddy had gone down both halls to solicit players during our
Parent Conference Day. Nada. Not even the Spanish teacher. We
counted it up. We had been turned down by 14 people, face to face.
We decided we are the most unpopular people in the school. We are
outcasts. We are the unclean.

Our Third Teamster, listening to our discussion, said, "Hey, is everyone
else having a meeting down in the computer lab? Because I saw all of
them sitting in there at the computers." And Trivia Buddy said, "No.
That's just how they are. We were not invited." Which is pretty close
to the truth, all joking aside. You would think that would bother us,
but we are so used to it that it is just part of the routine. Par for the
course. The order of the day. We learned that long ago. Though not
as long ago as Janis Ian, who learned the truth at 17.

We don't care. We have invited our mothers to play Trivia with us.
Can we be any more pathetic? I think not. But we expect to have fun.
My mother said her cronies are all a-buzz. "What is it like?" they ask.
She has promised to report back to them. You'd think we were
33rd Degree Masons or something. She must have really been
burning up the phone lines yesterday. I only asked her around 11:00.
She is worried about what to wear. Umm...it's not formal, Mom.
Yes, jeans and a black T-shirt will be fine.

I am trying to encourage her to round up a team for January, when
the school has another Trivia Competition. I did caution her that they
should keep an eye on the weather around that time. I wouldn't want
any of them to break a hip on the ice.

She and her contemporaries just might be able to beat that team of
6th Graders.

Story Time

Today it's story time, brought to you by the folks who search for
odd things and find them at Hillbilly Mom's mansion. There will be
no reprints anywhere, so read it while you can.

It started a long time back. Back in the year women quit wearing
pantyhose television. Sitting at Sammie Sparks table, staring at
Sammie Sparks boobs as she forked out the last of the daughter
earthworm snacks, Hillbilly Mom wondered, "Is that where the
foul under boob smell is coming from? Those ravaged boobs smell
as bad as thirty boobs! Not quite as bad as grandmas megaboobs,
what with their old people smell, but as bad as mom panties. That
gal needs a serious underboob deodorant."

Sammie Sparks shook some more spank your mama seasoning
onto her fried groundhog, ketchup. She sure luuurrrved her some
good hillbilly cooking. It made her appreciate those heartburn hotel
commercials all the more. "Tell me, Hillbilly Mom," said Sammie,
"that julie andrews autiobiography to be published when?" They
moved their private party to the hot tub in the garage for some
good clean hillbilly fun.

Hillbilly Mom stumbled as if she lost a leg. By cracky! Another
sign moms work is never done! Leave it to that stinky-boobed
Sammie to get her mind to workin' overtime. Just as she had been
pleasantly dreaming about how many calories are in a dairy queen
banana split, that a.w.o.l. shoplifter in a hillbilly costume, Sammie,
had to bring up the Julie Andrews autobiography. "Why don't
people think I can write the Julie Andrews autobiography?"
she whined.

"Umm...because you're not Julie Andrews?" asked Sammie. "Still,
you could write a book. You've always used proper penmanship.
In fact, you use big chief tablet penmanship. You have a variety of
subjects you could write about:

how to dress like a pretty hillbilly
inbreeding stories
how to make meth with benadryl
invitation sayings to country bumpkins party
how to write an ode
teepeeing laws for teens
untold stories of the er woman with bugs in head
stories girlfriend's mom dumped

There is no end to them, Hillbilly Mom! How about the diggingest
dog script? You never finished it."

"Well," said Hillbilly Mom, "the writin' life ain't all it's cracked up
to be. I got a feeling that fella that called himself an agent was all
about screwing hillbillies. Yep. He was not about to commence
to screwing buddy mom, I tell you. First he asked me what do
hillbillies wear, and the next day he showed up in a guy hillbilly
costume. The next day, he asked me to dress up like a hillbilly,
in a hillbilly costume female. All I could think of to come next was
ugly hillbilly babies, so I got out of there faster than fifty hillbillies
in a haunted house!"

Hillbilly Mom pointed out the garage door to her front yard. "See
that homemade barrel pontoon boat, Sammie? I may not live in
the coors light mansion, but I have a coors light costume! I know
how to have a good time with a lotto ticket chain letter, and hillbilly
stick moviesgambling. I make a pretty good income hacking toy
grabber machines, and even though my clapper wont work, I am
having more fun than a cell phone commercial butt toucher. I don't
need to write a book. I don't care how many free pvc dart guns or
homemade book covers they throw in, I don't want to write. You've
got to play your own kind of song, Sammie Sparks, or you'll be
pushin' up daisies next to little debbies grave. Take a note to self,
Sammie, cause this ol' gal knows the difference between sprite and
always save(strawberry) with mentos. By cracky!"

Concluding her life lesson for the day, Hillbilly Mom took Sammie
into the mansion minor for a rousing session of scrapbooking. It soon
became la mansion disco as HM put a vinyl disc of alicia bridges
i love my nightlife on her old turntable. She followed it with the
Spinners' workin my way back to you, and the two feisty gals
worked way into the night sorting through pictures of hillbillies
cooking, pictures of hannah montana real life brothers and sisters,
hillbilly picture with tooth missing, hillbilly mama - picture, photo of
hillbillies on lawn tractors, pictures of mimi summer, donna summer
the disco singer daughter, and abandoned mansion pictures. A good
time was had by all.

That concludes this edition of Great Literary Works of Hillbilly Mom.

Tired To The Bone

No, not tied to the bone! What kind of freaky post would that be?
I know it's getting close to Halloween and all, but let's focus here.
I am getting sleepy. Verrrrry sleepy. I know I am having the same
effect on you.

Today was parent conference day. I always think, "Hey, a half day!"
NO! What is wrong with me? The kids have a half day, but WE
have to stay until 7:00 p.m. I don't care much for that. We all have
to sit in a room with similar teachers, and the poor parent comes
in and everyone hears the child's grades. Actually, the counselor
passes out the grades, and the parent comes in to ask for some
explanations.

I don't like this set-up. I would rather talk privately with a teacher
about any problems my child might be having. And wouldn't the
parent feel more comfortable one-on-one? Instead of one-on-seven?
Just my opinion, which doesn't count for much around here.

In other news, my #2 son informed me yesterday morning that he
thought he heard a tuba, but it was only a girl in his class burping.
"A tuba?" I asked. "Yes," he replied. "Either that or a didgeridoo.
Something that sounded really low." Okaaayyyy...that is really some
multicultural learnin' goin' on at the elementary school, by cracky!
Then he explained to me that it is mentioned in his Christmas play,
'Kookaburra's Christmas Down Under'. WooHoo! That reminds
me...we're down to only ONE Christmas Program to attend this
year. I can live with that.

Tomorrow really IS a half-day. Mabel and some other teachers
and I are meeting a former crony for lunch. Except that the former
crony can't go. Oh, well. We can talk about her. What did you
expect, that we'd cancel lunch? Surely you know us better than
that! And don't go thinkin' that it will be me by myself eating lunch
with some imaginary friends. Mabel is real, I tell you!

And I am real tired. The end.

HM Is Not A Good Multi-Tasker

The Halloween Dance was not very exciting this year. No kids tried
to rub their butts on other kids personal parts while dancing. Very
few of them danced. My #1 son would not even dance with his
girlfriend. Oh, he said he would, but he didn't. I told him to just stand
there and let her dance, but he wouldn't. She'll get over it, I suppose.
At least he stood around with her and didn't ignore her.

One of the faculty told my son, the slice of pepperoni pizza, to go up
to the principal and say, "You want a PIECE of ME?" He didn't want
to, because he thinks the principal doesn't like him. A friend drug him
over and said it for him. The principal looked at him and said, "No."
"And not in a joking way, either, Mom," was what my boy reported.
I felt kind of sorry for him. He's used to adults liking him.

I am not having a good day. We were trapped in our classrooms for
over two hours to accomodate a visit from the drug dog. Don't get
me wrong--I welcome a visit from the drug dog. But when you are
expected at another building, and can't notify them, it causes a bit
of stress. I pushed the panic button to ask office staff to call them
for me, which seemed as good a plan as any.

While the K-9 officer was doing his thing, a car pulled off the road
across from my room. It was about 30-40 yards away. The kids
were going batpoop about it.

Hey! That guy keeps looking at us!
Maybe he wants a date. (There were all boys except for 1 girl in class)
Every time we look at him, he rolls up his window. (Tinted windows)
He's talking on his cell phone.
He better not be calling the paper about us.
Check everyone's head for a red light. He might have a scope.
We don't feel safe. Call the office and tell them he's there.
I don't think we're the only ones to see him. There are 9 other
classrooms on this side of the building. As well as the office.What
are they going to do? Tell him to leave? He's on a public road. They
aren't going to send anybody over there while we're on lockdown.
There's a cop right here. HE can go.
I think we're fine.
Can I get down on the floor?
No.
Can I go look out the door to see the dog?
No. The superintendent closed the door. For a reason.
Are we going to have 3rd hour?
Doesn't look like it.
That's not fair! I have PE!
Those people in Science will get extra time on their tests!
That's not fair!
Where does that K-9 ride in the car?
In the back seat.
Uh uh. In the front seat. He's just like an officer.
I wish I had a K-9.
You DO, stupid. You have three of them.
What do you mean?
ALL dogs are canines. It's their name.
Oh.
What if someone planted something in your locker? How can
you prove it's not yours?
Well, they call you into the office. If that dog doesn't smell in
on YOU, then I guess you're off the hook.
Are we going to get lunch?
I'm sure you'll get lunch.
We better!
Are they letting that dog in the cars?
No, stupid. They just sniff the cars.
Hey, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, that dog is going to sniff your car!
He's already been there. He's out front. I don't mind him sniffing.
What if he scratched your car? Would you be mad?
Probably.
Hey, what if he scratched some guy's car, and the guy said, "Now
I'll have to sell a lot more drugs to get a new paint job for my car"?
Yeah. That would be funny.
Why do people bring their drugs to school? That's stupid! Why don't
they just leave them at home? Not that I think it's OK to do drugs.
It's not. I would never do drugs.
I guess they want to show off, or sell them. Why else bring them to
school?

Are you as tired as I was? I even read a book to them most of the time.
That was just about 5 minutes worth.

When I finally got to the other building, I found out we're supposed
to fill out a new form on each student by tomorrow. Except nobody
had given me any forms. I asked the office. They didn't know. They
would check on it. I sent a student an hour later. OK, they will run
some copies for me.

We had an assembly the last hour and a half. Let's not even go there.
I had to hurry up and leave right after school, because I was blocking
in another traveler, because there were no parking places when I
rushed over there after the lock-down ordeal. I then proceeded to
buy some gas, pick up some medicine, run in Save-A-Lot for some
necessities such as bananas, milk, spaghetti sauce, parmesan cheese,
cereal, donuts, hamburger buns, bowling league candy for the party
Saturday, and some baby wipes for cleaning up after giant babies.
OK, so a few things you might not see as necessities, but my
8-year-old did. He also became best friends with two checkers.

When we got home, I had to carry in everything by myself, because
the big kid is the Devil's Handmaiden and refuses to help unless there's
something in it for HIM (besides a roof over his head, food, clean
clothes, and a daily stand-up show from his mama). The little guy
isn't so good at carrying stuff because he's shrimpy.

In the midst of frying hamburgers, washing the dishes, signing the
planner, cleaning out the lunch bag that #2 son forgot so we had
to drive to his school to pick it up before starting home, throwing in
a load of laundry, and slicing pickles...I found out that I am not such
a very good multi-tasker when a half-done burger jumped over the
side of the pan onto the floor. My #2 boy ran to help clean it up.
Thank the Gummi Mary we had just bought those baby wipes!

#1 threw the remains to the dog and tried to tell me he really wasn't
hungry, and that he could go without. Of course I know that an
11-year-old would eat the car seats if they just had a little pepper
and ranch dressing poured over them, so I insisted he eat the last
burger while I made a salad. I could tell he felt guilty for not carrying
in any groceries.

Man. I really wanted that burger.

Let's Get This Party Over With

I am driving back to school tonight to fulfill my annual requirement
of chaperoning one dance. There is always a debate: better to take
the first one and get it over with? Or wait until the last one, and say
you worked at an earlier one? Don't ever, ever sign up for the middle
one. It is the sweetheart coronation thingy, and lasts twice as long.
But it might get snowed out! If you take the first one, what if the
principal forgets, and makes you do another one anyway? Oh, it's
SO NOT EASY being a teacher! All those duties to try and shirk.
Separating inappropriate dancers. Enforcing the NO RUNNING rule.

Riding back to school will be a little slice of pizza. Literally. My
#1 son is dressing as a slice of pizza. Pepperoni. He found it a
couple years ago at Wal*Mart. The Devil's Playground. It sure
beats making him up as Dracula. We did that one year, and he
looked fabulous! He even won 7 free games at the bowling alley
during their Halloween party. But it was a chore getting his face
just the right shade of white, blending in the gray to hollow his
cheeks and eye sockets a bit, getting the widow's peak just so,
and making the blood drip convincingly from the corners of his
mouth. A slice of pizza he shall be, by cracky!

My boy has some neon glowing plastic sunglasses that he got at
the Save-A-Lot several months ago, 3 for a $1. He is going to
give them out to his friends at the dance. I think he has 9 pairs of
them. Perhaps the glowing glasses should have been one of his
campaign promises in the student council election.

If anything of note happens at the festivities, I'll fill you in tomorrow.

Readin', Lyin', and Arithmetic

Whew! It's been quite a day. First cat out of the bag this morning
(No cats, no bags. That would be too much fun, like a cat rodeo.)
a student asked me to read The Scarlet Letter. I did, because, well,
it's kind of like my jooooob. Gosh! The things I'm expected to do!
I don't like Hawthorne. He's a pretentious windbag who could have
told that story in about 10 pages if he would have laid off that
flowery language. And don't even ask me about The House of the
Seven Gables, because I never could figure that one out.

Anyhoo...the kids were supposed to read chapers 1-5 over the
weekend. Yeah. That's gonna happen. We only got through 1 & 2
in about 30 minutes. Hey! It's not MY fault the kids won't read
on their own. They know from last year when we read The Odyssey
that if they wait for me to read to them, we only get through about
half of what they are assigned. Thank goodness the brains of the
outfit informed me that Chapter One didn't even start until page 41.
I would have needlessly read the Preface or some such thing.
And the only thing worse than 40 pages of Preface is 40 pages
of Hawthorne Preface!

Of course the class was all boys. They were not real impressed
with the description of Hester's finely-stitched fancy-shmancy dress
and her elaborately-detailed accessory, the big red A. What they
DID notice, and commented at the end of Chapter 2, was: "That
author is a pervert. All he talks about is her 'bosom'. Why can't
he just say 'chest'?" Which reminds me of another class, who said
that Mark Twain only knew two words: 'melancholy' and 'gay'.
They wondered why Tom sat down at the table and wished he
could be 'gay'.

My math class tried to pull a fast one on me by saying they had
already learned about multiplying exponentials in their regular math
class. I suppose they thought by doing that, I would say, "OK, then.
We won't do anything for the rest of the hour." Umm...NO! Since
they told me they'd learned it, I only put two examples on the board,
and gave them 15 problems. Let's see...the high score was 93%,
then there were several 50s, and so on until the three 0s. So we
will be going over that skill tomorrow.

Next feline out of the rodeo chute, a kid told the class he had a great
big monkey on his porch at home. "I got it at Six Flags. It's as big as
Mrs. Hillbilly Mom!" he declared. Another student didn't believe him,
so the kid behind him said, "I kid you not--that thing is FREAKIN'
HUUUUGE!" I had to say, "Umm...I'm RIGHT HERE! You don't
have to talk about me like that! You are hurting my self-esteem."
Then they were kind of embarrassed, because that is not the way
they meant it. Oh, some classes would have, but not this one.

The afternoon was kind of uneventful. But to make up for it, I had
a math inservice thingy after school. It was supposed to last until
4:15, but went on until 4:40. I was not a very happy camper. And
to blow campfire smoke in my face, one of the 6 attendees answered
her cell phone 4 (FOUR!) times during the meeting. That is just rude.
Nobody else had their cell phone on. What is the world coming to?
Round up those handbaskets again.

Tomorrow I have to chaperone the Fall Dance. Or as we alleged
devil-worshippers dare refer to it: HALLOWEEN Dance. So I
will have a short post tomorrow, what with driving back to school
for that little slice of Heaven.

Karma Learns Hillbilly Mom A Lesson

Oh...that little Trivia thingy? It's over. I think we finished fourth, or
fifth. We were one point behind the team I wanted to beat. Perhaps
I should not have talked so much trash to them. We would have
beat them by two, and taken third place, if not for my error. Yes.
I choked. I bit the big one. I caved. I blew it. I won't go so far as
to say I 'screwed the pooch', because that is just OH SO WRONG,
even for hillbillies.

The last round. We were tied with that 'teacher team'. We had much
discussion amongst ourselves about the answers. A couple different
conversations went on at the same time. We were told to turn in our
answer sheets. I asked Mr S, "Are you sure that's the one?" He said
"Yes." I turned my attention to the first question. I did not like the
answer. I had thought of it at the very beginning, but did not think it
was right. I put down what I thought another player had said. "No,
no," they told me. "Put that other one." I disagreed. I had the pencil,
by cracky! I said, "Let me have this one." I changed the answer to
what I thought another player had said, but he hadn't. I just misread
his lips. I put what I wanted. IT WAS WRONG! And, we had some
answers out of order, two of which were right, but in the wrong place.
They were written in the wrong place by ME. Ohh...the agony of defeat!
I take full responsibility. Not that I am saying I feel guilty. Because
throughout the game, others also made some mistakes. And 26 wrongs
make me right, you see. Our final score was 74 out of 100.

Karma sure is a b***h!

And speaking of karma...Yesterday I stopped to buy my bi-weekly
Powerball ticket. I also threw in a $10 Lifetime Riches scratch-off,
because as some would say, Hillbilly Mom has a bad gambling
addiction. I got $3 worth of Powerball. For those of you who are
not Mabel, that means I spent a total of $13. Which was perhaps
unlucky on Trivia day, but I didn't even think about it, what with
drooling to get my scratch-off ticket. I paid with a $20 bill, and asked
for the change in ones, because I needed them for the kids' bowling
envelopes.

The clerk was the religious lady who always says, "God bless you."
I don't know what religion she is, but she dresses like a holy roller.
That is what HH says, not that I am being a hater to the Pentecosts
or anything, which is what HH says the holy rollers are. I don't know
much, except that she wears the denim skirt and sneaker kind of
ensemble. Anyhoo, I got home and scratched off my ticket...OK,
that's a lie, because I pulled off and scratched it before I drove
20 minutes home, because of my so-called gambling addiction.
I won $15 on my $10 ticket. WooHoo!
Pretty soon I can quit my job!

At home, I took the stack of ones out of my purse to put in my
pocket for the bowling alley. I am one of those OCD people who
have to have all money facing the same way, and stacked in order
of monetary value. There were 8 ones, not 7 !!! For all of you who
are not Mabel, 20 - 13 = 7 . NOT 8 !!! I was in a tizzy. That poor
holy roller woman who always tells me "God bless you" was going
to come up short when she rang out her drawer! She would have
to pay that extra dollar! Hillbilly Mom has worked in a convenience
store during her checkered past. She knows how they operate!

Since I had to go back to town anyway before bowling, because
I ran out of stamps to mail 5 bills I wanted to pay before gambling
away my Friday paycheck, I decided to stop by and give back
that dollar. Because that was the right thing to do. If it had been
Sonic, giving me the wrong change after making we wait in the
drive-thru for 20 minutes, or making sure at least one thing in
every order for the past year was wrong, I would have kept it.
But it was wrong to keep it from that little holy roller woman.

I took the dollar back. That little woman was not working. It
was two other women, one of whom I believe is the manager.
She said, "How can I help you?" And I said, "I was here earlier,
and got back a dollar too much in change. I was just bringing it
back." That manager-lady said, "Thank you. I've had a rough
week." For all I know, those two used it to buy themselves a
Powerball ticket. But MY conscience is crystal clear.

That powerball ticket that the holy roller woman sold me? It had
three of the winning numbers, right in a row. I won $7. I won back
2.333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333333
times my original Powerball investment. I'll be typing up my
resignation letter soon, what with all the money I'm making from
my gambling addiction.

Karma. Learn it. Live it. Love it.

Blogger Bites The...hand that tries to feed it.

Today is the big day. Trivia starts in 3 hours. Stupid dumb
Blogger is not cooperating with me. I tried to log on for 30
minutes. Duh. I'm really that stupid. I'll just whip out this little
post in Wordpad, and see what I can to with it. Stupid dumb
Blogger! It's not worth the money I pay for it.

I didn't find out any more on the traveling meth lab, because the
lady who parked her car across the road to impede my home-
coming last night was not at bowling. She must have been
watching her other son play soccer.

So on to the Trivia. Yesterday, I told a couple members of the
"teacher team" that my team had divided up the categories, and
each of us had been studying every night. Heh heh. When one of
them carried a chair across the gym for me the other day, I said,
"Gosh. Now I'm going to feel really bad when we beat you at
Trivia." She said, "No you're not." Only yesterday, the math
teacher told me my team had better finish behind her team. "Or
don't expect to ever use another test out of my test masters
book." Wow. She's playing hardball!

I sent my team leader a copy of the official entry form that I
had filled out. He said, "Our team is going to KICK BUTT!"
Yeah. We're wild and crazy with that profanity, by cracky!. #1
son picked up my entry form off the dashboard of the Large
SUV. "Yours looks so CLEAN!" His poor little form was
wrinkled and smudged and erased and crossed out. They'd
better not beat us.

HH and #2 son are going to a mineral museum for Halloween
festivities tonight. They will have a tour of parts of the mine where
nobody is allowed, and a mining ghost story, and roasted hot
dogs, marshmallows, make-your-own caramel apples, hot
chocolate, cider, veggies-and-dip, crafts, how-to-grow-crystals,
how-to-make-a-volcano, and other stuff. #2 is quite excited.
HH, not so much. He wants to tour those forbidden places.
It's a flashlight tour, right after the ghost story. The paper made
it sound so good that #1 son and I wanted to go. But alas, we
have Trivia.

Tune in tomorrow for Trivia tales of terror.

Five Meth, Four Meth... My Meth, Your Meth

Excuse me for ripping off Dr. Seuss with a drug reference. Stop
reading, little kids. This is for big people.

Forgive me for ever complaining that nothing interesting happens
around here. When I get more info, I could probably tell a good
story. I'll investigate the facts at bowling league tomorrow.

Let's start with my statcounter keyword searches. The top line was
crystal meth videos from the missouri state highway patrol. Bear
with me. This was quite the coincidence, seeing as how there was
A METH LAB DUMPED ON OUR ROAD TODAY! No, I am
not prankin' you. On our private road. The one we share with about
30 other families. The road with the 'Trespassers will be prosecuted'
sign. A half mile from the Mansion.

Let's go back to the beginning. HH met us for supper tonight in a
nearby town. Afterwards, the kids rode home with him. To put it
in #1 son's terms: "Let's see...if I ride home with Dad, I might die
a violent death because of his reckless driving. If I ride home with
Mom, I might die of old age before I get there, because she takes
the back roads." Both boys chose the Dadmobile. They got home
about 6:00, in time for #2 son's Friday night cartoons. I went by
my Hillbilly Mama's house to pick up some leftover pork roast she
has been trying to give me all week. I hope it's not 3 years old like
that expired Ranch Dressing she tried to feed me one Thanksgiving.

At 6:10, HH called. "Where are you? There's cops and Highway
Patrol all over the first road to the left. Somebody dumped a meth
lab." Okaaaaaayyyyy. Was he warning me that the road was blocked?
Was he concerned for my safety? What do YOU think? Nope. He
wanted to ride the Scout down there and get the scoop. He also
wanted to ride up to our other 10 acres and make sure nobody was
using the old shed on it for a drug factory. And...he was hampered
by having to watch his own kids. Yep. That's all he wanted.

I left as soon as he called. I got behind some fool driving the speed
limit. Then I hit every red light. HH called again. I told him I was on
the way. Great Googley Moogley! Does he think I can teleport? It
is normally a 20-25 minute drive. Tonight it took me 35 minutes. I
was slowed down a bit by the FREAKIN' ROADBLOCK on our
road. Oh, it wasn't law enforcement. It was our yayhoo neighbors
who I guess thought they were helping out by parking their vehicles
sideways across the gravel road. I saw one put a shovel into the
back of his truck. The party broke up. It's like somebody rode a
4-wheeler up the road shouting, "Free meth! Free meth! Down by
the main entrance!" and they all showed up to grab as much as
possible.

So I didn't see what all the hubbub was about. I will ask one of the
carparkers at bowling tomorrow. HH was fit to be tied. How dare
I ruin his plans! I KNEW there would be a meth lab bust on our
road tonight, and that's why I made the boys ride with him! Just so
he couldn't go snooping around! The NERVE of me! I should be
ashamed of myself! He forgets that I drag the little snots with me
24/7. Of course, I never have anything interesting to do, so it's not
a problem. (That's his view.) And yes, Stewie, I am just oozing that
motherly love again.

I had hoped to rip off the Dixie Chicks' "Travelin' Soldier" and give
you my version, which I cleverly and unplagiarizingly call:
"Travelin' Meth Lab". But alas, I have not enough information.
We'll see what I find out at bowling.

That kind of pre-empted my top story for today, which I call:
TRIVIA COMPETITION TOMORROW.

I guess you'll just have to read tomorrow. Even though it's Saturday
and all, which seems to be a blog-free holiday for most people.
How do I know that? A little statcounter told me.

I'll give you the latest scoop tomorrow, just before I head on over
there to compete. Sweet Gummi Mary! I hope I'm not blocked by a
Get Your Free Meth Here On Your Way To The Trivia Competition
booth. That would throw a pipe into my plans.

I will report the Trivia Competition results on Sunday. I know. You
can't wait. It's even more exciting than meth labs, isn't it?

Musical Breathing Poop Dance

Let's see...what's new around here? My G-string, for one thing. My
#2 son is giving it a workout. He doesn't know how to play guitar.
That makes two of us. He's only 8. He saw a child's guitar at the
music store, and said he'd like one for Christmas. We went over to
look at it. $299. I hope Santa hits a big jackpot before Christmas.
I'm sure his elves could make one cheaper than that. If the kid is
really interested, I would spring for lessons. This boy has not shown
a lot of interest in a hobby, other than Thomas trains, Pokemon,
Yu-gi-oh, and GameBoy. He played baseball one year, but didn't
like it. #1 son took piano lessons from the time he was 4, because
he asked to take them. He gave them up around age 8. He hated
to practice. I think #2 could be trained. I taught myself to play
piano. That was before I had those soul-sucking energy-draining
high-maintenance offspring. I can't make time for the guitar.

HH has a CPAP machine now for his sleep apnea. It has taken
about a month for him to get it. Something went wrong with the
doctor's fax or computer or some such thing, and then the woman
supposed to bring it and show him how to set it up was out on
maternity leave for two months, so different offices had to provide
someone, and then he couldn't fit it into his work schedule. He's
only had it for a week. He says he feels a little bit better, but he's
not sure if it's all in his head. He has not been so hateful to us for
the last few days.

This CPAP thingy makes HH sound like Darth Vader. And it shoots
out a thin jet of air into my face. HH said, "Put a pillow there." Yes,
Dear. Apparently he doesn't know about the times I planned to put
one over his face to stop the snoring. Which is gone now, replaced
with Darth Vader inhalations and exhalations. Also, HH does not
thump his leg on the mattress. By 'thump', I mean raise to a height
of about 6 inches and slam to the mattress, jarring me awake about
6 times a night. The doctor from the sleep study told him it was
Restless Leg Syndrome, and that there are two kinds: one where
you know you are doing it, and another where you don't know. HH
said that he remembers some of them, but not all. So the doctor told
him he had both kinds. HH was quite proud.

I'll leave you with this little tale of horror...One of my afternoon kids
was not in class when the bell rang. He'd been tardy a few times, so
I asked the kids where he was. One answered, "He's in the bathroom."
Stupid Mrs. Hillbilly Mom had to ask, "What is he doing in there for so
long?" The minute that came out, I regretted it. But the kid didn't take
the bait. He added, "Well, there was this piece of toilet paper in the
middle of the floor...and it had some poop on it. Tardy Boy was in
there dancing a circle around it, goofing around. Then he stepped on
it. He's in there trying to clean the poop off his shoe."

Three minutes later, the kid came to class. "Walk straight to your chair.
Don't go anywhere else. And DON'T put your feet in the chair." He
looked baffled. "Whyyyyy?" We all stared at him. "We know what
you've been doing." He looked around. "Uh uh. That's not true."
He didn't even know what we were going to say.

Some days, you're better off to leave it at 'He's in the bathroom.'

More Trivial Pursuits

I'm feeling Trivial again. Have I told you how much I'm looking
forward to this event? My #1 son has gathered a team of 6th graders.
He has been waiting for this moment for the last two years. Yep. The
nerd doesn't fall far from the tree. He rounded up six little cronies,
but the last spot was hard to fill. He asked my aunt, who also works
at the school. She is excited. She played once on our team a while
back. We forgot all about her. She's been out on medical leave, and
we totally overlooked her. Now she is aligned with the opposition.
She will have a blast. She loves interacting with the kids. A couple
days ago, she asked me, "Am I the only adult on that team?" I can't
believe she hadn't figured that out. I'd told her all the players.

Yesterday, I saw one of #1's little cronies in the hall. "You're goin'
DOWN on Saturday night!" He replied, "Uh uh. YOU are!" What
a great comeback. Then I said, "Well, at least you'll get that Last
Place sign to keep on your table after each round." And he replied,
"Uh uh. YOU will!" I think we can take them.

This morning I saw that kid's mom in the hall. She teaches in my
first building. "Hey, I told your kid we're beating them Saturday
night." She said, "Are they REALLY having a team?" Then she
asked me if I was on the 'teachers' team'. No, I'm on the 'We Do
The Same Job As You But Don't Get No Respect' team. Because
she is on the 'teachers' team.' Oh, we have some teachers on ours,
but it is not exclusively teachers. Anyhoo, I have been telling her
teammates in the other building that we are in training to beat them.
One told me that perhaps it's not wise to put so much effort into
something that doesn't pay very well. Another told me, "You're
going to murder us--we just do it to have fun." Yeah. We won't
be having any fun, because we're boring friendless non-teachers.
IS THAT WHAT YOU MEAN!?!?

But seriously...I'm just rattling their cage. I've played on that team
before. It depends on the categories. If it's Sports and History, we're
in trouble. I need me some 70s Album Covers, Fleetwood Mac
Songs, Films of Sigourney Weaver, or some such trivia. Please, please,
please don't let it be The Bible. They will wipe the floor with us. We're
not real good with geography, either. Though we did get one right once
upon a time when we spelled 'Albuquerque' correctly. I don't really
think we will beat them. I think they may finish 5-10 points ahead of us.

Shh...don't tell them that. I'm trying to psych them out.