Ringing Out The Old

It's New Year's Eve at the Mansion. Take my word for it--this joint ain't jumpin'. In preparations for this non-rockin' eve, HH called to tell me to send the #1 son out to the garage with two bottles of Welch's Sparkling Grape Juice. That's because we are Hillbillies, and chill our not-champagne in the milk-crate basket of our army-green 4-wheeler. The basket itself is royal blue. HH used to put The Pony in there and ride him around the grounds. Not when he was a baby. When he was 7-8 years old. Yeah. He's kind of a small Pony. Anyhoo, the time for riding in the makeshift basket ended when I caught them in the act. Not that I'm one of those overprotective mothers or anything. I don't make the boys wear bike helmets to ride their bicycles on our gravel driveway or through the fieldy front yard. But I draw the line at putting my child in a milk crate on the front of a 4-wheeler. Helmet or no. And being as how HH came up with the idea, I guarantee you it was a 'no' on the helmet.

Today has been another lazy day. Did you know there was a Planet of the Apes marathon on AMC? Now you do. Planet of, Beneath, Escape From, Conquer of, or some such thing. I only made it through the first three. There was an Intervention marathon on as well. A & E channel, though I don't particularly find an intervention to be art OR entertainment. That's in real life. I do find it entertaining to watch.

My children continue their diet of carbohydrates. For once, they didn't beg for noodles for lunch. One demanded biscuits, and the other muffins. Let me tell you about Bony Pony Biscuit Eater. That boy loves butter. Not real butter, of course. Margarine, from Save-A-Lot. That boy would drape himself in butter if it was socially acceptable. He can not be left alone with the margarine tub. The #1 son prefers packaged muffin powder. He wanted Strawberry and Blueberry, mixed. I will put my boys up against any marathon runner, any time. They do not wind down. They will be ringin' in the New Year while I am snoozing in the recliner.

In keeping with our very bad dietary habits, HH called to say he was bringing home some Subway sandwich. Don't think he was tryin' to be nice, what with me tendering my resignation only yesterday. No. They had to do inventory at work, and it was just the management type people, not the hourly plant workers. So they ordered a giant Subway sandwich, like, the 6-foot kind. HH was quite excited about his bounty. You'd think he was Homer Simpson, after Marge threw away his wilting sub, and he fished it out of the garbage can and got all psychedelic in his hallucinations after eating it. "It's a good 12 inches of sandwich!" HH declared. "I don't want any. I had it for lunch. But YOU might want it." Hmm...typical of the male measuring standard, that ol' sandwich tipped the ruler right at 8 inches. I gave half to the #1 son, and I took the other half. Funny thing, when I went to pick it up, I felt something slimy on the bottom slice of bread. It was a piece of clear plastic wrap. By this time, the boy had already wolfed his down. I called him in. "What did you do with your plastic wrap?" The boy got a slightly sick look. "Um. I didn't have any on mine." OK. That's your story and you're stickin' to it.

Right now, we're merely marking time until the New Year, when HH will probably take a gun out into the front yard and shoot it. I'm hoping he shoots into the ground. I've tried and tried to tell him that a bullet does not go into orbit, it falls back down, hopefully not on some lady in town washing dishes by the kitchen window. That actually happened in St. Louis one year. Killed her dead, if I remember right. Or just winged her, if I don't. Those city Hillbillies need to smarten up. Maybe they all traded in their guns for $100 last week to the police.

The boys are passing the time by driving their Remote Control Jousting Knights at each other, full speed. It looks and sounds quite fun, though I might try some more maneuvers than the 'head-on crash' technique. Those things will go forward and backward. I would be evasive (like in real life) and then try to circle back and whack my opponent. But the boys are all about the crash. Hillbillies will be Hillbillies, I suppose.

Happy New Year!