Dads Great Idea!

We usually once a year took a vacation to the mountains of North Carolina. It was an inexpensive vacation for us and a way to break away from our normal lives. If you've never driven in the mountains I'll tell you theres not much of a better view anywhere. However, if you drive in the steepest part of the smokeys the roads get a little crazy. If your driving at night it gets a bit on the spooky side.
So, we have finally made it to the mountains and its the middle of the night and raining. When I say its raining I mean its coming down by the buckets. With the clouds down on the mountain and the rain pouring you could barely see where you were going. The road had us all scared to death with all of its winding and twisting. On one side it was straight up the mountain and on the other it was straight down into the darkness. We would drive what seemed to be almost straight up. Then once we crested the hill we would start back down till we came to a sharp turn almost u-shaped. My dad was driving with grandma in the front seat. Me and mom were sitting in the back. You could have heard a pin drop on the carpet inside the car. We were all scared out of our wits and saying prayers to ourselves. Just as we crested another hill we begin to pick up a bit of speed. Heading straight down you could see a seriously sharp curve coming up quickly. You could also see the unbelievable drop off on the other side. As we neared the curve we all began to tense up. This seemed like the perfect time (for some reason) for dad to start slamming his foot against the floor board with a loud bang, bang, bang. He quickly exclaimed "Oh lord we don't have any brakes!" Mom quickly slapped me across the chest and planted me to the backseat in an attempt I think to save my life (older answer to car seats). I'm sure i pee'd myself a little in fear of my upcoming death. Grandma I'm pretty sure had a mild heart attack! Dad then applied the brake and slowed way down for the curve. He started laughing at the top of his lungs and was sure he had made a brilliant joke to lighten the mood of everyone. He was wrong!! Just as soon as we figured out he had lied and we weren't going to die the three of us turned on him like a rabid coon in a chicken coup. For the next three hours Dad got to hear about how bad of an idea he had come up with. Mom pretty much told him everything she thought was basically wrong with his plan. It almost seemed to take the scare out of the ride all together. To this day, however, I'm pretty sure if Dad had it all to do over again he would. Cause it was dang funny after a while and makes a great story!!!

McDonald French Fries?

This subject doesn't have much to do with growing up except for the fact that I could eat the beejeebees out of some Mickey D food! However, I have always wondered what in the world there dad gum french fries are made out of? If these things are made out of real potatoe Ill be a monkeys uncle. You see, if you put a real tater out in the sun or somewhere for a long period of time it will rot. First it turns black and then begins to stink until it rots away as compost. However, I have seen McDonalds french fries that happened to be left in the back of my truck bed for well over a year and they looked almost exactly the way they were when put there. I mean you would think a coon or bird would've ate the dang things but they didn't. Maybe they know something we don't. I have even found em stuck down between the cracks of the seats of a car that have been there forever and a day. These french fries don't turn colors, stink and they surely don't biodegrate (if thats how ya spell it). Anyhow, the one thing I can tell you about them is they are tasty little things and haven't killed me yet. Oh, and while we are on that subject, my mom always told me that the reason I was so skinny was all the junk food I ate from fast food places. However, if you watch the news you will see that the world is obese because of fast food restaurants. Whats up with that?? So the next time you order some french fries and McDonalds make sure you eat every last one of them. Because them suckers ain't gonna go anywhere anytime soon if ya don't!!

The Bully!

When I was somewhere around eleven years old I believe. I usually played with the two boys across the street from me. They were brothers, one was a year older than me and the other a couple years younger I think. Now to give you a perspective I was pretty tall and probably weighed about half the normal kid my age. I was as scrawny as they came! The neighbors were of the redneck gender from the hat down to the boots. Usually we would play football or baseball and other childhood games young boys would play. Most every day we played together for the whole day the older of the two boys would do something mean to me and I would wind up crying and running home. Mom would tell me not to play with him if he was gonna do that stuff to me. I guess my mind couldnt remember one day from the next cause I woud find myself in the same predicament as yesterday with the same outcome. The older boy was a bit shorter than me and about twice my size. Im fairly certain he brushed his teeth with barbed wire and beat up bulls for fun. He pretty much had me scared to death. One day after I ran home crying my Mom and Dad told me that if he was bigger than me I should pick up something and hit them with it. They told me they were sick of me running back home and it was not gonna happen again. period! About three days later I was back over at the neighbors playing football in the yard. We had been playing for quite awhile with our cleats off and just our socks on. I guess the bully light turned on and the older one decided he should start pushing on me. After the second time I hit the ground I was pissed and began to cry. Crying just made me more mad because he found it funny that he made me cry. I got to my feet again and began to run home as usual. He quickly caught me and shoved me to the ground again. This time, however, would be a different outcome. As I was getting up this time, still crying, I found myself lying right next to my cleats. I picked up one of my cleats as I was coming up and in one swift motion I smacked him right across his face. Then two more time! I stopped and watched him fall to his knees. He began to cry. I began to stop and started to smile. I wasn't sure how bad I had hurt him and didn't see any blood so I calmly asked him did he care for another one or two. His Mom heard the fuss and came to the door just about the time I called him a stupid whore and ran home. I had no idea at the time what that word meant but I knew it was bad and it was all I could come up without any practice. Not long after getting to the house our doorbell rang and someone began to knock like crazy. Mom opened the door and it was the neighbors Mom and she was hot. Not hot as in Hot but hot as in not too happy with the skinny kid. Mom asked her to sit down and tell her what happened. After she got done telling Mom what happened I was told to apologize for calling him a whore. I told her I was sorry for using bad language. The lady decided that wasn't good enough for her and began to give Mom a hard time and told her I was, in nice words, a very bad kid. I was stunned because Mom just sat there quietly waiting on this lady to finish her rant. I was quickly brought back from being stunned as I heard the lady telling Mom how bad a mother she was and something about how she was raising me. All of a sudden Mom jumped to her feet and decided it was time for this lady to leave. Let me tell ya something, when my Mom decided to raise her voice it was like the devil had a megaphone. Mom began to yell many choice things at this lady along with calling her quite a few bad names. Some of which I had no idea of the meaning but by the tone I could tell it wasn't good. It didn't take long for the lady to realize she might need to leave. She quickly stopped her yacking and hit the front door like her butt was on fire and her head was catchin. After it was all over and the dust settled I figured I was up the creek without a paddle. Mom, however, calmly told me that I was definitely wrong for using foul language. She also explained to me what the word meant. Then she told me that he had that coming to him for a very long time. After that day it took a while but we all still played together. For some reason though, he never picked on me again.