Not the socks

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For Campbell.  Thanks for reminding me of the poetic value of the conversations of six-year-old boys.

I like cotton candy and roller coaster rides.
I love the beach and the rocks.
I’m happy with cozy blankets snuggled to my sides.
But I don’t like smelling smelly socks.

I would jump at a chance to go the zoo.
I’d be thrilled to make a fort out of a box.
I’ll go along with anything that you would like to do.
But just not smelling smelly socks.

Of all the foods, pepperoni pizza is the best.
My favorite shoes are my Crocs
Chocolate ice cream is better than the rest
But the worst is smelling smelly socks.

So let’s race to the tree, I don’t care if you win.
Let that hairy spider crawl near
I’ll twirl in a circle until my head spins
But get smelly socks out of here.

Treelight

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Once upon a time there were a brother and sister of exceptional talents who lived in the woods all alone with their father.  Their father was also a man of exceptional talent, but the children did not know that.  They only knew that he worked hard to make sure they had food and to keep them safe from danger and to teach them to use their talents wisely.  He was their whole world, and it was a happy world.

Then one day he disappeared, and their world was forced to get much bigger.

It did not take long for them to see signs of struggle and to realize that it had not been their father’s idea to leave them alone.  It took only a little longer to pack two small bags and sling them on their backs and find the correct direction to follow.  That last part was not difficult.  There were no footprints to be seen, but a very clear trail was left.  Starting at the edge of the small yard, birds had gathered.  They were hopping about on the ground and in the trees, twittering to each other in a happy way.  A bit past that,  a fox was lying, ignoring the delicious birds and rolling in the grass.  Down through the trees in a continuous line were animals of all shapes and sizes all apparently happy, all come to sniff or play or take a nap along the trail, drawn as if to a stream of water.  The children were amazed.  They knew their father had a way with animals and that they often came to him while he was working in the forest, but they had never seen anything like this.  They began to realize that their father’s talents were much beyond anything they had suspected.

They followed the living trail all day, and when night came they were far from home.  On and on stretched the trail in the distance, and they knew the journey would not be short.  They did not feel tired or sore.  They did not want to rest.  They felt worried and afraid.  They wanted to be at home and safe with their father again.  They decided to keep walking.  It was a dark night.  The stars seemed cold and far away.  Animals that seemed harmless and even friendly by day now seemed strange and even menacing.  They held onto each others’ hands and kept walking.

At last they came to end of the forest.  One last lone tree stood ahead and then a flat, stony ground stretched out in the distance.  They could see a few birds fluttering here and there, but the trail was much less clear now.  There must not have been many animals in that part of the world.  The children paused, not sure what to do, afraid to step out into that exposed, unknown world.

“If only we had more light,” the sister said to her brother.

He nodded, thinking of the cozy fire at home, and lamps, and candles, and the lovely paper lanterns their father had once made for them.  He had an idea.  He did not know if it would work, but there is really no point in having exceptional talents if you will not try to use them.  He walked toward the last lone tree spreading its branches before them.  Putting his hands on its rough, gnarled bark, he began to tell a story.  He told the story so quietly that his sister could not hear the words, but she understood.  The story was not for her.  It was for the tree.  She watches as the tree began to sway and the leaves shivered with happiness.  She watched as a small bud formed on the central branch of the tree and grew and grew until it was fat and round and looked ready to burst into bloom at the first touch of sunlight.  Then she knew what she needed to do.

She began to sing, and as she sang, the tree began to glow.  Starting with the branches nearest her, the glow spread up and up until it lit up the bulb, still quivering with life at the center of the tree.  She shifted the song, and the glow concentrated itself right there.  Now the bud was absorbing all the light from the rest of the tree, burning now with a orange light that cast pretty leafy shadows on the ground.  Gently, gently, she finished her song, never taking her eyes off the glowing ball.  In the silence that followed, she heard her brother murmer a few last words.  He stepped away from the tree.

For a moment the ball just hung there, like a glowing lantern hung right in the middle of the tree.  Then, with a soft plick, the light floated up through the branches and came to hover in the air over their heads.  In the light of the glowing ball, they could see the trail perfectly again, now marked more with small rodents and insects and a few ground birds than with the larger animals they had seen before.

Holding hands again, the brother and sister walked forward in the light that they had made.

It will not surprise you to learn that with the ability to move both day and night, they soon caught up with their father, and with the evil men who had taken them.  It will also not surprise you that three people with such exceptional talents were able to fight their way free and make their way home again safely.  What might surprise you, what certainly surprised them, was that the glowing globe they had made to light their way on one dark night continued to light the way for all the nights after.  Night after night it could be seen in the sky, rising higher and higher, sharing its light with more and more people, until finally it came to rest among the stars and be seen by all the people on earth and give comfort and light where none had seemed possible before.

In Your Eyes

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Once upon a time there was a king, named Henry, and his queen, named Helen, who ruled a beautiful kingdom full of sun and rain and flowers and trees and farms and towns and people who were happy just with living their lives and loving their families.  King Henry and Queen Helen loved each other very much, and even though they were very busy taking care of their kingdom they were just thinking it was about time to have children and be happy with a family of their own when some bad news reached them.

It seemed that an evil witch had just taken control of the neighboring kingdom.  She had killed its king and made its queen disappear and made all the people of the kingdom into her slaves.  Worse, she wanted to take control of the whole world.  It was only a matter of time before she attacked King Henry and Queen Helen’s kingdom.  The messenger who brought them this bad news was a young man who had short brown hair and large blue eyes and a very crooked nose.  He told them all about the evil witch and how she had the power to change what anyone looked like.  She could make herself young or old, tall or short, beautiful or ugly.  And she could do the same to anyone she touched.  Often she would make her soldiers look like women or young children so that those fighting against them did not like to hurt them.  That was how she came to power.

Queen Helen had been looking at this messenger for a long time, looking past that crooked nose and into those large blue eyes.

“Can she even make a woman look like a man?”

“Yes.”

“Could she make someone with flowing golden hair have short brown hair instead?”

“Yes.”  The messenger looked at the floor.  He seemed about to cry.

“Gwendolyn?  Is that you?” Queen Helen asked.

The boy really did cry, but he nodded his head.

Queen Helen had recognized the eyes of her old friend, Queen Gwendolyn of the neighboring kingdom.

When Queen Gwendolyn, now disguised as a young boy, stopped crying, she told how the witch had broken into the castle and changed her, how many soldiers had come before the witch could change the king also like she had planned, how the queen had run away when she saw herself in the mirror, and how her husband the king had been so upset at her disappearance that he had ridden into battle himself and been killed.  “It’s all my fault,” she sobbed.  “I should have stayed close.  But I was afraid no one would know me looking like this, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted them to.”

Queen Helen hugged her friend and told her not to blame herself and thanked her for bringing this news to them so that they could be prepared for the witch’s attacks.

They didn’t have long to prepare.

The very next day, the witch and her soldiers attacked the kingdom.  King Henry rode out with his army and they fought for many long days.  It was very hard.  Ad Queen Gwendolyn had warned them, the witch would change the appearance of her soldiers.  Sometimes they would look just like an innocent young woman…right up until they attacked you.  Sometimes they would look just like you, so that you had to fight yourself.  Sometimes they would look very like someone you knew from home, so that you felt as though you were killing a friend.  But King Henry urged his men to be strong.  He told them what Queen Helen had seen in her friends eyes and urged them to look into their enemies’ eyes to see the truth.  This helped.  No matter how much a soldier might look like a friend, he always had the eyes of an enemy.  Many of King Henry’s soldiers began wearing special helmets with small eye holes that helped them look only at the enemies’ eyes and not the rest of their appearance.  It looked like King Henry was about to win the war.  The witch’s soldiers were retreating back over the mountains and into the neighboring kingdom.

But the witch had one more plan.

While King Henry was at war, the witch sent several of her best men, disguised as palace servants, to kidnap Queen Helen.  They brought her to the witch’s tent, high in the mountains between the two kingdoms.  The witch laughed as she put her hand on Queen Helen’s beautiful head.  “With you gone, the king will have no will to stand against me any more.”  Then she changed Queen Helen so that she was unrecognizable and sent her to another tent to be kept under guard until the war was over.  Ten guards stood outside the tent on all sides.  Inside, Queen Helen sat and thought and maybe cried a little but mostly thought about what to do.   When she was done thinking she knew two things.  First, that she had to get back to King Henry no matter how far away he was or what she looked like now.  Second, that the way she looked was actually going to help her get free.

When King Henry heard that Queen Helen was missing, he was heartbroken.  He went to his own tent on the edge of the battlefield and sat down and thought and maybe cried a little but mostly thought about what to do.  When he was done thinking he knew two things.  First, that he needed to find Queen Helen no matter where she was or what she looked like now.  Second, that the only way to find Queen Helen was to first win this war.

The first thing that Queen Helen did was rip her dress.  It looked ridiculous on her now anyway.  Then she went to the door of the tent and asked the guards if they could please get her a needle and thread to fix her dress.  They felt sorry for her, so they did.  Then Queen Helen worked away day and night inside the tent, sewing and sewing and sewing.  When she was done, she had all new clothes to wear, clothes that looked just like the ones the women wore who brought her food.  She put them on and waited.  First thing in the morning, the old guards went off to eat, and new guards took their place.  Just when they were changing, an old woman came to bring the queen her food.   She slipped it inside without even looking and hurried away.  Quick as a wink, Queen Helen dumped the food out and walked out of the tent, carrying the empty dishes.  The new guards nodded at her, thinking that she was one of the kitchen workers.  Queen Helen calmly walked through the camp to the kitchen tent.  She got some food.  She left the dirty dishes.  Then when no one was looking, she just walked away into the woods and started making her way home.

Meanwhile, King Henry had gathered together his whole army.  He told them about Queen Helen disappearing and their only chance of rescuing her was to win this battle.  Then they attacked the witch’s soldiers more fiercely than they ever had.  It was a long battle.  It lasted without stopping for three whole days.  At the end, King Henry and his men were exhausted, but they found themselves right in the witch’s camp in the mountains.  The few of her men who were left were all running away through the woods.  The witch herself was nowhere to be seen, but that was not surprising.  No one even knew what she really looked like.

King Henry didn’t worry himself about the witch, though.  Without even stopping to sleep, he rode all the way home to the castle to begin looking for Queen Helen.  And so it was, that while Queen Helen was slowly walking toward home, a journey that would take months without a horse to ride, King Henry was searching his kingdom.  Starting with the castle, he walked up and down every hall, opened every door, turned up every street, knocked at every house.  Pausing only to eat and sleep when he absolutely had to, he looked into the eyes of every person he met, looking for the one pair of eyes he would recognize in an instant.

This went on for several weeks.  Finally, even the King’s friends were starting to tell him he should give up.  Queen Helen could be dead.  She could look like anyone.  How would he ever know.  But he would not stop.  He looked into face after face.  He studied the eyes of small children and old men.  He talked to fat innkeepers and slender young women.   Blue eyes, brown eyes, hazel eyes, green eyes, eyes that twinkled, eyes that filled with tears to see his sad face, but none were the eyes he loved.

Finally, one day, in a village far from the castle, he came out of a house and saw an old woman coming up the lane.  She was walking with a stick and looking at the ground and was bent over as if exhausted.  Hurrying over to her, the King gave her his arm and led her to a nearby bench to rest.

“Thank you, young man,” she said and looked up into his eyes.

The King gasped.  “Helen!”

Her beautiful eyes filled with tears.  Without even answering, she buried her face in his shoulder.

“Come,” said King Henry.  “We will get you home.”

Queen Helen just smiled up at him through her tears.  “I am home,” she said.

The end.

But just in case you were wondering….

The queen lived as an old woman for a year and a day.  She and King Henry were very happy to be together and to have their kingdom safe again, but sometime they felt a little sad that they would never have a family of their own.  Then one day, all of a sudden, Queen Helen woke up and was herself, young and beautiful.  All over the kingdom, people who had been changed turned suddenly back to the way they were before.  And so they knew that the witch must be dead.  They never found out how she died, but I have since been told that it is a very good story all on its own.

Once upon a time

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I bought this felt board at a thrift store the other day.  Literally a felt board, with little felt figures for telling felt stories.  Does anyone else remember Sunday School flannel graph?  Like that…but, you know, with princesses and ballerinas instead of John the Baptist and baskets of bread and fish.

At first I just thought it would be some car ride entertainment.  Then I started thinking about the storytelling possibilities.

Visual aids to telling stories are the best.  The best.  And I totally suck at them.  If you’ve read this blog for a while (Congratulations!  You are the one!) you know that it is massively lacking in the visual.  I love photography and painting and drawing and paper mache and murals.  I stalk them on the internet, and they make me very happy.  But my brain just doesn’t produce on that level.  I close my eyes to think of a picture and all that comes up are a thousand words.

So this seemed like it might be fun to try.  I used it to tell one little short story to my kids.  I wasn’t sure if they would even want to listen to it.  They hung on my every word.  Then something even more awesome happened.  They took over.

They took turns, 7-year-old, 5-year-old, and 2-year-old telling stories with the felt figures.  They all listened to the others’ stories.  Well, until the littlest got carried away and refused to have an ending to her story.

Then a couple of days later, they got it out again when I wasn’t even paying attention and made up more stories.  Then they got it out again tonight and told more stories.  This time, my five-year-old helped my two-year-old with her turn and they told a story interactively.

“So where did they go next?”

“I no know!”

“To a cave or to the castle?”

“A cave!”

“And then what happened?”

“Da witches came!”

You guys, I have never heard…or seen… anything so awesome.  It went on for 10 minutes and only ended because I said it was time for pajamas.  (I know, buzz-kill, but reality is reality.  Story time may be magical, but not as magical as bedtime.)

So here’s the thing about stories for kids.  They can be the simplest things.  Really.  Just wanted to show you the story I told them, just to show you how little effort I put into it.  Not that I’m proud of being lazy.  It’s just that if you wait until you have the energy to put a lot of effort into it, you’ll never tell stories.  And you don’t need to wait for that.  Story magic is pretty strong even without much help from you.

Once upon a time there was a little baby princess.  She was little and sweet and everyone loved her.

She lived in a castle, of course.

As the princess grew up she got sweeter and smarter, and everyone loved her more than ever.  But they did not love her pet.

Because her pet was a dragon.

“A dragon is a very dangerous pet for a little girl,” they all said.

But she loved her pet dragon, and she wouldn’t let anyone take him away.

Then one day a beautiful lady appeared in the kingdom.  She was so beautiful that no one knew she was an evil ice witch.

She cast a spell that covered the whole kingdom with snow.  The castle was covered and the people were covered.  Even the dragon was covered in snow.

“Don’t worry,” said the princess.  “My dragon will take care of it.”

And he did.  He breathed fire on the ground, and melted all of that snow.

He cleared all the snow off the castle.

Then he very carefully melted all the snow and ice off of the princess and her people.

When all the snow was gone, everyone was so happy.  “Hooray for the dragon!” they all yelled.  And no one ever suggested getting rid of him again.

The End.

Told you it was lame.  But it worked.  It got the ball rolling.  My kids stories were much, much better.

Gone away

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Once upon a time, Joey was six and he just wanted to be left alone.  He had to go to school every day, and the teacher talked and talked and made Joey talk too, and the other kids laughed and pushed and played and teased.  When he got home, his hound dog was excited to see him and barked and jumped up on Joey’s legs and stole his toys and ran around the house with them.  His sisters fought and his mom asked too many questions and the tea kettle whistled and the garbage disposal rumbles and his dad turned on the news.  Joey would go to his own room and close the door, but his baby sister followed him everywhere, and when he finally yelled, “Leave me alone!” she cried so loud it hurt his ears, and his mom made him say he was sorry.

One day, Joey decided it was enough.  He went to bed at five o’clock and wouldn’t get up, even to eat dinner.  When his mom came to ask what was wrong, he put his pillow over his head.  Whenever he heard or noise or someone came into his room, he didn’t answer or move.  He just lay there repeating, “Go away, go away, go away, go away” in his head.  (He knew better than to say it out loud.)  Finally, the house got quiet as everyone went to sleep.  Joey took the pillow off his head and rolled onto his side.  It was so quiet and still.  His last thought before he fell asleep was “I wish it could always be just like this.”

In the morning, when Joey woke up, it was still quiet.  He looked at his clock.  It said 7:00,  just like always.  Usually his mom was making breakfast by now and calling to them all to get out of bed.  This peaceful morning was a nice change.  He got up and got dressed and brushed his teeth.  Usually his big sister was fighting for room by the sink.  This morning he was happy to have the bathroom all to himself.  He wondered if everyone had slept in.  He checked his sisters’ room.  The beds were empty.  Joey went downstairs and got out some cereal.  Normally they all crowded around the table and ate quickly while Joey’s mom rushed them along to get to school on time.  This morning, he was the only one and got to pick his favorite seat and take his time.  When he finished, he wondered what time it was.  He went to his mom and dad’s room.  Their bed was empty, too.  Where was everyone?

Then Joey remembered that his big sister had a special breakfast before school that week.  “It must be today,” he thought.  “They must have all gone before I woke up.”  Joey felt a little sad that they would leave without telling him.  He felt left out as the only one who didn’t get to go the breakfast.  Still, the quiet was awfully nice.  He put on his coat and boots and started off down the path they always walked to school.  Usually, his big sister would jabber away the whole time and hurry him along and boss him about staying out of the mud.  Today, he got to stomp right in a puddle and dawdle and daydream all he wanted, but he couldn’t help feeling just a little scared when he had to walk past the creepy hollow tree all by himself.

When he got to school, Joey noticed that it was very quiet there, too.  Usually, the sidewalks were crowded with kids and parents saying goodbye and calling out to their friends and pushing each other to get in the door first.  Today, Joey walked right through the doors without anyone bothering him.  There was no one around at all.  Walking down the silent halls, Joey began to feel worried.  Something wasn’t right.  Where was everyone?  Quiet at home had been warm and soft.  Quiet in the big echoing school building was cold and unfriendly.  Joey went to his class room.  The door was open.  All the desks and shelves and books and papers were exactly the same as always.  But there were no people.  No teacher with her cheerful smile and pleasant voice.  No friends waiting to tell him about the new comic book they had gotten last night or the way their cat had looked  when it climbed up the curtains.  No Joey was really afraid.  What was he supposed to do if no one was there?

For more than hour, Joey looked in every room in the school.  They were all empty.  Sometimes he thought he heard voices in the next room, but always when he opened the door, there was no one.  Finally, Joey couldn’t stand being all alone in that big school.  He ran all the way home.  It was quiet on the path, but he didn’t take time to enjoy it at all.  When he got home, no one was waiting for him.  Not even his hound dog greeted him at the door.  He called everyone’s names, but no one said anything.  Joey thought about going outside and walking around to see if he could find someone, but he felt too afraid to leave the house again.  Here at least he knew he was safe, even if he didn’t know what was happening.

That was a very long day.  Joey tried to watch TV.  He tried to read some books.  He tried to draw pictures or play with his toys.  Nothing seemed like much fun.  No one laughed at the cartoons with him.  No one helped him with the words he couldn’t understand.  No one admired his pictures or the ship he made out of Legos.  Time went by very slowly.  Joey felt very lonely as he poured some more cereal for his dinner.  When it was dark outside, Joey locked all the doors and crawled into bed trying not to think about tomorrow.  He put his pillow over his head, but this time it was to shut out the quiet.  It was a long time before he fell asleep.

A hard jab in the ribs woke Joey up at 7 the next morning.  His baby sister was sitting on his bed poking him with a Barbie.  She was the best thing he had ever seen.

“You see me!  I see me!” she yelled over and over.  Joey raced down the hall.  His big sister darted past and slammed the bathroom door in his face.  Joey laughed.  He went to the kitchen, where his mom was cooking pancakes.

“Feeling better?” she asked with a smile.

“Much better,” Joey said.

Horrible Hairy Houndy

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This tale is an awful one
Scoot up real close
It happened this morning
As I ate my toast

My head was still fuzzy
There was sleep in my eyes
When I felt something furry
It was quite a surprise

I jumped at least
Three feet straight up in the air
Then I looked at the creature
That now stood ‘top my chair

He was horrible, hairy
His breath knocked me out
I saw glittering teeth
There was drool on his snout

And while I was staring
Too frightened to think
He snatched up my toast
Just as quick as a wink

Once my breakfast was his
He left me there quaking
So it is that you find me
Sitting hungry and shaking

So heed my advice
Be smarter than most
That houndy is horrible
Keep your food close

Inside the Box

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Once there was an old woman. There have been many old women in stories over the years and many more in life outside of stories, but this one was special. This one was Harold’s grandmother.

Harold did not see his grandmother very often. She lived quite far away…Harold was never really sure where…and she only came once each year to visit. Visits from grandmothers are always rather wonderful, but visits from Harold’s grandmother were something even more extraordinary. She always brought her bulging yellow carpetbag and, as is often the case with grandmothers’ luggage, it always contained presents for Harold. Presents from Harold’s grandmother were never exactly what you would expect. She never brought toys or books or new clothes or anything like that. She only brought magical things. One year there was a magical ball of string, which looked depressingly ordinary until you unrolled it and discovered all the things that it could do and that you had already been playing with it for hours before you even thought to ask the time. Another year there were magic bottle caps which made beautiful music and played jumping games and turned into pirate gold when you put them under your pillow at night.

However many magical presents the yellow carpetbag contained, there was always room for one more thing inside. This was the thing that Harold loved best. It was always kept at the very bottom and taken out on the very last day of the visit. It was a wooden box. The box was just the right size to sit in Harold’s two hands and its plain wooden lid was attached by plain brass hinges and held tightly shut by a plain iron lock. Harold’s grandmother said that the box contained the world’s most wonderful treasure, but Harold had never seen what was inside. He was allowed to hold it, to feel its weight in his hand, to wonder and wonder what the treasure could be until his wondering was just about to burst out of his ears and he must ask once again if he could open the box. “Not this year,” his grandmother always said. “Perhaps when you are older.” But even though Harold was older every year, he was never given the key. Often throughout the year, Harold would find himself thinking about the wooden box, and in his dreams it opened, but somehow he always woke up just before he got a look inside.

The year that Harold was eight, his grandmother came later than usual. Her back was perhaps a little more bent than Harold remembered and her voice a little quieter, but her yellow carpetbag bulged as much as ever and the presents inside had all the usual magic. Harold waited patiently for the last day of the visit, and when it finally came and the wooden box was placed in his hands, he breathed a huge sigh of happiness. The box felt heavy. Was there more treasure than before? Slowly, Harold lifted it up until it was right in front of his eyes. Then he saw it. The lock. It was open. Harold looked questioningly at his grandmother, and she nodded. Trembling now, Harold set the box on the table between them and slowly, slowly opened the lid.

It was full of small things, full right to the top, but none of the things looked like treasure to Harold. An old key. A dried rose. Two black buttons. An acorn. A feather. A shiny piece of glass. Some withered leaves. Where was the treasure? Was the glass really a precious jewel? Did the key perhaps open a larger chest filled with gold? Harold felt all empty inside, like a bubble that is just about to be popped.

Harold looked steadily at the box, not wanting to lift his face and let his grandmother see what he was thinking. He breathed slowly once. Then twice. Then a gnarled, wrinkled hand came into view as his grandmother plucked the tiny acorn from the box. Harold couldn’t help but look up. The acorn sat in his grandmother’s hand, held up right before her eye.

“What-?” Harold started to ask.

“Listen,” his grandmother said.

Harold listened. He couldn’t hear anything.

“I can’t-”

“Just listen.”

Harold listened. He leaned forward to listen better. He strained his ears. But no matter what he did, he couldn’t hear anything.

After a few minutes, Harold’s grandmother leaned over and pressed the acorn into his hand. “Each and every thing in this box is a story waiting to be heard. Those stories are the greatest treasure you’ll ever find. Listen well.”

Harold held the acorn tight in his hand as he said goodbye to his grandmother. Watching her walk slowly down the path away from his house, he vowed to himself that he would uncover every bit of treasure in that box. He would listen like no one in the world had ever listened before.

And that is what he did. He set the acorn next to him in the morning while he ate his breakfast. He carried it with him as he quietly walked to school. He slept with the acorn under his pillow at night. Days went by. Then weeks.

And then one day, sitting under a tree with the acorn in his hand, he heard it. The acorn’s story was right there, just as his grandmother had said. Without warning, the story seemed to pick him up and carry him away to another place.

And when he came back, he had inside him a shining treasure.

So it was that Harold spent his days listening. Listening to keys and pressed flowers. Listening to tarnished rings and broken combs and tiny pebbles. And the treasure inside him grew and grew until it filled him up completely and he knew he needed to share it. So he began to look for others who wanted treasure, and he passed on what heard. And then he listed some more.

And Harold was happy.

Time Out Tuesday – A New Life

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My whole new life is now finally underway, and I’m pretty sure that I want this space to have its place here. That means dusting things off and straightening things around. So I made a plan. Because I love plans. Plans are fun. Plans are helpful. Plans help me feel calm and peaceful. I know. Control issues. But here’s the plan anyway.

Monday: Story of the week. It’ll usually be based off of something my kids said. Nothing sets off the imagination like the crazy, random things kids say.

Tuesday: Time out Tuesday I’ll review good books I’m reading, talk about writing, or whatever else suits my fancy.

Wednesday: From the Box Series of stories inspired by little things we’ve found along the way.

Thursday: Poem of the Week Silly poems. Mostly just because there aren’t enough places in life to use those valuable rhyming skills.

Friday: A Thousand Words Stories inspired by photos. I have some talented friends, so I’ll be riffing off of some of their shots, as well as anything else I can find.

Food Fight at the Golden Corral

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When I was about four or five, my family used to go out from time to time to the Golden Corral to eat with friends after church on Sundays. Back then (for us, at least) that was a pretty nice restaurant. For some reason, my brother and I started passing time in the car inventing stories about food fights that broke out at the old GC. Every time, the story was different, and they tended to grow larger over time, but they more or less all started with someone slipping on a banana peel and dumping their buffet plate on someone else. Yadda, yadda, yadda, chaos ensues. Just recently my kids discovered banana peels and their reputation for being slippery, and I suddenly found myself cast back 20 (oh, okay, 30) years. I don’t remember the details, but I’m hoping this recreation can be as entertaining to my kids as the originals were to us.

I’ll never forget the day my family first took me to the infamous Golden Corral. I’d heard of the place: endless rows of steaming vegetables and breaded meats, dinner rolls piled up to the sky, and mashed potatoes with that one-of-a-kind boxed taste. It was every kid’s dream, and mine was about to come true. When we walked through that second set of double doors, I stopped and sniffed the air. It was pure cafeteria. I had never been so excited.

I was halfway through my chicken fried steak and thinking about a second helping of mashed potatoes when I saw a woman walk in the front door wearing a dress so pink that it hurt my eyes and carrying a poofy little dog that reminded me of the end of my grandmother’s mop. I barely had time to wonder why anyone would bring a dog to an all-you-can-eat restaurant before the dog launched himself out of his owner’s arms and literally flew straight at a man who was passing by with a plate full of roast beef.

Seeing something small and white and furry flying toward his head, the man jumped back, landing right on the edge of someone’s table and sending two bowls of pudding and a banana split smashing down onto the ground. The man was clearly embarrassed, and he backed away quickly, apologizing and clutching his injured hip with one hand and his plate of roast beef with the other hand. Unfortunately, he didn’t see that the dog was now right under his feet. He tripped, dumping his plate of roast beef all over a dignified man in a nice Sunday suit.

The man jumped up, outraged, waving his spoon around and causing bits of noodle soup to fly in every direction. The longest noodle landed with a splat on the face of a nearby woman. It must have been hot because she yelped a really loud “Yeeeeeep!” and shot up out of her chair, immediately stepping on the peel from the banana split and sliding ten feet only to collide with a mother who was carrying three glasses of ice cold Sprite. The Sprite fountained up into the air as the two women tumbled to the floor.

The teenagers at the next table, now covered in Sprite, took one look at the chaos and gave each other big smiles. In seconds, two big handfuls of mashed potatoes were flying across the room.

Then two potato-splattered strangers were launching canned peaches back into the crowd. Then a little girl with peaches in her hair was running through the restaurant throwing handfuls of peas in every direction. Then a grandmother was pegging people with small pieces of corn bread. Then a family of four, huddled under a table, was firing corn and green beans at everyone in sight. Someone poured gravy all over the floor. Someone else was using a fried chicken leg as a sword.

I had never seen anything so crazy in all my short life. Pretty soon everyone in the restaurant was in on the fight. I may have thrown a handful or two of mini corn cobs myself. The last thing I remember seeing before the fireman burst through the door with hoses to clean the place up and shock everyone back to their senses was the little white dog over under a corner table, happily slurping up gravy with bits of chocolate cake floating in it.

Dilemma

2 Comments

Oh snot
It’s hot
Sweat drips
Flops flip
Heat bakes
Head aches
Feel dizzy
Hair’s frizzy
Need a drink
Can’t think

Oh drool
A Pool!
Cool shade!
Let’s wade!
Or not
I’m hot!
Big grin
Dive in
Gasp! Shout
Get out!
Be bold?
Too Cold!