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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Granny Panties

This is another repost from an old Facebook note. Why? Because I am lazy and new material takes at least some effort.

This is a true story. Any inaccuracies may be blamed solely on faulty memory.

Summers at Rushford Lake were one of the best parts of being a kid in the Kemp family. In the early eighties, my younger brother Jeff and I would often spend a week with our grandparents at the waterfront cottage they owned.

The days were long and there was always something to do. We'd swim until we were wrinkly, imagining we could cross the whole lake. Next, a boat ride with Grandpa, where he'd pretend to run out of gas. We learned to waterski, light fireworks and take a bath in the lake. We hunted crayfish and collected interesting rocks. There were all sorts of visitors at our dock. The most exciting was when we saw Aunt Lil and Uncle Art's pontoon boat on its slow approach.

In the middle of the week, we'd all take a short trip back to our grandparents full-time house in Williamsville. There was no washer or dryer at the lake and there were always other small tasks to attend to. Grandma would wash all the clothes and fold them back into our suitcases. Then we'd head back to the lake for a few more days.

Once upon one of these fun summers, my brother and I returned home as usual, grins on our faces and sunburns on our shoulders. We could still feel the rocking of the boat if we closed our eyes. Mom asked if there were rocks in our suitcases. Of course there were, but only the most interesting ones I could find.

I'm sure when mom opened our bags that she was grateful that grandma helped with the laundry. She removed the dirty clothes for washing then moved to the more neatly folded clean articles. There were shirts for Jeff's drawer, a pair of shorts for mine, then....

Mom lifted an item of clothing totally alien to us all. As it rose, the white cotton square became slightly unfolded. We all stared, wondering what this was. It certainly didn't belong to my brother or myself. Mom unfolded it again, then again. As the exponential expansion ended, we realized exactly what we were faced with. GRANNY PANTIES!

Someone snickered. It may have been me. All three of us dissolved into giggles. A wicked gleam came into Mom's eyes and as Jeff and I stood unsuspecting, she suddenly brought the underwear down over his head!

I learned that day what screaming and laughing at the same time feels like as Jeff hurriedly removed the offending garment and tried to place on my head. I ran one way as Mom ran the other. It was, however, inevitable that each of us would suffer the ignominious fate of wearing Grandma's panties on our head. For the better part of an hour, alliances were forged and broken repeatedly as we ran through the house laughing so hard we almost cried. Eventually, the mission devolved into simply throwing the panties at each other until we all collapsed.

I'm not sure what happened to those panties, but I know three people who will never forget them.

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Fragments

Have you ever noticed that you often see one shoe in the road? I always wonder how it got there. What happened to the other? It eases my mind to see two. It just makes so much more sense than losing a single shoe.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Women in the Bathroom

A note I wrote two years ago came up in conversation today with a friend of mine. I decided to repost to this blog. Coincidentally, I checked the publish date and it was EXACTLY two years ago today: 11/03/2008. It is my fervent belief it is just as relevant today as it was then. Full text below...

Guys, stop reading right here. You don’t want to continue. Trust me.

Ladies, I’ll be blunt. Stop peeing on the seats in the bathroom. This goes for sporting events, restaurants, work or anywhere you might use a public restroom.

There ought to be special “hover only” stalls for you poor creatures that are so afraid of germs that you can’t comfortably sit on a toilet seat. I haven’t much sympathy for your fears since you are the ones also making it impossible for “sitters” to be comfortable. Face it, your aim is terrible, especially after a couple of drinks. Sometimes you even hit the floor adding another hazard to the whole experience.

Picture a poor inebriated “sitter” desparate to relieve herself. The only stall available has just been used by an equally inebriated “hoverer”. The hovering woman has splashed on the seat and the floor, but the sitter is in dire straits and can’t wait to go. She tries to follow the hoverers example, positioning herself carefully, then halfway through the maneuver slips on the floor splash, comes crashing down on the seat and is not only wet with your leavings, but possibly bruised as well. For shame, hoverer. Look what you’ve done.

Consider that your telephone at work, any doorknobs you touch and the person’s hand you last shook were probably all carrying more germs than a toilet seat. And how many of you have had unprotected “relations”? Yet you can’t sit on a relatively clean surface for thirty seconds?

Listen, if you absolutely will not sit on the seat, just use a seat cover. Don’t be so selfish. There is no reason to make a bathroom stall that unusable.