The Lost Check

It has been very rainy these days. I loved it when last Saturday it was raining hard ... mainly because I got to stay in bed that day for once!! But then ol' Martin had to holler up the stairs at the top of his lungs. He proceeded to read in a very loud voice to Sharon & me an article from Dr. Harkleroad's newsletter about how "if you want to be tired on Monday, all you have to do is sleep late on Saturday and Sunday..." The article was definitely against sleeping late. We ignored him that time but then a few minutes later, he hollers up the stairs that he's "lost his check" and will give us $5 if we come down and find it.

I'd had it by that time... I flew down the stairs and went pounding in to his bedroom where he had retreated to by that time. He heard me coming so he grinned and slammed the door in my face and locked it. Grr! So I went back to bed... he eventually persuaded us to get up, and then we helped him look for his silly check. It turns out that Herman had come by to pay him a portion of what he owed him, and 5 minutes later, Martin had already lost it. We searched and searched and pounded his brain, but no results. Finally.. I heard him say, "Well, here it is!" Guess where? Yep... IN the trash!! Wadded up nicely and neatly. He had been eating a candy bar and then threw the wrapper into the trash can, wadding the check up with it. Doi! Sharon insists it was probably the first time he's ever thrown his own wrapper away, but anyway, considering that the check was for $1000, that would've been the most expensive candy bar in history, eh? Brothers!! sheesh!

The Dead Cat

The funniest thing happened last Sunday. We had had this orange cat that had become quite sickly. Mom had ordered Alvin to kill it several times, but the cat always outsmarted him and vanished. So anyway, it finally disappeared, only to revisit us in a horrifyingly disgusting manner. We started smelling this cat. It had evidently crawled under the house and died right beside the furnace, so every time the heat went on (and even when it didn't), the air was simply polluted. It was very annoying to our senses of smell, as they were definitely in good working order. Now that was downright disgusting.

Everybody wanted everyone else to go down there and retrieve the ghastly thing. Mom said, "Why, no indeed. I'd rather smell it than to have to go down there and get it."

Finally Dad said, "Fine! I'll do it since the rest of you are so spineless." (I'm sure it had a lot to do with his nose in particular). Well, he wanted Mom to make a mask for him doused with perfume or something nice-smelling to put over his mouth and nose so that he wouldn't smell the cat when he crawled underneath the house.

So, silly Mom and Dad...here we go... Dad put the mask on, and Mom proceeded to spray it. Now most wise people would've fixed the mask up before applying to the face. Mom chose a nice Victoria’s Secret body spray with a wide spray range, so, of course, Dad started howling when his eyes started "smelling nicely." Of course, we were all going hysterical at his squawking and Mom's howl of "It's not my fault."

He finally got his eyes cleared and nose clogged and proceeded to crawl down under the house, get the silly thing, and take it out to the trash pile to burn it. A few minutes later he came in looking very pale and grossed out. He had made it out to the trash pile with it alright, but then "lost everything that [he] had eaten for lunch." He said he wasn't even sure whether he actually smelled it or not, but he thought he might have, so he threw up, just in case.

He told us that night just before he went to bed that if we girls ever wonder whether or not he loves us, "just to remember the cat." Such a sweet father, eh?