Since it appears the world is going to end, what with massive earthquakes and tsunamis, the Door-to-door religious folk thought this was the perfect time to hit the neighborhoods with Bibles and Watchtower pamphlets in hand to try and save some souls.
Well, good for them and bless their hearts. As long as they don't bother me.
Too late. The knock is heard at the door. But THIS time, I was prepared.
I open the door and the nice Bible lady is standing there and before I could say a word, she flips that sucker open and starts reading from Revelation, only she said, "Revelations," and I didn't want to be rude because she seemed like such a nice lady so I stood there and waited for her to finish reading her Revelations and when she finished, I said, "Thank you, that was lovely" and she whipped out one of her Watchtower pamphlets and said, "I'd like to give you this gift" and *I* said, "Why, thank you, I'd like to give YOU a gift as well!"
And I opened the screen door, gave her one of these:
and told her to Have a Nice Day. She stood there looking rather confused and not as thrilled as she should have been to receive a Genuine Autographed publicity glossy of Thing 1.
I mean, who wouldn't want to have one of these highly collectible items? It's AUTOGRAPHED.
I shut the door and went about my day with a smile on my face because it was Jehovah's Witnesses - 0, Kelly - 1.
WINNING!
If EVER there was a time to break my Lenten vow of not cussing, it would be now. Why, you ask? I'll tell you.
For the first time in my entire life, I ran out of gas. Actually, *I* didn't run out of gas, my car did. But I was behind the wheel. And I blame TheManTheMyth. And he will SO hear about it when he gets home.
He took my car last night to attend a meeting 27 miles away. Which would make it 54 miles round trip. When he left, I told him that I only had maybe 1/8 of a tank of gas which may or may not be enough to get him there and back and leave enough for me to take Thing 2 to school AND get home because my car gets really crappy mileage. So you'd think he would, I don't know, put gas in the car.
He didn't.
I get in the car this morning to take Thing 2 to school and the gas light is on. When the gas light comes on, I have about 3 gallons left so no big deal. But I'm a-guessing that ol' gas light came on while TMTM was driving TO his meeting because the needle was BELOW the line.
Gee, thanks for leaving me high and dry, honey.
So I figure I'll drop off Thing 2 and hope I make it to the nearest gas station. Which I do. Make it to the nearest gas station. Only to realize as I shut off my car at the pump that I HAD FORGOTTEN MY WALLET.
Deep breath. Deep breath.
I did NOT cuss. Hand to God, I did not cuss. It took a tremendous amount of effort but I did. Not. Cuss.
I get back in my car and turn the key and...Nothing.
Deep breath.
Turn the key again and...nothing.
I take another deep breath and count to three.
And try one more time.
This time, my car starts and I head toward home, wondering if I will make it or if Gracie Lou and I will have a long walk ahead of us.
My car is gasping and of COURSE I hit every. single. light.
And still, I was not cussing.
I turn the corner at my house and and sputter to a stop. In front of my driveway. YES! I made it home!
I figured I would grab the little red 1 gallon gas can and walk up to the gas station 1/4 mile away. Except I discovered we don't have a little red gas can. We have 10 gas cans here but they're all 5 gallon size and they're for filling up race bikes.
Fine. I'll just put one in the back of the Red Rocket and drive the Rocket to the gas station and put a gallon of gas in the big can.
I get in the Rocket and turn the key. And make a grim discovery.
The Red Rocket is out. of. gas.
I'm now 100% positive that God is testing me. That he WANTS me to break my vow of not cussing.
Well guess what, God? I haven't cussed! Ha!
I'm WINNING!!
Never mind that I'm stranded.
I'm WINNING.
Yay.
So I'm driving along in my automobile, my doggy beside me at the wheel.
Not really. Gracie Lou wasn't with me. I had a couple of errands to do and it's too warm to leave her in the car.
Anyway. I'm driving along and all of a sudden, I see these 2 men having some sort of altercation at the Bus Stop. At first, I thought maybe it was a couple of college dudes wrestling around but as I got closer, it was apparent this was not the case and at least one of the participants appeared to be one of the many mentally ill transients that are always around. They were pushing and shoving and yelling at each other and it looked like they were going to come to blows and I didn't know if I should dial 911 and then one of them picked up his pack and his hat and screamed a couple of expletives that *I* can't say for another 39 days (not that I'm counting) and stumbled off and I was all, "Whoa!"
I had been coming back from attending an estate sale when this happened and I was empty handed because even though the entire contents of this house was for sale, the now-deceased homeowner had a houseful of junk. And this was a house in one of our fair city's most exclusive neighborhoods, too.
And when I say the entire contents of the house was for sale, I mean EVERYTHING was for sale. There were rusted cans of food that had to be at least 30 years old that had price tags on them. Half-used bottles of old creme rinse. Do they even make "creme rinse" any more? Open boxes of cotton swabs. Used pens and pencils. A half-empty roll of toilet paper. Anything that should have been thrown away for health and sanitary reasons had a price tag, even if it was for five cents.
A year and a half ago, a lady on my street killed herself and the county took possession because of unpaid property taxes (or something like that) and the house has been vacant ever since. The neighbors have been good about mowing the lawn and parking their cars in the driveway so that it looked like someone lived there but the house itself has been locked up tight.
On Monday, a crew showed up and started getting the house cleaned up and cleaned out. Turns out there was quite a bit of the dead owner's stuff still in there. Which was kind of creepy. And sad.
So I'm one day in to my "no-cussing for Lent" assignment and I'm doing...okay. When I saw the Bum Fight I was all, "Holy Poo!" because I couldn't say the S-word the way I normally do.
It's like God is trying to test me by throwing curve balls such as Bum Fights at me.
I must stay strong.
I can do this.
Lent starts today. And Our Friend June asked us, her faithful devotees, what we were giving up for Lent.
Now, I actually don't observe Lent because well, I'm not of the Christian persuasion and no, I don't want to be persuaded thankyouverymuch, but I think there's nothing wrong with playing along and denying oneself something with the intent to better oneself.
So I had to think of what I would give up during this 40 day period and it had to be something other than fast food, alcohol and my Daily Diet Coke because no. Ain't going there. So I thought of a bad habit of mine and BINGO! And no, I'm not giving up playing Bingo because I don't play Bingo. Except when I went on the Canadian Cruise. And I didn't win a single game. Stinkers.
Anyhoo, a little backstory: Several years ago, I noticed that one of my good friends, who I spent a lot of time with, was dropping F-bombs left and right. She'd be reading a gossip mag and say things such as, "I can't effing believe this effing crap (she used the "S word") so-and-so is effing doing! Eff me!" And I kind of picked up the habit of swearing like a cockney although without the cockney accent. And the colloquialisms. But it got to the point where I didn't notice how bad it had gotten until someone pointed it out to me.
And let me tell you, it's awfully hard to stop cussing when you're not even aware you're doing it.
So that's what I'm giving up for the Lent. Cussing like a cockney. Which means I can't say stuff like, "Bloody hell!" and "Cheeky Bastard!" which is okay because I didn't say stuff like that anyway but I also won't be using terms such as "Son of a B****!" and the crude term for feces and the F word and everything else I've been using on a regular basis.
It's not going to be easy but with the love and support of my friends and family, I'm sure I can get through the next 40 days without blowing a gasket because honestly, sometimes saying something like, "Oh, poopy!" just doesn't have the same effect or satisfaction as blurting out, "MotherF***!"
But I'll do my best.
Pray for me.
