LEGEND Make Us Laugh

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[Sum1]

 

[RocknRam29]

 

[RamBall]

We have a mouse. His name is speedy. His name is speedy because if you crack his cage he will jump, squeeze through the tiniest crack, jump on your face, and then haul ass like Speedy Gonzales.

He will then jump off the counter with abandon, legs spread like he thinks he's a flying squirrel, land at a full sprint, and immediately hide under a hard to remove appliance.

I have now caught Speedy four times.

Three of those times, I had to uninstall the dishwasher. I'm serious.

I swear I heard a soft "areebaareeba" every time.

The reason we have a mouse is because mid-winter, I saw him in the basement. He went speeding by. I used a live trap and peanut butter to end his basement racing escapades. Speedy CANNOT resist peanut butter. It's his kryptonite.

My mistake was feeling proud of my cleverness and presenting the victim of my victorious battle of the hunt to my girls, aged 9 and 12, for acknowledgment of my intelligence, manliness, and dadliness before disposing of said mouse in the nearby woods.

As it turns out, that wasn't gonna happen. It was winter. The mouse had big sad eyes. The girls had big sad eyes.

So speedy got a home. A plastic tub with a lid drilled with 30 holes. Yes, 30. The girls and mom were not satisfied with 20 or even 25.

It turns out that my girls are effective googlers and decided, supported by a stack of expensively printed expert advice, the tub didn't provide the proper ventilation or exercise required for a healthy mouse. My wife, in her abundance of anti-dad wisdom, had taught my children that they can always win with dad if they use logic supported by facts supported by big sad eyes.

My reaction was simple, I grunted. They had an allowance and a mom on their side, deal with Speedy's inadequate living conditions yourselves. It turns out they had already hatched a plan. The plan was there was an upcoming birthday, so DAD was going to go purchase a new, wonderful, and mouse expert approved cage. They googled and printed out, on my paper, using my ink, for my convenience, the cage they wanted to be brought to them. Dad, however, was determined he was NOT going to spend his Saturday picking up a new home for speedy.

So, while at PetSmart, on a Saturday afternoon, receiving texted instructions from my girls, I discovered mouse cages, wheels, and food, costs about $50. That's good for you to know if you have daughters with sad eyes and catch a live mouse with sad eyes.

Speedy now had a nice happy home with food customized to please a mouse. Assuming speedy was just any mouse. He/she was not. Speedy was given a few cashew pieces from a nearly empty tin by one afore mentioned nine year old girl. Speedy decided cashews were agreeable to his/her sensitive tastes. The girls now insist that the cashew, expensive as it is, are required additions to the speedy food bowl.

Speedy needed a lot exercise according to the experts hand selected by my girls. So speedy was given a wheel. It turns out the wheels that Speedy likes, wheels made of metal, with a precisely sized square grid that fit his/her paws well as a running surface, squeak a lot. Like, the whole family is up all night listening to a mouse run a lot, a lot. Silicone spray will reduce the squeak for about half a night. WD40 will eliminate it, but the smell makes it unacceptable to wives and children with sad eyes. It turns out it's best to go through three wheels until Speedy is happy and there is no squeak.

The reason I'm telling you about Speedy is the other day, when we apparently had the tornado in U City, I was in the basement with my girls and wife. I had been checking the weather out the front door and, when the weather front was close, I could hear the straight line winds howling and see the distant trees bending.

I went to the basement to inform my protected, bed laying, and dvd watching family, that the storm was both near and fierce.

Unfortunately, at that very time, my rabid animal loving mother-in-law asked my girls on facebook if we had speedy and cherry-blueberry (our beta fish) with us.

Of course we didn't. I herded the wife, children, and dogs to the safety of the basement, but who adds a wild and spoiled mouse and a five dollar fish into their tornado plans?

The answer is my mother-in-law, daughters, and wife.

So, with Weatherman Dave warning me of my imminent death on TV, winds howling, horizontal hail banging against the sliding glass door, I was sent on a rescue mission for a wild mouse and a beta fish.

The moral of this story is don't ever show sad eyed girls a sad eyed mouse. You're risking you life.

This is not speedy, but it is exactly what he looks like:

This is not my girls, but it is exactly what I have to deal with:

My animal loving daughter once rescued a mouse from a pregnant cat at her job site, she felt it necessary to bring this mouse home to nurse it back to health before releasing it into the wild. About 2 weeks later she brought home the cat she had rescued the mouse from along with 8 kittens. My wife would not let me release the mouse now, because it had lost its wild instincts. That mouse would live to be rescued from the same cat 2 more times after getting itself free from the hamster cage my daughter had it in. At 1 point in time the pet mouse had the entire pantry all to itself, plus all my food that was in said pantry was now mouse food. We finally got rid of the kittens, the mother cat lives outdoors as she doesnt like litter boxes. The mouse escaped to the safety of the field behind my house where it was probably eaten by the same cat that my wife and daughter saved it from atleast 3 times.

So I know where you are coming from, and I am very glad to not be chasin that damned mouse around my house anymore.

 

[RamBall]

Even better than the mouse and cat. We used to live in a 2 bedroom/2 bath apartment, I never used the front bathroom as it was our daughters bathroom. I worked early mornings and got home around noon everyday. 1 day I got home from work and was enjoying TV when I thought I heard a duck in the hallway, so I investigated and the sound seemed to be coming from my daughters bathroom. I opened the door and in the tub full of water and duck shit was this duck, I called my wife at work and she said they had rescued it about 2 or 3 weeks ago, it had a broken leg and the other ducks were picken on it. We finally got rid of the duck but about once a month I would have to dig the grass out of the drain to get the water to drain. I bet the maintenance guy had fun after we moved out.

 

[HX76]

Not a comedy clip but this does make me laugh. Pitch invasion at a football game and some kik in his wheelchair joins in only for his carer to haul him off!

 

[HX76]

*kid

 

[Prime Time]

 

[Prime Time]

Some NSFW language...

 

[Prime Time]

Some NSFW language...

 

[Prime Time]

 

[Prime Time]

 

[brokeu91]

 

[Mojo Ram]

 

[Ram Quixote]

Here's a misadventure from my youth that I turned into a short story.


> If you are a child who likes to draw, crayons are ok. They come in all the colors you could ever need, and if you’re meticulous enough, a little extra effort fills all those gaps the linoleum you’re working on puts in your picture.

At age six, I was such a child. My younger brother, Andy, usually did what I did, which left my ungrateful older brother, Mark, mostly unfettered by kid brothers. Dad, the minister, and Mom, two or three months removed from delivering our baby sister, were never far away. We lived in a parsonage, right next door to the church.

Still, Andy and I were always within a notion of trouble.

We were not juvenile delinquents by any means, but we were always looking for entertainment. Being 1966, television had not yet evolved into the babysitter it is today with DVDs and cable channels designed for kids. We were on the prowl for a good laugh or anything that appealed to either of us.

I don’t remember which of us discovered the magic marker. I do know we found it in our parents bedroom because we were so eager to use it, we didn’t think to go somewhere our parents wouldn’t see right away. Then again, we didn’t dare use it in the living room, dining room or kitchen, and Mark was in the back bedrooms. He was supposed to be watching us while Mom and Dad worked on the yard, and would no doubt take the marker away before we could do the damage we did.

Whatever cunning thoughts filtered through our kid brains were forgotten with the first brush of that black marker. It was so cool! It covered everything it touched with so little effort! Crayons were nothing in comparison.

I know we shared, because neither of us would let the other write for long. I believe the walls were first, because we always drew on them. The mattress was next. Its foam pad cover really sucked up the color. How did the marker work on wood? Our parents’ dresser was wood, along with Mom’s jewelry box, and there was a neat plastic cover on it too. We drew on everything we could reach. We almost drew a line forty-two inches high around the bedroom. There was only one surface we hadn’t tested: Skin.

Andy and I were not mudpie eaters. Stains on the knees, scrapes on the elbows, yes, but we did not come home with head-to-toe dirt and grime. We were smarter than that.

Which is why we turned to the crib in the corner where our baby sister was asleep, though not for long. She did not like the marker, either the smell or the feel of it. I don’t know which one did it for sure, but she wailed when we drew circles around her eyes. The marker worked on skin just great.

Shortly after that, our parents arrived to admire our artistry. To be truthful, I really don’t remember much of the aftermath, except for a brief flash of hopeless sobbing as I tried in vain to scrub magic marker from the walls, while Dad hovered menacingly.

Mark, Dad and Mom have better memories. Mark caught hell for not watching us better, but he didn’t help clean. I think everyone knew very soon how useless scouring was. Dad recalls trying not to smile while supervising our pitiful attempts to undo the immense doodle.

Mom’s strongest memory was the month of Sundays that the minister’s wife was forced to take her baby girl to church, unable to remove the indelible faux glasses from the delicate baby skin.

Not everything was a total loss. The mattress cover survived a few years and the dresser was moved to the boys' room where the black marks were painted out of existence, if not memory. Paint covers many sins, but the best cure of all was when we moved to California and left the parsonage to the next minister’s family.

Memories are all my family has left of the adventure; Mom made sure no pictures were taken. A far cry from today, where the most insignificant fall or blunder winds up on video. Every time I see one of those 'funny videos' where the child gets into something and makes a mess, I snort and mutter proudly, "Winner, and still champion."

 

[Prime Time]

Great story RQ. Thanks for sharing it.

One memory of childhood I have is when I got a chemistry set for my birthday. One night I became mesmerized by the fact that if you light sulfur in the dark it produces a bright, blue flash. After an hour or so of this experimentation, in my room with the door and windows closed, my parents came in. The vomiting and the hospital came next. Lesson learned? Ventilation is good.

 

[Mojo Ram]

Some NSFW language...

Have this on DVD. Pure awesome.

"Hunting in the woods"

 

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