A random recap from a day at my mom's. "Random" in rural Wisconsin is never quite what you think it might be.
O luuk. A deeeeerrrr. The kids were excited. The mosquitoes bred.
Filthy Santa needed to return something at Wal-Mart Customer Service at the same time I did. The mosquitos bred.
Ran into my 9th grade self. Much, much later, bred.
Trip to the small local cafe. Everything is delicious, and huMAAAAHHHHHHNNgus. That's a Key Lime bar. The size of, like, four of a non-WI. bar.
Nothing shall stop me from bringing you a silly post! (No interhoot at Mom's house.)
A trip to Goodwill snared two COMPLETELY AWESOME pieces of art for Dena and Bill, who drove up to visit from Chicago. Don't be too jealous, although you SHOULD BE. These made me all tingly and jumpy with joy.
#1: "I AM THE WAY" by Alex Nuckols. YES, NUCKOLS. Truck Jesus is floating around to help Senor Hauler with his load of "EXPLOSIVESA." My god. Wonderful.
#2: Lenticular Poodle. I am spending a lot of time thinking about who once owned this 3-D poodle in this extremely-cheap frame. Was it a little girl? A sweet grandma? Filthy Santa? We don't know, we can't know, but we can buy it for $1.99. It has some dirt on it which makes it appear that the poodle soiled its carpet, which will remain uncleaned, of course.
Ya know...a photograph just doesn't do this justice. Here you go.
After that, a short evening trip to Wisconsin Dells, tourist trap of legend. We stopped for an Italian meal and enjoyed an interesting hairstyle and a violent vegetable.
My favorite part of the Dells is the crap you can buy.
From now on, Christmas will be "Merry Season Special."
This bar seems to have a name that might be a problem.
The three little kids in heavy discussion whether or not to go into the Mirror Maze. They decided yes.
After about two minutes, MissSeven bailed and came to find me outside. I can't imagine why she said she was scared.
Couch Teen and his gf swanned around being teenage.
A trip to the candy/ice cream shoppe finished the Dells.
This was my view as I sucked down my chocolate malt. The dolls creeped me out, honestly.
We got home to my mom's, put the three smalls into bed, and sat around laughing and talking and being appalled at some TV reality show with a 73-year-old woman dating a 33-year-old dude, and then a squirting woman, if you know what I mean. EWWWWW. I went to the laundry room, because I CANNOT STOP DOING LAUNDRY, and as I was folding a swimsuit heard...some...weird...sounds. They were like yelps and bumps and sounds of general chaos. When I went to investigate, I saw my mother screaming in her living room chair with a pillow over her head, "AAAAA!!! HELP ME! AAAAAA! GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT!" and people running with brooms and people diving for the floor.
I looked up. There, flying in mad circles around the living room, was a VERY VERY LARGE BROWN BAT.
It flew past my mom again. She went AAAAAAAAAAAAA! It flew towards me. I ducked and went WHOA! BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT BAT! Around and around it went. I decided that it might be bright to amble over and close some of the other rooms off, including the ones with sleeping kids. I then further thought that I would continue folding laundry and leave the bat to others. What was I going to do? Write it to death?
Everyone lost sight of the bat, which was not good. WHERE BAT? My mother came into the kitchen, exhausted, and closed the door behind her. She is not a fan of critters. We sat at the small kitchen table, and wondered what to do. It was close to 1AM.
"Aw, I feel sorry for the bat, " I said. "It doesn't want to be in here. It's just scared."
My mother, in her 80s and from a kinder and gentler time, a June Cleaver if you will, spoke.
"Fuck the bat."
And then we all tried to sleep.
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman