I'd Like You To Meet

My new and dear friend Lucille Spencer. She is 97 years young and has been a great addition to my life. Lucille and her crabby little dog Emily live north of Bovey, Minnesota in a small old house. Lucille has taught me how to not take life so seriously, to laugh more, and to enjoy everyday as if it were your last. She loves carmel rolls and good polka music on her TV. She listens to polka on TV because she is blind. Being blind doesn't phase Lucille a bit. She bakes, talks on the phone with friends and does a lot of rocking on her rocking chair. If you ever get a chance to meet Lucille, please excuse her many .. and I mean many ... chiming alarm clocks. Some sound like birds, some sound like music and some sound like a dog peeing on a flat rock. One thing is for sure, when you walk out of that house you'll be a better person for it.

I Got Mugged

This Monday four of us went to the local A&W Root Beer stand for root beer floats. The anticipation of ice cream and a frosty mug of root beer was overwhelming. I slammed by fist down on the counter and asked the young man in the root beer suit to give us four root beers. He asked what size and I said mediums. He gave me my ticket and said he would let me know when my order was up. Within minutes our order was ready. Much to my dismay I noticed that he was serving us root beer floats in paper cups. I said, "This must be some mistake! Where are the frosty mugs?" He said, "You have to order a large root beer float to get a frosty mug!" "This is crazy .. sacrilegious! You can't get a frosty mug with a medium root beer?" This young punk stared at me like I had six eyes. He could give a rat's-ass what I thought about frosty mugs. It was no sweat of his ass to piss off a customer. He just worked there. Root beer isn't root beer unless it's served in a frosty mug. It just doesn't taste the same. What has happened to this world? I remember when you could get a baby mug of root beer for heaven's sake ... it was the size of a small shot-glass. So the four of us sat down and tried as hard as we could to enjoy our paper mugs of root beer. I enjoyed the company but the root beer sucked.

Road Kill

Last week I took a drive into town on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. It was 80 degrees and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. What a perfect day to be alive! I started following a red car down this long straight-away when I noticed it swerve a bit and something bounced out from underneath the car. Much to my dismay I noticed that this person had run over a giant Snapping Turtle nearly the size of a spare tire. Because I was trailing the car I too came upon the turtle and saw him writhing in pain with his long neck stuck out in a contorted way and his shell completely ripped off his torso. I was in shock but also in a fit of rage. I chased after this car so I could look inside to see what stupid actually looks like. I'm thinking to myself this has to be some young punk kid out for a thrill. The red car was hard to catch as it was going 80 MPH or better. I finally caught up to them after a stop light and pulled right up next to them and discovered it was a middle-aged woman and her son. I yelled out the window, "Do you realize you just ran over and killed a giant Snapping Turtle?" She replied, "I didn't see it!" It was at that point I knew what stupid looks like and my anger kicked in and I let her know there is no excuse to run over a giant Snapping Turtle (size of a spare tire) in broad daylight. She quickly rolled up her window and drove away in horror ... or at least I hope she did. There are so many people who go out of their way to run over defenseless turtles, snakes, rabbits, porcupines, and for the life of me I can't understand why. The only excuse I can think of for her was that she was texting at 75 MPH and actually didn't see the turtle. I couldn't get this horrific scene out of my head! I hope this lady feels miserable for what she did ... I do! This turtle has been crossing this road for years and is, was, probably 50-60 years old. The next time you see a turtle on the road, please take the time to put him/her in the ditch in the direction they were going.