Beware the Blanket Thief

By James L. Davis

It has recently come to my attention that I am a blanket thief. It happened because one night I woke in the middle of the night and thought to myself that we had a very comfortable vibrating bed. Then I remembered that we do not own a vibrating bed.

The vibrations were coming from my wife, who was shivering violently. She was shivering so violently that her feet were on the verge of being shaken free from their frozen position in the small of my back. This is their normal sleeping position. I believe that that the normal sleeping position for most women’s feet is in the small of the back of their husband. I do not understand this and the simple fact that women can so position themselves to plant their feet in the small of a man’s back while also stealing their pillow speaks of an elasticity that no man could ever hope to duplicate.

I was mortified to discover that I was in fact a blanket thief and I threw the blankets back over my wife. She immediately curled them around her body to form a cocoon of warmth, all the while keeping her feet firmly planted in the small of my back. I gave the blankets to her because I don’t really use them for warmth, I curl them into a large, comfortable pillow to replace the one my wife has stolen from me. I would use my wife’s pillow but my wife seems to believe her pillow belongs on the floor, because that is where it always ends up.

Had I been using the blankets as blankets instead of a pillow, the fact that I had stolen them would have been of no consequence to my wife, because when sleeping my wife forms her body so completely to my own that the blankets would cover us both anyway. The fact that she does so again makes me wonder about the amazing elasticity of a woman’s body. It also makes me wonder why we have a queen size bed, because we only use a quarter of it. Depending on how we choose to rotate our bed and where I decide to position myself for sleep, we could in theory sleep on our queen size bed three times longer than the average couple.

Of course that only applies when we are sleeping on the bed together, because the way we sleep on the bed together is totally and completely different than how we sleep on the bed by ourselves. When sleeping on the bed together my wife waits patiently while I try out one position or the other and finally settle into the same position that I sleep in every night, curled with my face to the outside of the bed, teetering precariously on the edge and at risk of falling off the bed entirely. Then she forms her own body to mine, something like the face hugger in the Alien movies, but much more pleasant. Once we have melded into one sleepy mass, we fall asleep almost immediately. But that is not the case when sleeping in bed alone. When I have the bed to myself, I sleep in the center of the bed, spread eagle with both my pillow and my wife’s pillow under my head. I have observed that my wife sleeps in pretty much the same fashion when she has the bed to herself.

While I could speculate that the reason we sleep so closely together is because of our love for each other, the real reason, I suspect, that we sleep curled together like we do has much less to do with our love for each other and more to do with the fact that our stomachs are sentient beings intent on the overthrow of the rest of our bodies.

I suspect as much because on occasion I will wake in the middle of the night for reasons other than the realization that I have stolen all of the blankets. When I do I have been shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover that my wife’s stomach and mine are talking to each other.

It sounds innocent enough, sure, but I believe there is something sinister at work between our two stomachs. Lying in bed I listen closely as my wife’s stomach makes a whispering demand of my own stomach.

“Orrrmmm ahhhh errr errr grrrpp,” her stomach will say.

“Uhh grrshhh ahh,” my stomach will reply.

I have tried to tell myself that it is simply the rumblings of two stomachs in the middle of the night, but I have awakened to their alien dialogue far too often to believe their conversation to be so innocent. They are plotting something, if not the overthrow of the civilized world, then at the very least, the overthrow of our own bodies.

How else can my wife and I have the same craving for chocolate chunk ice cream while watching The Biggest Loser, if not by some diabolical plot of our stomachs? Coincidence, you say? I think not.

While I may not know exactly what our two stomachs may be up to, I believe that in the scheme of things my wife’s stomach is the leader of the two. The only proof I offer is the demanding quality of the sounds my wife’s stomach makes and the subservient wails my stomach gives in reply. I have listened to them moan and gurgle long enough now that I am beginning to slowly unravel their language. I believe their conversation revolves around the theft of a blanket.

Greetings from Chicken Little

By James L. Davis

One of our chickens has learned how to moonwalk.  She moonwalks in front of the chicken coop every morning to taunt the other chickens.  I've been meaning to talk to her about teasing the other chickens, but I haven’t because the other chickens deserve it.

Her name is Chicken Little.  We named her Chicken Little a while back after she recovered from a little conflict she had with the rest of the chickens in the coop.  It seems that the rest of the hens in the hen house were under the mistaken belief that Chicken Little’s name was really Chicken Dinner.

We inherited Chicken Little from my dad, who had  raised chickens for a number of years until he one day realized that he would not, could not, under any circumstance eat one of his chickens (or anyone else’s chickens for that matter, he doesn't like chicken) and that he did not like the thought of fresh eggs.  He prefers to think that eggs come from an egg carton and are produced in a factory somewhere in China.  I have always preferred to think of eggs the same way.  But, having realized that he had no real use for chickens or their eggs, he gathered them all up and brought them to our house to put in with our chickens.

I did not realize until that time that chickens had a highly developed social class and by introducing new hens into our hen house we initially started a war based on deep rooted ideological differences, much like the Democrats and the Republicans.  A war broke out for a few days among the hens and our rooster essentially played the part of the United States.  He ran around and flapped his wings and tried to get them to stop fighting each other and they ignored him completely.

After a couple of days the hens finally decided to put aside their differences and work as a unified hen house.  And what they decided to work together on was the death of Chicken Little.  For one reason or another when the hens decided to stop fighting each other they decided to take up beaks in the destruction of Chicken Little.  It could be because she was ill in some way, as my wife theorized.  Our kids thought that she was perhaps the ringleader in the previous conflict.  I suppose there is no real way of ever knowing, but I choose to believe that the other hens began to suspect that Chicken Little could moonwalk and because of that they were going to kill her.

So when I went out to feed the chickens one morning I found Chicken Little outside the hen house, her neck a bloody and tattered mess.  The other hens had just about severed her neck and when I picked her up and took her outside the chicken coop I figured that this was one dead chicken.

But when I went to get a shovel to finish the job the hens had started Chicken Little jumped up and ran away, which told me right away that Chicken Little may be a lot of things, but she was not stupid.  So I decided to leave her outside the coop to see if she made it through the night. She did make it through the night and has been an outcast of the hen house ever since.

Chicken Little now has her own hen house outside the chicken coop.  She believes it to be a hen house anyway, although in reality it is an old doghouse.  Every morning this chicken watches for one of us to make our way toward the field and she runs toward us, wings flapping and clucking as she greets us and follows us back out to take care of our animal chores.  This kind of behavior is how she came by her name.

The other animals on our little farm don’t seem to mind Chicken Little running about flapping her wings or moon walking.  Of course that just might be because she hasn't gotten really annoying.  I’m fairly confident that if she suddenly begins to breakdance there is going to be trouble with the goats.

The cats don’t seem to mind her too much.  They apparently are of the same opinion about chicken dinners as my dad, so they don’t waste a whole lot of time worrying over her.  I also believe they much prefer having a chicken in the doghouse to a dog in the doghouse.  That could change if the chicken starts to bark and with this chicken I’m not ruling anything out.

Today there are two more hens that have joined her as part of what I call the Outcast Hens.  Chicken Little has been attempting to teach them how to moonwalk, but they haven’t got the hang of it yet.

So while we take care of the animal chores every morning Chicken Little struts in front of the chicken coop, taunting her would-be killers with the fact that the Outcast Hens have no chicken wire to fence them in.  Of course, they have no chicken wire to fence predators out either.

I haven’t told Chicken Little that little fact, however.  It might throw off her moon walking.

My grandson on his birthday...apparently his taste buds 

are on his face and the top of his head.

That Tastes Sooo Good

By James L. Davis

I think I must have defective taste buds because I just don’t seem to get the enjoyment out of my food the way other people do.  If they aren't defective they must be lazy, because they don’t give me near as much excitement as other people’s taste buds must give them when sitting down to a meal.

While I’m not sure whether a taste bud can be lazy or not, I am sure that some people get a whole lot more out of their dining experience than I ever have.  I enjoy sitting down to a meal as much as the next person (as long as I’m not the one cooking) and my bulging belly can attest to the fact, but eating is just something I do two or three times a day between events in my life, it is not an event in and of itself.

Which is why I think my taste buds must be defective or lazy, because for some people eating is not only an event, it is The Event of the day. 

You know it is The Event because they will spend long hours planning out what they are going to eat next, where they are going to eat it and how much they hope to eat.  These are the people that you will never, ever see grabbing a bite to eat from beneath a convenience store warmer.  Their taste buds might actually strangle them if they were to put so little thought into their meal.

 Another way you can spot people who consider a meal as The Event is by the way they react to eating.  They do all kinds of crazy things that well, frankly, leave me a little embarrassed if I happen to be in the same room as they are when they are dining.

One of my sons for instance must have superhuman taste buds because we can eat the same thing and our responses will be totally different.  To me it’s a meal, perhaps even a great meal, to him it approaches an almost out of body experience.  Just recently we took my parents out to dinner and on our way into town the children asked, because it is their way, where we would be eating.  Children ask this question just so they will have something to whine about for the remainder of the trip. 

On this trip however, I circumvented the whining by telling my children that we were going out for steak.  Suddenly all of their preparation for whining was transformed into praise for the Great and Wise Father, the Father of All Time, the Father Who Was Taking His Children Out for Steak.

When we arrived at the steak house we took our seats, placed our orders for steak and enjoyed each others company while we waited for our food.  All was well and good right up until the food arrived and then something strange started to happen to my son.

He started to make noises when he ate.  Strange, moaning noises that frightened me.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked.

“It’s so good,” was his response.

It was a good steak, but I wasn't ready to get quite that vocal about it.  Apparently he was and by the end of the meal his looks and moans of happiness at the meal he had eaten left me equally disturbed and puzzled.  Disturbed because of the looks the waiter and other diners were giving our table and puzzled because I have never eaten a meal that gave me as much joy as a steak dinner had given my son.

The puzzling thing is that while my taste buds are in my mouth, I believe my son's must be in his stomach, because nothing he puts in his mouth actually stays there long enough to get such an enthusiastic reaction.  

Upon investigation I discovered that my son is not alone in being a Meal Time Moaner, apparently there are a large number of them living productive lives in society, except of course when they are eating.  When they are eating they are a disturbance to society.

In my own family my youngest son is not the only Meal Time Moaner.  My middle son suffered from the same ailment, but I am happy to report that he is on the road to recovery.

He would moan whenever he chewed his food, a long, drawn out moan that would stretch from the first to the last chew and sound like either a muffled attempt to communicate or the soft moaning of a dying cow, or both. 

In the case of my middle son he was not even aware that he was making any noise at all and was convinced we were hearing things when we asked him to stop.  It turns out we were hearing things. The things were coming out of his mouth in the form of moans.  Eventually he was able to break himself of the habit without any form of shock therapy, although I had offered to provide it if he thought it might be helpful.

Of course, while he no longer moans he does apparently still possess overactive taste buds. He still has them and not being able to express his pleasure at having overactive taste buds results in a tendency toward violence.  I know this because while my middle son no longer moans while eating, he does threaten violence if anyone attempts to steal his food.

Which in the end makes me grateful for my defective taste buds.

Lessons in Mumblespeak

By James L. Davis

If there’s one thing I've learned about children over the years it is that it doesn't matter how firm your grasp may be on your own sanity, they will find new and inventive ways to pry your fingers free.

The amazing thing is the almost unlimited ways that children can find to further develop that nervous twitch in your eye. Take asking a simple question, for instance. You would think (if you were sane and rational) that asking a simple question would be a fairly straightforward proposition when dealing with your children. But in that you would be wrong.

If there was such a thing as the University of Parental Preparation one of the required courses I am quite sure would be one on effective questioning and if there was such a university and such a course I would sign up immediately because it is quite obvious that I need some help. I've learned through experience that it is not simply the words you use to phrase a question; it is the inflection in your voice that counts the most. I can ask my children the same question a dozen times and end up with a different answer each time, depending on the tone of my voice.

Usually the tone of my voice is one of resignation and defeat, which invokes a response from my children of complete disinterest. My children have taken this response pattern to new levels and they are now capable of answering my questions without even opening their mouths. Heartfelt questions from me such as “why is the toaster in the refrigerator?” are answered with a guttural “hm emm humm.” For those of you who do not understand Mumble­speak, allow me to translate. In this case, “hm emm humm” means “dear father, I was in the midst of doing my chores because I love you and I know that it is your desire that I perform my chores. So I was cleaning off the counters when I became distracted by the incessant buzzing of my cell phone text messaging, so I put the toaster in the refrigerator. Please, please, take my cell phone away from me so that I can concentrate at the task at hand. I am afraid that I am not as adept at multitasking as I had supposed  By the way, the milk is under the counter ” Of course, it could also mean “I didn't do it” or it could even be a mere guttural response to convince me to go and ask someone else.

Usually my children speak to me in Mum­blespeak when I am asking them such probing questions as “have you done your homework, chores, put the dog out, seen your brothers or sisters, spoken to your mom lately, had a good day, a bad day, brushed your teeth in the past week, seen my wallet, seen the money that used to be in my wallet or changed the cat litter box?”

Of course, because of the difficulty in translating Mumblespeak, as a family we quite often run into communication problems because my children have told me something in Mumble­speak that I have mistranslated. This usually occurs when they have a school assignment to complete, need a parent to provide transportation for them and eight of their closest friends, or have plans that require us to take out a second mortgage on the home to finance.

On more than one occasion I have been sitting quite comfortably in my recliner allowing my eyes to roll back in their sockets when one of my children will come up to me with a look of earnest anticipation on their face.

“Are you ready?” they will ask.

“Ready for what?”  I will ask back, letting my eyes roll forward again so I can see with them.

“You’re going to give us a ride to the mall, remember?”

My eyes at this point will begin to roll back in their socket again.

“No, I don’t remember. When did you ask?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“What did you ask?”

“I asked hm emm humm.”

“Well, of course you did.”

Occasionally my children will remember that they have spoken to me in Mumblespeak and they will have a moment of enlightenment when they realize that I may not have understood them. This usually occurs when I have asked them if they have homework and they respond with “humm humm emm hm” which means “dear father, of course I have homework. I fear that I may forget that I have homework, so please, please remind me so that I can get my homework done” which I have mistakenly translated to be “no, I don’t have any homework.”

Then, later in the evening, usually just as I am putting them to bed something in their mind pops (if you listen closely you can even hear this pop of clarity) and they remember that for some reason I have not reminded them that they have homework and they will become quite agitated because they have a 10 page essay on effective communication due in the morning.

At which point they will look at me pleadingly and ask “what am I going to do?”

To which I respond “hm emm humm.”

The Argument Clinic

Pretty much sums up my view on our political system.

Ready for the Big Hunt

By James L. Davis

Hunting season has arrived once again, which would normally mean that at some point or another one of my children will begin to moan about the inherent injustice of having a father who does not hunt.

Usually the biggest whiner is my son, Casey, who cannot understand why I do not wish to march out into the wilderness and kill something.  I have tried to explain to him that it is not that I am against killing something, I am just against killing something I won’t eat and the things that you can hunt and kill I will not eat.

Of course his response to this quite rational explanation is to remind me that I have threatened to kill him on numerous occasions.

“If you kill me are you going to eat me?” He would ask. For this reason I have ordered a 55 gallon drum of barbecue sauce, just to keep him off guard.

This hunting season I shouldn't hear any whining from my son about not hunting because I plan on taking him hunting this fall. I have found a way to reconcile my son’s thirst for bloodletting with my resolve not to kill anything I won’t eat.

While everyone else is busy tromping through the wilderness in search of deer or elk or antelope or any of the other woodland creatures that are at this very moment wondering what they have done to make so many people want to kill them, my son and I will be hunting cattle.

“Cattle?”  My son asked while sitting at the dinner table.  “What do you mean cattle?”

“I mean cattle. Cows.  Moo.  Beef, the main ingredient in fine hamburgers everywhere.”

“You can’t hunt cattle Dad.”

“Certainly you can hunt cattle.  I've seen huge herds all over the place.” 

My son shook his head, which he is prone to do when having a conversation with me.  “That’s cattle rustling Dad.”

“No, cattle rustling is when you steal a cow.  We’re going to shoot a cow.”

“That’s not hunting.”

“What would be missing?”  I asked.  Being inexperienced in hunting, I thought maybe he knew something that I did not.

“You have to be out in the mountains, tracking the animal, hunting it down, taking aim with your prey in your sights.”

He had obviously been reading something I hadn’t.  “Yeah, well, we’ll do all that, just with a cow, or would you prefer a steer?   Maybe I’d better get us a steer.”

“Do you know how much trouble you’d get into if you killed somebody’s cow?”

“It’ll be our cow.  We’re about out of beef in the freezer, so instead of sending a steer to slaughter we’ll take it out and hunt it down.”

“In the back yard?”

“No, not in the back yard.”  He obviously wasn't thinking clearly, what kind of hunt could you have in your back yard? “We’ll take it down to your grandpa’s property and set it free.  We’ll give it a good head start while we slip on our camo gear, and then we’ll hunt the beast down.”

“What, while its chewing its cud in the middle of the field?”

I shook my head.  So little imagination in one so young was downright depressing. “It won’t be chewing its cud in the middle of the field.  We’ll make it stampede.”

“A stampede of one cow?”

“One steer.  Sure.  Why not? More than one could get pretty dangerous.”

“How are we going to make this steer stampede?”

“I’ll shoot at it first.”

“What if you hit it?”  Casey asked.  I could see he was starting to think this idea over a little bit.  And all this time he thought I was crazy.

“It’s not possible for me to hit it.  I can’t hit the broad side of a cow or anything else,” I said and in this I was not lying.  In military training I was given three clips and an M-16 and told to shoot my target as many times as possible.  I missed it every time with 90 rounds.  My drill instructor was speechless for perhaps the first time in his military career.  In eight years of military service I had the distinction of never actually qualifying with my M-16.  This is perhaps a good reason why they put me in a job that required a pencil instead of a weapon

“So we’re going to hunt down and kill a cow in Grandpa’s field while wearing camouflage?”

“Sounds great, doesn't it?  You can have your first kill and I’ll take photos of you with the ferocious steer.”

My son thought for a moment and then smiled and nodded his head.  “Can we have the head mounted?”

Suddenly I wished I had just said we weren't going to go hunting.

Deer Spotting

By James L. Davis

The headlights of my car caught the deer just as it was starting to cross the road.  The light of the day was only just fading from the sky as the deer looked at me, startled, it was a beautiful sight to behold.  I brought the car to a stop and waited as the four point buck cautiously started across the road.

My eyes followed the buck as it crossed and its frightened eyes continued to watch me as it came to the other side of the road.  And then, with one glance back at me, still staring at it intently, the buck shook its great antlered head and walked over to my car.

“What you lookin’ at fella?”  The buck stood in front of my door and tapped on my window with an antler until I finally rolled it down.  “I said what are you looking at?”

Not used to being addressed in such a fashion by woodland creatures, I was a little taken aback.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean every year about this time everywhere I turn there’s one of you humans gawking at me.  It gives me the creeps.  I try and cross a field and there you are, staring at me through your binoculars.  I come up from the creek and you just about run off the road trying to get a look at me.  So what?  Do I have something on my face for crying out loud?  What is it about me that you keep staring at?”

My eyes had been drawn inexorably toward the buck’s impressive rack, so it was difficult to pay attention.

“Hey buddy.  Down here, you’re staring again.  I asked you a question.”

“Oh, yeah.  Well, I’m not a hunter but I think people are looking at your, well, they’re looking at your…”

The buck poked his nose through the window of my car.  “Spit it out already.”

“Your rack.  They’re staring at your impressive rack,” I blurted out, ashamed because I could not help staring and hoping that the deer wasn't hostile.  He seemed to have some anger issues.  Had I known that deer had anger issues I would not have stopped to let this deer pass. 

“Well, that’s just sick.”  The deer paced around my car for a moment or two and then returned to my window.  I tried not to look at his antlers, but it was difficult.  “Why do you people want to stare at my rack?”

“Well, I think a lot hunters would like to have your rack.”

“No doubt, but my rack would look funny on one of you humans.”

“No, I don’t mean to wear, just to have, kinda like a trophy.”

The deer looked at me incredulously, which up until that point in time I was not aware that a deer could do.  

“You people want my rack as a trophy?”

“Well, not all people, just some people.  Hunters.”

“Rack hunters?”

“Sorta,” I said, not particularly comfortable with where this conversation was heading.

“Well just tell them to stop staring at me.  When I shed my antlers they can have them for crying out loud.  They can fight over them for all I care.”

“I don’t think you completely understand.”

“What’s not to understand?”  The buck was sitting on the hood of my car now, swinging his legs restlessly.

“The hunters, well, they don’t just want your antlers for a trophy.  They want your entire head.”

The deer laughed and I was shocked to discover that when deer laugh they sound exactly like David Letterman. “Well, that’s just crazy.  If they were to take my head as a trophy then they would have to…” The light of realization finally clicked on in the buck’s dull brown eyes.  “That’s…that’s inhuman!”

“Well, no, actually it’s pretty human.”

“They want to take my head?”

“And hang it on the wall, yes.”

“Why would they want to do such a thing?”

“It’s a sport.”

“Yeah, well so is football.  Do they hang the head of the opposing team’s quarterback on the wall?”

“No.  But maybe it’s never been suggested before.  It might make for a more exciting season.”

The buck jumped off my car hood and glared at me, shaking his head menacingly.  “You tell those sick voyeurs that they’ll get this rack over my dead body.”

“I think that’s the idea.”

But the buck didn't hear me.  He had started back across the road and my eyes drifted once again to his rack.

“Watch your eyes!” He called out as he slipped out of sight.