My Mission Statement

I write to serve, to unite, to educate. I write to share literature and flesh out ideas that may be of interest to others. I write to document an emotion, experience, or a blip in time. My mission is to write in such a way that the reader is reminded that we can find humor in all situations. It's one of the great blessings of life.


Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Ya'll Got An Ailing Relative?

An older lady in our neighborhood stopped me on the street as I took out the recycling and asked me this question,"Ya'll got an ailing relative?"
"Not that I know of," I responded. "Why?"
"Are you taking care of someone at your house?" she pressed on nosily.
"Just my four kids, two dogs, one cat, and a husband," I answered, getting annoyed. Maybe she was commenting on the amount of recycling I had in my box.
"Well, I was just wondering why you can't all get to church at once."
I burst out laughing. Now that three of my four kids acolyte, we often have to go to the late service instead of the early service. However, Chris is really committed to the early service because he feels it helps prepare him for teaching his Sunday school class (which follows the early service), so he often goes and takes whichever kid isn't acolyting, then I go late with the acolytes.
In small towns, people know all your business--or at least they THINK they do. Once we bought a used car from friends, and when their car appeared in our driveway the first week, everyone thought she'd left her husband and was staying with us. Chris's office has an emergency number for patients to use after hours and on week-ends, and Chris frequently finds messages that say things like, "You left the light on in your attic" or "Your dog is running loose down Blount Street" or "We heard your son won the science fair". It's pretty funny.

So now we're on the tour next week-end, and you wouldn't believe all the *helpful suggestions* we get. Like one neighbor said, "You're the only one in town with pumpkins and wreaths." Yes, it's true, but it's *someone's* chore (hint, hint) and he has one more day to move it if he wants his allowance. And we ran out of lights on one of the trees, it wasn't an hour before someone said, "Shouldn't you go on down that other branch there?" Yes, we should. Thank you.
Anyway, it's pretty hilarious all the way around. And this time of year, you have to be really careful with gifts because everyone knows who's getting what if their older sister works in a particular store or cuts through the back way of a store when walking downtown and they see the gifts with post-its on them. Spreads like wildfire.
Hope you are all having a wonderful week and enjoying the helpful suggestions of all YOUR well-intentioned neighbors. And for darn sakes, turn off your light in the attic. It's keeping people up at night!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

LOVE THIS! I grew up on a small town and completely get it. :)


Isabel by Donna Jones Koppelman

Isabel by Donna Jones Koppelman

Major Bear at the Grove Park Inn by Donna Jones Koppelman

Major Bear at the Grove Park Inn by Donna Jones Koppelman