Scarred for Life

Dear man-I-saw-today-on-the-freeway,

First off, I understand the traffic going your direction was really bad. Like, going nowhere bad. But that is NO excuse! Sir, you are tall. The median wall was short. Thus, I saw it all.

Next time, please go before you get in the car.

Many thanks,
Christie

P.S. Please don't write back. I plan on doing my best to forget this incident as soon as I hit the publish button.

The Cookie Thief

Sam had a few enemies. One in particular I would like to call Fred. He is a very non-confrontational soul. Sam, believe it or not, is a very confrontational soul. This created many conflicts.

During one such conflict, Sam was being especially pushy. I believe she was trying to tell Fred he was doing his job wrong. [By the way, telling someone they're doing their job wrong is ALWAYS a good idea] Fred was not appreciating the coaching, and he was dealing with the problem by withdrawing.

Sam took the withdrawal as ignoring her (eh, technically he was, but can you blame him?), so she did the only thing she could think of to get his attention. She noticed a stack of cookies sitting on his desk, grabbed them, and ran off. Yup, she totally stole the cookies. And ate them.

Poor Fred just sat there stunned. Oddly enough Sam wondered why Fred was even more distant after that. Maybe it was something she said.

Valentine's Romance

For some reason Ryan decided he wanted to watch me read my emails. He kept pestering and asking to read the "juicy" emails. Finally I turned around and said, "Look, my life is an open book. I've probably you told about every aspect of my life 26 times. In the last hour. What exactly do you expect to find?" He then burst into fake tears and sobbed about how it's true and something about why don't I have an off button.

And then a bit later he said,"Christie, you just get so angry about things you shouldn't get angry about." I think it was because I was yelling about how my computer hates me. Or something like that.

Truth be told he puts up with a lot of crazy. So, happy Valentine's Day, honey! Thanks for putting up with me! And I ain't monkeying around.

Aha! He's not going to find that funny at all. But I'm laughing away.

My Kind of Love

Last week some mid-day show was on TV in the lunch room. They were reading Valentine's stories sent by the viewers. One lady said her husband wrote a note on every single tissue and put them all back in the box. That way, she could read something sweet and romantic throughout the year. I'm not even going to explain why this disturbed me.

Did I ever tell you about the time my grandparents were almost mugged? They had just attended a session at the Albuquerque Temple and dinner at their favorite restaurant. They stopped at the ATM when this guy approached. He game up behind my grandma and grabbed at her purse while ordering her to give him all her money.

My grandpa did what any God-fearing man of 80 would do when his beloved was in peril. He took the guy DOWN. In the process my grandpa lost his own balance, but the message of "don't mess with my wife" had already been impressed. The guy bolted, getting away with nothing more than the cash they'd just taken out of the ATM and the debit card.

[picture used without permission from my brother]

That's my kind of love.

A Valentine Act of Kindness

My mom is a school nurse. She has all kind of sad stories about the children at her school, but this one has a happy ending. When she got to school yesterday this boy was crying in the office. Apparently he'd left his Valentines on the bus. He was devastated. The poor child is overweight and has been teased, making the situation more pitiable. But what can you do but send the kid to class?

A few minutes later the principal walked out of her office, putting on her coat. "I'm going to the school bus hub," she announced. "I doubt I'll find them but I'm going to try. And if I don't find them, I'm going to buy him new ones." And off she went. By some miracle she found them. She called the boy into her office and gave them to him. He immediately gave her a gigantic hug. He was so happy.

Am I a total sap because that story got me all choked up?

Kitten-tron

We get phone calls periodically about lost pets. It's a pretty good system that sends an automated message to people in the neighborhood alerting them of missing animals. While usually that makes me sad, we had a pretty funny one this weekend. Apparently a black and white cat named Kitten-tron (unsure of spelling??) is missing. If my owner named me Kitten-tron I would run away too. Poor kitty.