Stupid Stories

I realize that my posts have recently been weighted heavily toward my children's stupid antics, but there's just so much easy material available and I'm lazy by nature.

This morning Aaron thought it would be a good idea to shave his head.



We didn't find it necessary to scold him as it seemed our laughter and picture-taking was punishment enough. He was not at all amused by our mockery. While we don't make a habit of higlighting our children's mistakes or having fun at their expense, we do generally prefer natural consequences believing they teach the lesson best.

There's not really much we can do for him. When we were finished humiliating him, we went ahead and gave him a real close buzz, but his shaved spot is still quite apparent. We'll give it a week and then buzz him close again to even it out.

It reminds me of my brother's pre-wedding haircut. His soon-to-be wife had gone to give him a fresh buzz a day or two before their wedding, but forgot to put a guard on the clippers and didn't realize the mistake until she'd shaved a nice strip clear across the top of his head. Man, was that funny. I hope she can laugh about it now (women are always volatile right before their weddings and we were all strictly warned not to say anything about his hair in front of her). The shaved spot is visible in most of the wedding pictures, so the story is immortalized.

The story that is immortalized in my parent's wedding pictures is the feud between the families. My dad's dad can be seen in most of the shots with a scowl on his face and his middle finger not-so-subtly extended.

My mom's dad just passed away a few weeks ago. My favorite story I know about him was his struggle with a rat that lived in the air-conditioning ducts of his house. The rat had finally pushed his luck too far one fateful night during a dinner party.

I picture them all sitting around the table having a formal dinner, probably sometime in the late 70's. Pop is sitting at the head of the table, probably in his dinner jacket, maybe there's a little classical music on the turntable, everyone engaged in witty conversation and enjoying the roast duck, when the rat scampers through the dining room air duct. The guests look around bewildered. My grandmother sighs and pours herself another scotch. The old man tries to ignore it.

Conversation resumes and the episode is almost forgotten when the rat makes another run through the room. This time the old man is having none of it. He leaps up from the table (in my imagination he doesn't have any pants on under the table and is wearing white boxers with red polka dots), grabs his shotgun (true!), and starts blasting away at the duct. He kills the duct, but only mortally wounds the rat, which crawls off into the bowels of the air-conditioning system to die.

I don't mean to disparage his memory (sorry mom, if you ever read this). He wasn't really crazy. But we all do nutty things when faced with pests. My friend Jimmy had a squirrel problem in his uppity oak-infested Atlanta neighborhood (Brookhaven). So he'd sit inside his living room with his front door cracked and shoot them out of the trees in this front yard. Apparently, his neighbors caught on because they called the cops. He thought about denying it, but it would be tough to explain the bucket he was filling with dead squirrels when the cops arrived. They gave him a citation for unlawful discharge of a firearm.

I had a squirrel problem at my own house. They had found a way to get into my attic and were nesting up there. I could hear them digging in the insulation for nuts (they're very stupid) and running on the rafters. I would also see damage to my wiring where they were eating the insulation. Did I mention they were stupid? Being a fan of natural consequences, I was inclined to let them keep eating at the wires, but didn't like the idea of them burning my house down. So instead I bought a trap and baited it with peanut butter crackers.

I caught him almost immediately, but had not yet figured out what to do next. I had bought a pellet rifle for the express purpose of shooting squirrels without getting arrested, but somehow shooting a caged animal didn't seem sporting. I asked my Georgia-boy buddy Steve what to do and he replied immediately in his deadpan southern drawl, "drown it". That didn't really appeal to me either, but after a few minutes of thought I came upon the perfect solution. I put the cage and my very pissed off prisoner in the trunk of my car and drove him over to Brookhaven. I let him go in Jimmy's yard.