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Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Monty Python and the Moley Grail

Okay, enough already.  No more making mountains out of molehills! (Get it, molehills. Ah, sometimes I crack myself up.)

And that goes both ways. 

And vice versa. 

Anyways, maybe it wasn't even a mole that ratted me out to the proper authorities.  For alls I know it was just a poor, defenseless ferret.


Alas, I'll never know, but no worries! My Sponge Bob lips are sealed.  

I, CTD, heretofore pinky promise to keep my trap shut. From this day forward.  

Mums, the word.  Now, and forever more.



la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la



But can I just say one more (teensy weensy) little thing first? For the record?

There are no, I REPEAT, NO, wild Thornberries in my ward. 

But if there were any wild Thornberries, (hypothetically speaking) they would be on my list of people (in theory) to hang out with (if I wasn't so DELUSIONAL).

As Uncle Kracker would say, they make me smile.

I take that back, they make me LOL! I lub it when they come home teaching.  And sometimes, in between visits, I even drop by their house and make them home teach me again. 

And again.

And again. 


I would say Bro Thornberry (if there was such a man) is almost as good as my hub at the whole Chris Farley thing--except he's just pretending. He's an actor.  

My hub really does live in a van down by the river.  (But please, please, please don't turn him in to the proper authorities.)  

The Thornberries (If there were such a family) tell the bestest stories. I like the one about their chicken who just made my daughter's soccer team.  

"Now that's something to blog about," I told them. And they agreed. Then they laughed and compared themselves to . . . the wild Thornberries. 

That's right! I plagiarized the comparison. 

But I did it because not only can I relate to it, I can trump it. I can take their measly chickens and iguanas and raise them a bunch of snakes and rats. 

Who's the Thornberry now?  Huh?  Huh?  Huh?


When I was growing up my next door neighbors, Ruth and Red, built a huge fence between our properties and boarded up their windows facing our side of the house.  
 
I'm here to tell you that good fences don't make good neighbors.  And neither do large sheets of plywood. 

Ruth and Red said they only boarded up their windows because we had pet snakes and rats, but I think they just didn't like us.   

Looking back I can see now that we were freaks, but during the 70's I thought it was perfectly normal to reach into the dryer and pull out a garter snake, or to reach into the hall closet for a towel and grab a python.  

My dad's favorite snake was a boa constrictor named Strider and his favorite pet rat was named kitty, but he should have named them Harry and Houdini because they were both escape artists. 

Strider would usually curl up in our heating vents and under our couch cushions and I have many fond memories of blood curdling screams cutting like a knife through the entire neighborhood as strider slithered out of nowhere into my Gigi's lap. 

I remember one particular occasion trying to keep a straight face after suddenly noticing him winding his way around the curtain rod behind the couch where my mom's visiting teachers were giving a lesson.  

It wasn't one of our finest moments.   

Imagine being 11 years old.  You wake up one morning and stumble to the bathroom to do your bizness.  Just as you get settled, you glance over into the bathtub.  

NO!  

Yessssss!  

Noooooooo!  It couldn't be!  

But it was! Filled with baby King Cobras!  


Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!  (can't believe I just told you that.)


Long, true story short, I had to make my own t-shirt that said, "My dad went to India and alls I got was this lousy king cobra." 


Case in point?  There are three people on this blog who understand the Wild Thornberries. 

ME! MYSELF! and I! 



Hey, btw, it ain't that bad wearing a muzzle while you blog.  

I always knew I could post with my eyes closed, but now I know I can do it with my mouth closed too! 


YAY ME!


14 comments:

Unknown said...

Oh. My. Word. Please, please, a thousand times please -- tell me you were just practicing your fiction writing with this post. That's it: You were given a writing prompt to riff off of any Robert Frost quote, you took "good fences make good neighbors" because someone else already had "talk Farenheit, talk Centigrade", and you came up with that gripping story right out of Kipling's diary.

Because if it is indeed true, I have gone visiting teaching for the last time in mortality.

katie said...

see and even back for seconds tonight!!!

xoxo

The Crash Test Dummy said...

Oh DeNae, I wish I was good at fiction. I think that's why my life has been so crazy. My imagination ain't that limber.

It's all true. 100 percent. Except the t-shirt thing.

I can hardly believe it myself when I write it. It seems like a whole nother me.

I will provide photographic evidence.

Katie!!!!! OMGOSH! Can't believe you found me. I will definitely come by and check out your blog. I saw you comment on my last post. Thanks for loving my boys. They love you as a teacher too. They always talk about how cool you are. And how cool your house is. They love going up and down your stairs on your wheelchair lift thingiemajig.

And Katie, thanks for the cheerleading. I appreciate it.

Barbaloot said...

Please never provide photographic evidence of the snakes!! Or, if you must, give me a warning first so I know to avoid your blog for that post. I would not be able to handle it.

Also-we totally have another random connection. I was looking at my cousin's pictures on facebook the other day (actually, my cousin's daughter) and she's fully on your daughter's soccer team! The world is getting smaller.

Braden Bell said...

Crashtest, I am sincerely glad you were able to still be this funny given recent circumstances. I now need to run to the restroom so I can laugh as loudly as I want to without disturbing the proper authorities at my school.

I had a pregnant hamster that escaped when I was a kid. My mom nearly died. I thought that was cool. My hamster has absolutely nothing on your snakes. However, we could have probably used a snake at that time, at least for a while.

Migillicutty said...

You're crazy, ya know that? Stark. Raving. Mad! :) <3

The Crash Test Dummy said...

ha ha ha ha Migillicuty. Or should I say Muwahahahaha.

At least I have embraced my madness. ;)

Braden. You never heard my Guinea pig story, huh? I told it back in October I think. We had a guinea pig named Popeye--named because our dog squeezed her so tight her eye balls popped out. (ew, I know.) But my mom rushed her to the vet and, whodathunkit,they were able to pop them back in.

I'm so glad I'm livin' la vida fairy tale now instead of la vida loca.

Stephen said...

Don't forget the frogs, ferret, tarantula, red ant farm in the aquarium, monitor lizard, rattle snake, etc. Your readers are going to think your life was rather tame.

The Crash Test Dummy said...

Oh Stephen, I was trying to keep that on the down-low. I don't want my readers to think we were totally insane.

Muwahahahah

Amanda said...

I love that Stephen opened up a few more cans :)

Can't believe how crazy life has been for you, but I'm glad you've embraced it and decided to share it with all of us. Even if I don't understand because I do't know who the Wild Thornberries are.

We love you, don't change!

Braden Bell said...

Popeye is one of the best names for a pet I've ever heard. Your life is possibly one of the most interesting I've ever heard about.

DeNae, LOL Kipling's diary, by the way. Good form!

The Crash Test Dummy said...

Oh Braden, DeNae has the BEST form ever! She is the next Erma Bombeck, with attitude. As a newly published author you would appreciate her very much. She will be a newly published author soon. Mark my words.

The Crash Test Dummy said...

Mahalo Amanda! Lub you too!

Nutty Hamster Chick said...

Oh my gravy! LOL Denae, at least you have a great excuse from now on about VT.

When my son's snake escaped, I started packing my bags for the hotel until my husband caught it and returned it to the cage. There was a whole lot of screaming going on in that episode of the sitcom called my life.