THOUSAND WORDS
1000 Words: One Night In The Cold Central Illinois WinterMIAMI BEACH, FL 03 September 2008 |
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We got this phone call. It was approximately 3:30 AM when the phone rang. It was winter. It was cold. Victor and I were fast asleep in our woolies. Victor answered the phone.
“Dr. Zion?” a voice said.
“Yes,” he answered.
“We have your car, Sir.”
“What car?” he asked.
“Your stolen Thunderbird, Sir,” the voice replied.
“We don’t have a stolen Thunderbird,” he answered.
“We have your stolen car,” the voice insisted.
“Hold on a minute,” Victor said.
Then Victor ran to the garage to make sure we still had our bright red 1989 Thunderbird. Her name was Christine. It was an obvious moniker, if you knew our family.
Victor ran back and grabbed the phone.
“Our Thunderbird is not in the garage!” he said.
Duh, the voice would have said, but he was very polite and did not. “We have your car,” he said again.
Then Victor asked the policeman to hold on again. He ran upstairs to the kids’ rooms and Tim and Lenore were sleeping soundly.
He ran back downstairs and grabbed the phone.
“What should we do?” he asked.
The policeman asked us to come to identify our stolen car.
Victor threw on a coat and I threw on my down coat over my flannel pajamas. We drove in our not-stolen car to the site in Savoy, Illinois, where our stolen car was abandoned, doors akimbo, engine running.
The police said that they had had three police cars in hot pursuit of Christine. She was driving very fast through residential neighborhoods. They almost caught the perpetrators, but they were too good and they got away. They left the car, running, and the keys were missing. It wasn’t damaged, but we needed to get it towed to get it re-keyed.
I was irate. I asked that the police fingerprint the car. They nodded, but it wasn’t done. We couldn’t even turn off the engine. I was getting more irate. I demanded that they fingerprint the car. They nodded.
Finally we got a tow truck to tow our unfingerprinted Thunderbird to the dealership to get it worked on. We filled out lots of papers. We answered lots of questions. We were tired and pissed.
The next day there was a huge headline in the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette:
POLICE FIND VEHICLE BEFORE OWNERS KNOW IT WAS STOLEN
Things were pretty slow in Champaign-Urbana, so it was a long article. I have it somewhere because I saved it but I have a problem saving things. I always put important things somewhere safe. That, unfortunately, translates into somewhere that can never be located again. My mother was this way too. She once saved three two-pound coffee cans full of actual silver dollars in a safe place. It was such a safe place that she couldn’t find them. Ever.
You would think that after we got the car back with new keys that that would be the end of it and it was, for several years.
At this later time, Tim decided that he should fess up to some shenanigans he was party to at a younger age.
I always had trouble digesting what was being said to me when it wasn’t something that emphasized the glorious nature of my beautiful, precocious, brilliant children. It’s a problem. For instance one day Tim spent the whole day with pink hair. He had light blond hair every day prior to this. I saw pink hair but blamed it on the lighting. I didn’t question why the lighting would have changed this particular day. I accepted that the lighting was making Tim’s hair appear pink. At dinner I said, “Tim, the lighting is really strange today. Your hair appears to be pink!” Lenore and Tim then burst out laughing and explained to us that Lenore had dyed Tim’s hair pink. They had been waiting impatiently all day to shock us. I had trouble believing it. In fact, to support my point of view, Victor didn’t see pink hair either. We’re idiots.
Another time I was explaining to Lenore that we would have to actually inspect her skin for something I’d rather not get into.
“Then probably I should show you this,” she said. She proceeded to lift up her shirt to show me a design she had put on her tummy with a ballpoint pen.
“Show me what?” I said.
“It’s a tattoo, Mom,” Lenore said.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You drew that on with a ballpoint pen. I thought you had better artistic skills. You should rub it off and draw something better. Perhaps it is the wrong angle for you to draw. Draw somewhere else,” I said.
It took me a very long time to be convinced that this was an actual tattoo. First, it was inconceivable that Lenore would have a tattoo. She was only 16. You had to be 18 to get a tattoo without a parent’s permission. Second, it was really, really ugly. It looked like a map of her right ovary, which was on the skin on top of her actual right ovary. But. It turns out that Lenore, my 16-year-old daughter, actually had a really ugly tattoo over her right ovary.
But I digress. Tim was in a place in his life where he thought that being totally honest with us was essential. (I wasn’t actually in that same place, enjoying my version of the truth totally, thank you very much.)
It turns out that the nasty thieves who stole our Thunderbird were in fact Tim and Lenore. They were joyriding in the middle of the night.
This might be the place where I advise all parents to get an alarm system that goes off if anyone opens the windows or the doors while you are peacefully sleeping in complete denial.
They were driving at a high rate of speed, according to the police. These were children who knew their way through all the side streets. Better, I guess than the police did, since three police cars were not able to catch them. They had in the car many illegal items. Each time they lost a police car for a moment they hurled one illegal item from the car. Since they had just purchased a brand new “beautiful” glass bong, they were very sad to throw that out of the car after the items, which they were using in the “beautiful” glass bong. They were littering. On top of everything else, they were littering. I’ll bet they were not even wearing their seat belts!
When they finally got rid of all things illegal, they got far as they could from the three police cars and stopped the car. They jumped out of the car, leaving the doors open. They threw the keys into the cornfield and ran home unseen. When Victor went upstairs to check on them, their guilt threshold was so low that they were actually sleeping like babies.
I wish I could find that article. It just proves how incredibly stupid parents can be. It’s somewhere here in this house. I’m sure my kids will find it after we die. That and the three two-pound coffee cans.
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YOU ARE A ROCK STAR!!!!!
also, you guys were so fucking stupid.
<3
Well…… were you wearing your seatbelt, young lady?
I just BET they were NOT wearing their seat belts! It’s just the kind of thing they’d do if I weren’t there to refuse to drive the car unless they complied. Back in the old days when I drove a carpool with five pre-kindergarteners. It was a 45 minute drive on the highway each way. There would always be one kid who would unbuckle while we were driving. I would just pull on to the side of the road and say nothing. Just wait. They finally got it that if they were not buckled, we were going nowhere. Kids are so easy when they are little.
By the way, Lenore PROMISED that she would stay five and not get any older. She totally lied. She’s WAY more than five now. Lenore lies. Trust me on this.
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…in the snow and uphill… both ways…
right?
LOL
(Lenore’s Mom) - you’re funny.
We completely had the wool pulled over our eyes because you were all so GOOD in the daytime.
(What does <3 mean?)
If you incline your head ninety degrees clockwise, you’ll see a heart.
<3
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But it’s crooked. I think I can make a better one: &hearts
did it work?
phooey.
Cayt, I will study up on this and do better next time, promise!
also, thank goodness i had that ovary tattoo covered up. otherwise i wouldn’t be a real Jew.
Remember: If you are Jewish enough for the Nazis, you are Jewish enough for Israel!
This line is a classic!
P.S. You were not an idiot- you were outnumbered.
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Lenore and Tim just got back from Israel and that is what they say there. True words.
Damn, thanks for that out! I WAS outnumbered! Five dissembling children, two disloyal dogs and about 3 - 5 disinterested cats at the time. Thank you for an excuse that seems to carry some weight here! You rule, Nataly!
See, I was totally unaware of the drama going on in our family. Was I a sound sleeper or something? How is it that Lenore and Tim could be breaking in and out of the house every night and I wouldn’t know it?
(Do cars ever get stolen in Champaign? You guys really are stupid.)
<3
-Ben
Well, it’s good to know that the adults were not the only brain dead occupants of the house. We came to think that you knew all along, but didn’t want them to get in trouble. That you didn’t know is a shock!
Your own brother’s car got stolen. You bet. The Midwest is a hotbed of car thievery!
(What does <3 mean?)
Why won’t anyone tell me what <3 means? it looks like a butt with a dunce hat on.
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It’s a sideways, crappy, ASCII heart.
Okay, I’m out of my league here, what does ASCII mean? You people are no help at all. I’ll bet you don’t even help old ladies cross the street.
hahaha
“Why won’t anyone tell me what <3 means? it looks like a butt with a dunce hat on.”
This is a butt: (__i__)
..or at least i like to think so.
Eusebio, that is one excellent butt! Congratulations!
I’ve tried at least thrice to post here in response to your question about ASCII, but it never shows up. At least for me. I can’t shake the unreasonable suspicion that you’re all seeing my longwinded post over and over and over and wondering what’s wrong with me.
My guess is it overran some clandestine length limit because all the HTML I used is totally legit, according to the little guidelines I see even now — and because there turned out to be a clandestine length limit to MySpace comments that required me to bisect the response and reverse the halves like a clever fucker.
Anyway, I’m sure you’ll see it there before you even read this.
For anyone and everyone’s enjoyment, here is a link to an outstanding example of ASCII art, which was probably the highlight of the response and which far outshines the heart and butt above.
Adam thanks!
I can see why you denigrate the sideways crooked heart when you know pictures like that can be done with ASCII. That was amazing!
I was taught a way to make a great heart, but it doesn’t show up here for some reason. You could still tell me what ASCII stands for….
“thrice” HAHAHAHA
Adam: “far outshines the heart and butt above.”
Um….Adam: my butt rocks!
Eusebio,
Remember: beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I love BOTH your butts.
(That may not have come out exactly as I had meant.)
Ben, you were only aware when candy was involved. Now, if we were talking blue candy, you were as aware as one could dream to be.
This, my dear Ben, is the God’s honest truth. You were the KING of blue candy! The only reason you even got to EAT candy is that the four before you wore me down so flat. The first bunch never even tasted chocolate, let alone the chemical-ridden blue candy you craved.
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What a funny headline. You should send this blog to the paper and have them print an “after the facts” follow up story. And Lenore’s first comment should be included. lol
Tim was in a place in his life where he thought that being totally honest with us was essential. (I wasn’t actually in that same place, enjoying my version of the truth totally, thank you very much.)
I loved that - I can totally identify with this dichotomy!
I think that unless you’ve been through such a thing, you cannot imagine how clueless parents can be. We believed they were PERFECT. How this happened right under our noses, I cannot imagine. Truly, the only conclusion is that we were idiots.
As I read this tale it sounded so familiar as if I lived through this with someone. Well I actually did! Truth is definitely stranger than fiction. The characters all turned out just fine.
They did. I think that is proof that there is a God, since we were too stupid as parents to influence them one way or the other.
My kids once toilet-papered their old elementary school.
That’s all I got.
I’m the one who causes trouble in my family. My kids are the calm, reliable ones.
OH. Tell us what you did! We won’t tell your kids, promise!
You are such an instigator.
I love it!
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The cricket with attitude is really a chicken, Josie.
What I did? You mean what I’m constantly doing…Read my installments of Thick White Crust. I’m not afraid to lay my life out there for everyone to pick apart like chicken bones. There’s 5 chapters on TNB so far. Woot!
A thousand pardons, angry cricket. You have a different picture. I didn’t know that was you! Pure ignorance. “Thick White Crust” is so gross that I was afraid to read it. Now I will. (Woot?)
Not even sure if I’m a cricket… you’ll have to go look and tell me. Woot is kind of like saying: Cool! or hooray! or Weehoo! or slap me silly!
Oh, Angry Cricket, thanks for explaining a great new word to me. Woot! Slap me silly!
Wonderful. You are a smart, helpful angry cricket.
Angry Cricket, I looked and was surprised to notice you were wearing glasses.
This is not unlike my inability to see mustaches, or, in turn, seeing them shaved off. Two of my close friends had mustaches forever, then one day they were gone. I never noticed. In point of fact, I thought each had lost weight.
You look nice and trim with your glasses.
Woot!
ok… so much for the Brady Bunch of Savoy.. alarms won’t work.. if the kid wants out( house or family) they are gone you know better!
There has GOT to be a way….
several , none of which are legal or “Dr. Spock” approved.. at least you spawn snuck out, ours backed out of the garage with the door still down guess who
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KSW,
Come back. Sometimes things just don’t get posted correctly, through no fault of your own. I myself have tried to put things up in the past and nothing shows up so I do it again and again and then all of a sudden my post is up six times.
Obviously only part of your post showed up. Please post it again! I got a glimmer, your kids sneaked out with the car but forgot to open the garage door? That is something I definitely want to hear more about!
personally i am not at all surprised that they out ran the cops
that car had some serious pick up
i could list some of the times i drove way to fast in it but i wont
i however will say that when parents like the ones in this story
(my parents, by the by)
who have many children grow blissfully clueless as time goes by
but i was in college by then - what do i know
i will also say that
it was not that they were stupid
it was a lack of want for the knowledge
truth is less nice than fiction
sometimes? all the time? you be the judge
my mom is funny
so is my sister
go team
That car was a tank! That was it’s purpose: to keep you all safe! Not to be able to outrun multiple police cars. This is something that had never entered our heads.
It’s true that it is easier to believe there is nothing untoward going on, but honestly, we really wanted to know what the kids were doing, we were just clueless. (And need I mention the two HUGE sentry dogs who made not a whimper of sound to warn us? Obviously the dogs loved you kids more.)
You’re pretty funny, too.
Happyface.
You made my evening,,, that was so funny, Kind of like when my daughter came home with a belly button ring and tried to convince me that her innie belly button was now an outie. THAT was the bulge under her shirt.
You know you wanted to believe it. Well, probably you were a smart parent and knew she was screwing with you. I think it’s to late for me to try to be a smart parent.
Melissa, I keep thinking about the belly button thing. How can they think you would buy the transformation of her innie to an outie? (Did you buy it?)
Irene, no I did not buy it at all,,,I told so many tall tales to my mom and dad, these kids could not pull anything on me. Ok well the two oldest ones. The youngest one got my BS genes. Boy can that kid spin tales.
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I hate it when other parents are smarter than I am. (But I will attempt to be humble here.)
This is really a funny story, and I learned a new word, “akimbo”. Painless vocabulary-building.
I love you, George, and my arms are akimbo while I say this.
Irene… will you be my mommy? This is stupendous!
Absolutely. I always wanted ten children at the least, but I would’ve had to have the last four without my husband, who originally wanted two. (I won.)
In retrospect it probably was a good thing that the police refused to fingerprint the car. . . I can’t believe they were sound asleep by the time the police called. Truth is stranger and funnier than fiction!
OMG! What if they had listened to my badgering and actually fingerprinted the car? My own kids would’ve been arrested! I was so stupid that I just was sure it was a gang of no-goodniks who went around stealing cars and that their fingerprints would be on file.
Those little creeps were dreaming happy dreams before the Police knew who the car belonged to. No guilt. None! That’s why we believed them. They acted like the pros.
The police were hot on the trail of a tall man with an orange afro. We’d've been OK.
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Huh? Were you wearing wigs? I certainly didn’t hear this part, but I’d believe anything now. I’m almost past surprise.
No. No wigs. That would’ve made everything even cooler. The police told the News Gazette’s crime reporter that they saw three people get out of the car and run, and that one of them had a large, orange afro.
I completely forgot that! And there were actually four of you in the car, right? They didn’t have much to go on with that description. (If I could only find that article….)
Yes!
I love stories like this… not only do you get a different perspective, but we get some more dirt on Miss Lenore.
I have mentioned to Lenore how wonderful I thought you were from her stories. Now I get to hear your stories. This is magnificent!
Welcome to TNB, darling. I look forward to reading more.
Oh Megan, oh Megan, I have so much dirt on Lenore I could write forever. And, remember, she’s only one of five. I live to humiliate her. HAHAHAHAHA she will be sorry I ever got on this site! (If I knew how to do it, I would insert here Brad’s evil laugh that moves across the page. That is really impressive.)
And, Thanks. You’re beautiful.
i agree. it was fun hearing this story again, but from mom’s point of view. the zion family should write a book together telling the same stories from different perspectives.
good work irene!
You rock, Matt. (When you aren’t telling evil stories about my baby!)
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i never make up stories about lenore. obviously you just choose to disregard the dirty truth about her. (she’s a slut).
(and so am i).
Matt, I know you well enough to know that you are not a slut but you should not speak nasty about your friend.
i am a slut.
Gee Whiz, Lenore, Maintain a little decorum, here!
Nicely done, irene
Thanks, Bruce.
Were you always smart, or were you a stupid parent too?
Awesome! Rainy sold you out. I’m going to read it a few more times because it made me laugh so much. Please write more.
Rainy Night made not a sound, neither did Moussey, our 145 pound newfie. I think they had gotten used to them sneaking out at night while we slept and thought it was perfectly normal. Of course, it turns out that in our house it WAS normal. Can’t blame the dogs, I guess.
Wow, this is so hilarious and alarming all at once! I have 8 year old twin daughters who, other than bickering with one another all the time, are really, really “good”–now I get to look forward to being totally bamboozled by this perfect-kid behavior only to find out they are really stealing my car and throwing drugs out the windows in an OJ-like car chase. Jesus Christ. Thank goodness you guys live in freaking Champaign-Urbana; in Chicago, one of the cops would probably have opened fire on the car and you’d have gotten a call that your kids were in the morgue. (This is good incentive for me to get out of Chicago before my kids steal my car; I guess I have 7 or 8 years?)
I remember driving around in my parents’ car with my three friends in the backseat snorting coke right off the plush car seat because we’d gone over some huge bump and the coke spilled all over the place. They were all on their knees just snorting the car seat, and I remember thinking that if my mother and father could see this, they would have a pulmonary embolism on the spot. I was never a “perfect” kid (pretty far from it), but I think parents–at least the nice ones like you and my mom–always see their kids in an unrealistically kind light, ha.
Great story! And I love Lenore and Tim sleeping the sleep of the just, totally unperturbed. That is truly scary, from the point of view of someone who is now a mom!
Gina, Gina, you have far fewer than 7 or 8 years here. You will be bamboozled big time way sooner than that. But the thing is, you won’t know it until 15 years from now when they decide to tell you a “funny” story. Get alarms on your doors and windows. Not to keep the bad guys out, to keep your beautiful girls in. Trust me here. There are probably other things to do, but I swear to you we thought we did them all. We totally trusted them. (Again, we were idiots, plain and simple.)
I can’t believe you and your friends were sniffing the car seat. The image is too jarring for me to line up with your sweet, mid-western, angelic young mother look.
I shudder to think what they would have done in a big city. Here they were in a small town and they found quite enough to occupy their nefarious interests. They might’ve been shooting out the tires of the police cars in Chicago!
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Jesus.
Those’re some scummy kids you’ve got there, lady. From what I can discern, though, Tim seems to have turned out okay.
P.S. I’ve thought about blogging here many times. But every time, I think I’d rather post on my own site. With lame contextual ads. Making money 1/1000 of a cent at a time.
But I never do it. Salut!
Radam, I’m only doing this to get Lenore back. You know she deserves it, evil spawn that she is.
Lenore is always five, inside.
Please write here regularly.
Few people can pull off that tone,
where you read their writing, you feel like you had a visit with them.
In another life, can I be
Lenore’s little brother?
I want her to carry me on her hip
and teach me bad things.
Want to grow up in your house
a little while.
Truth is always stranger than fiction. You did have some warning. Remember when Lenore came home from the Middle School dance and reported that she saw my dear child of 12 years driving around in my car? You called us right up and gave us the wake up call about this which we greatly appreciated as we did not have a clue our little darlin’ was capable of such sneaky, dangerous behavior. But I guess it did not penetrate that your little darlin’s were capable of the same. Somehow, luckily, we all survived this, underage drivers included. Your tale makes a great story though. Maybe our kids did these things so we could have stories to tell in our old age….
Who knew their legs were even long enough to reach the pedals?
It is, to my regret, easier to believe the crazy actions of someone else’s child, while your own is robbing the corner store….Blinders. Blinders come with the birth of your child. Can’t take them off if you don’t even know you are wearing them.
HAHA! Good job Tim and Lenore. I don’t think I could have pulled that one off with Nora. But then again, We didn’t want to steal a Rolls Royce.
Oh you could have done it, but your Dad’s car was well known, whereas our little Thunderbird wasn’t. You needed to steal OUR car. Then you could have gotten away with it. We know my dogs wouldn’t have alerted me.
All parents are idiots, and I’m certainly one of them. Do they still make Thunderbirds? I think they stopped. I’m never buying one anyway, especially now.
Thanks for the peek behind the curtain of the Zion family history — you kick ass, Irene!
Welcome to TNB and please share with us more thrilling tales of Lenore the ovary-tattooed child.
<3 = wizard ass
I think they make Thunderbirds. How could they stop? Apparently they are not only tank-protective but “bitchin’ fast”. Can’t stop making something like that.
Wizard ass makes no sense. I think you are joshing with me.
They stopped production in 1998, then resumed in 2002. Maybe I was thinking of the Cougar. Or the Edsel. They’ve redesigned the Camaro — now there’s a bitchin’ car. (See the Dead Milkmen’s Bitchin’ Camaro.)
You’re right. It’s wizard balls.
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Unfortunately, both wizard ass and wizard balls look right, but I think you are engaged in some devolution here. I fear what you come up with next. Why doesn’t someone just tell me the truth? Go on, Jim, see what further abomination you can make out of this: <3
The soundtrack included Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. More specifically, their break-out hit, “Me No Surrender.” And that bong WAS beautiful . . .
All you had to do was feed Rainy. She’d jingle out to say hello, eat, and regally prance back to bed.
Remember, you both ran upstairs. Dad first into my room, then you into Lenore’s.
(We weren’t asleep.)
Nice job, Mom, and good luck to all of you new moms.
YOU WERE TOO ASLEEP! Tell me you’re lying! We SAW you sleeping. We HEARD you sleeping. No way, Jose!
Rainy was such a turncoat! Moussey too.
I remember your making a serious point of how very beautiful that bong was. I remember it was the last thing to be thrown out of the car. Is there something beautiful made of glass I can get you that is not tainted with an illegal smell? I’ll buy it. I will.
Did CEDU make you come clean with that Tim?
You got it, Mark. Perhaps unnecessarily. That among many other (and if I could use a buzzword) disclosures.
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If I had a wish
I would go back in time
I would take you as my own
Our house would be fun again
We would be eating strange foods all together
As a family again.
Drawing outside the lines,
Making trees purple and sunshine red,
People green and fish in the sky.
But I’d like more children
And I’d be more
Careful.
Yes.
More careful.
Adopt me please.
done.
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This was for jmbl, but by the time I got it written all this space was filled up between the message and the response. I am one lousy typist, slow and inaccurate.
irene-
you know, irene, the first time i read your daughter’s stuff i knew that she had something. her voice. there was something IN there that appealed to me. the self-effacing jabs, the deadpan one-liners (always great dialogue). but more importantly her stories are absolutely hysterical.
one of my favorite writers in neil simon. the Goodbye Girl is brilliant. Biloxi Blues and Brighton (sp?) Beach Memoirs are my favorite movies. family stories. odd stories. life stories. this story fits in that mold.
(if you want to read a brillaint storyteller and reno’s all-time fav read John Fante. beautiful writer. a wordsmith like no other. hee-larious voice. love him to bits.)
after reading your story i can see where lenore may have “borrowed” a thing or two. two different styles. but the voice is similiar. it’s a character in itself.
the story was great. i was laughing. i love laughing. the doc’s dialogue w/ the fuzz had me rolling. sleeping in your “woolies.” ha. but what the hell are woolies? just wool PJs? or is this some weird mid-west garb? it doesn’t really matter. i laughed anyhow.
and then you crazy people made the paper? good god. again: rollling.
well, great vibe on this one. thanks, irene.
okay,
reno
Thanks for the skinny on good writers. I’m always reading and always looking for new people to read. Never heard of John Fante, probably should have. There are great gaps in my knowledge base.
I could never wear wool…too itchy. Woolies are just warm soft nightclothes people wear in the winter when the wind is whipping through the walls, it’s so cold.
I HATE that I can’t find that article! The list of things put in “safe” places is endless.
Did you paint that skull? The other one?
john fante is an L.A. writer. died many years ago. anyhow, i found him through one charles bukowski (another L.A writer). i checked him out and ended up devouring most of his material. funny characters. boy stories. great storytelling with a punch. he wrote Ask the Dust, Wait Until Spring Bandini (this novel contains his alter ego “arturo bandini”), and countless others.
check out a short story collection of his. he has tons. i think you’ll like him. okay, that’s it, man. have a great day.
woolies,
r
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wait!
(no i didn’t paint those skull babies. stole them from the net.)
TONIGHT THE NFL SEASON KICKS OFF!
r
Nefarious Flying Lemurs? Can’t find it on my TV guide, Reno! What channel? How was the first episode?
Lenore and I are close and have the same sense of humor, but that girl is a perfect gem of a writer all on her own. There is a short story she wrote quite awhile ago on lemonpuppy.com
It’s just a taste but her full-on fiction will knock your socks off. Guaranteed.
I will also voluntarily put myself up for consideration for adoption into the Zion household. This was a great story, Irene. I’m sitting next to my sleeping 5-year old right now, trying not to wake her up with my laughter. I’m also experiencing the strange desire to tag her with an ankle tracking device. And Reno’s right - I definitely recognize something of Lenore’s storytelling in your voice. Different, but familiar. You guys are like a dynamic duo. I can’t wait to hear more. SO funny.
She’s much to smart for an ankle tracking device. She’d have it unlocked and in the toilet in 10 minutes. You need to chip her. If I had my kids today, I would chip them all and carry around the tracking device with me all the time. And you know the kids you see in airports with leashes? I’d do that too. Well into their twenties. Taking no more chances here. Uh uh. I’ve learned my lesson.
too, not to. Told you I was an idiot, Erika.
You are definitely adopted; I get a granddaughter in the bargain! (Woohoo!)
…and you’ve got my two girls. So there’s THREE!
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YES!!!
All you get from me is one gen-u-ine wall nipple.
Top that, you breeders!
Kimberly, you KNOW you can never have too many nipples. They are very useful.
Their guilt threshold was so low…
I’m laughing so hard about that one right now…
I can picture it vividly in my head…sleeping Lenore….sleeping Tim….no guilt whatsoever…hahahahaha!
Christine, they were BRAZEN! Tim is lying. They were peacefully asleep. A parent can tell that much. Shameless and impudent. I have to say that my kids are great at anything they try. I just wish they’d tried to do something legal and less dangerous..
Oh, I loved this. Especially this: It looked like a map of her right ovary
I agree with Reno, there is definitely something borrowed/shared here in the voices of Lenore and her way awesome mother.
Jennifer, you go ahead and ask Lenore. It was FOREVER before I would believe my own eyes. That’s how far into denial I was.
(I want to live in your gravatar to, but can I bring my dogs?.)
What is wrong with me? too too too, not to.
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yes, you can live in my gravatar. Dogs and hats are required.
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IRENE! You wrote your own post! Bravo and encore.
Lenore’s literary lineage is apparent, like others said, and there’s something wonderful about tracing it. I too love the surprise that peacefully sleeping Lenore and Tim were car thieves. Great anecdote.
The tip of the iceberg, Megan, the tip of the iceberg.
Your mom gets more comments than you, Lenore.
it’s cause she’s hotter than i am.
You talking about hot flashes?
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That’s only because she’s too busy showing her breasts for readers.
I like bug legs!
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Angry cricket-God speaks!
This is a great story that had me laughing the whole way through! Funny, well-written, light, and relatable. Keep the Zion-tales coming!!
Kyndra
It’s strange how things that are seriously not funny at the time, actually horrifying, can somehow become hilarious when time mellows things out and you know the participants turned out okay in the end in spite of everything.
Thanks, Kyndra. The next comment is for you also. I forgot the “Thanks!” part. No one taught me any manners.
So this is what I have to look forward to in my new found motherhood. I know I did things that surprised my parents once they found out. Yikes!
Be on guard. Trust me. Put in secret movie cameras. Put GPS chips in their cell phones. Even then, they will slip by you and do unconscionable things. Just hope that in the end they turn out okay. Usually they do.
Amy,
Yours will be fine. You have relatives everywhere to help keep watch. We had no one but one crazy, one legged old woman. Count your lucky stars!
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Irene, you win at life.
I’d kill maim hurt someone for just one day in the Zion household while Lenore was growing up.
Me too, Cayt, me too. Time goes so slowly before you have kids and then starts rolling downhill faster and faster. Breaks your heart. You can come now, though. We’ve plenty of room and the kids come home to visit often. (But not often enough, you know how it is.)
Cayt, some other time would you teach me how to write in gray and cross it out like that? that is really amazing.
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Sure, it’s pretty simple. It’s html is all.
Before the text you want to cross out, you type the word “strike” in those triangle brackets. Like but without the asterisk. After that word, you type (again, remove the asterisk).
So, you can cross out whole sentences by putting them between the first and second lots of brackets.
Or, you can cross out single words.
Crossing it out will also automatically turn it grey. Or, gray in your part of the world.
Aww, man. My demo didn’t work.
Try again: first you type
to close off, it’s
I’ll have to find some other way to teach you, since the comment boxes now hate me.
Sorry Irene
I love that you are trying to teach a new student some new code.
Did that work? Cayt you are my idol. (even if it doesn’t work.)
I forgot to put in the last sideways V thing. I’m such a dope!
Here goes again:
You rock because you are willing to teach odd, strange people to do things that are new to them.
(Did it work this time?)
I’m just not getting this. But at least I know how to cross things out. i just can’t figure out how to stop crossing things out. Humn. Cayt, you rock.
To stop crossing out, you type /strike in the brackets.
And Irene, you’re probably the coolest person I’ve ever had the pleasure of communicating with.
No one can say I ever give up. Here goes again. This is hopeless. I’ll never get it. I stopped learning things when I passed 25 I am convinced that this will work! Thanks for hanging in there with me, Cayt!
Woohoo!
OOPS! sorry, the last too were me. I didn’t know Victor read this or wrote anything, so his name was left up. That was me talking. He would never say anything approaching “Woohoo!” He has class.
I say woohoo! all the time. I said it when I saw that our combined efforts had paid off. You can now cross stuff out!
Irene Zion: Winner of the universe.
Thanks for commenting on my blog, too
<3
Cayt, you are a British gem!
Jesus, Irene - 95 comments in 24 hours? You’re the most popular nervous breakdown writer ever…
I didn’t even know you guys knew the truth about that night until I read your post. Tim’s a tattler.
Lisa.
Lisa, did you know too? You evil best friend of my little innocent Lenore, I forgive you. It’s really better I learned of all of this after I had some distance from the event. (By the way, I have some seriously embarrassing pictures of you too!)