*Slick note: names have been changed to protect Slick.

Going to the gas station will make you crazy as an outhouse rat. Tattoo Dude, (Tat for short), will tell you. Tat works with my husband and is a darned good tattoo artist--------hence the nickname.
This morning when his break time rolled around, Tat jumped in his truck and headed for the nearest gas pump. He didn't have the time or gas to do any comparison shopping.
He paid $2.98.9 per gallon. Filled 'er up!
When he got back to the plant he still had a few minutes to kill before he had to start back to work. So he stepped out on the deck of the "test and tune" pond, where they test irrigation pumps.
He lights a smoke and stares across the pond. No doubt contemplating the weekend.........
He works with my husband at the same work station, and T-Bird was watching him. He said that all of a sudden, Tat just went ballistic. He was jumpin' up and down, swearing. Pitched a fit! Watching a co-worker implode peaks everyone's curiosity! So T-Bird went over and asked him what the heck was wrong.
Now, across the pond and up a hill is the gas station that Tat just left. While he was standing there staring at the gas station, the price on the sign blinked, and dropped a FULL FOUR CENTS A GALLON! *POOF* Right before his very eyes! Then he sees another co-worker and good friend pull up at the same pump!

If you are an oil executive, you might want to steer clear of Southwest Georgia. Tattoo Dude would like to have a word or two with you.
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To the gang-bangers, and wannabes, in my neighborhood:

1. If you are insistent upon spray-painting gang signs, please do so in a neat manner. If I cannot read and understand the Krylon, I have a hard time feeling intimidated.

2. Spelling skills ARE important.

And the nice lady next door, whose fence you festooned with your squiggles, is entirely capable of kicking your sorry ass slam into the middle of next month.

Thank you.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving! I hope you ate too much, and I hope you got enough hugs, kisses, and smiles. If it's even possible to get too much of those.
My family split apart a month ago, so my daughter decided to do Thanksgiving dinner at her house. Break out the Pepto! She did a darned good job, though. I won't list the goodies because the thought of food today makes me a little queasy. I just ate too much.
After blowing the rule of "all things in moderation", we all waddled out to the front yard to sit and smoke. It was a nice afternoon, and we were having a good time, and watching the clouds gather for a much-needed rain.
My daughter lives across the street from a park. There are all kinds of things for kids to climb and play on; there are slides, swings, monkey-bars, and those tube-type things for children to crawl through, like they have at Micky D's. There was a group of kids playing, and they were yelling to each other, and it looked like they were having fun.
We heard a couple of screams but we thought they were just playing around. Well, kids do a lot of that. After about the fourth or fifth scream (yeah, we were a little slow on the up-take here), my daughter decided to investigate. She discovered that one of the kids, a thirteen-year-old girl, was stuck INSIDE one of the things. This piece of equipment looks like a spring standing on it's end and it is about six feet tall. It's pipe, spiraling upwards. Designed for SMALL children.
This poor child is.....shall we say.... "healthy"(?), and she was going to be stuck there for quite some time without assistance. So my daughter came back to get dish-washing liquid. It got my granddaughter slick enough to slide out of a chair she got stuck in once, so she thought it might lube this girl enough to get her out.
My husband, son, and son-in-law went back with my daughter to either get her freed from the clutches of playground equipment, or call 911. Between me and you and the fence post, I would have stayed there until I lost about twenty pounds before I would let my husband, son, and son-in-law catch me stuck like that.
Well, the victim has both feet on the ground but her arms are pinned to her sides. She can't lift her arms to grip the pipe and pull herself up, and bless her heart, rolls of her are sticking out between the spiraling pipe. She is trussed up like a roast. My son got one arm stuck in a grocery buggy once when he was about three, and I understand the panic the girl must have felt. Couple that with my three rednecks standing around discussing strategy, and if she had anything to be thankful for I am sure she had forgotten it.
After a bit of figuring, they got her arms up over her head, but she can't reach the next bit of pipe to pull up. She could, however, pick her feet up a couple of inches, just not enough to get a foot-hold on the lower part of the pipe for a boost. So, hubby and son-in-law laced their fingers together like steps for her feet, and started pushing her upwards. But the protruding rolls had to be pushed and manipulated around the pipe by her friends in order to get her moving up. Working as a team, they finally got her out of the contraption.
It's always easier to get stuck, than it is to get un-stuck.

As for myself, I have been stuck so far down in the gloom-and-doom that I couldn't see daylight. Kinda like the chick stuck in the playground equipment. But with my family, what's left of it, and a few good friends like ya'll, it's starting to crack daylight now. And for that, I am truly thankful.

In the spirit of the Spooky Season, here is a treat for your blog goody-bag.

I have an aquaintance, she's sorta-family, about 70 years old, and she has seen a lot of stuff in her lifetime. She grew up fishing on the river, riding horses, and was really a tom-boy growing up. Not afraid of anyone or anything; tough as nails. And honest to a fault, sometimes painfully honest. I have come to respect her.
She lives in a wooded area about five miles from my house. She has lived there for decades, and she has few neighbors. You go way down along an old 2-lane blacktop, up and down a couple of hills, and it's woods all the way to her dirt road. It's dark out that way come dark-thirty, and you drive slow and cautious because of deer and whatever other critter-with-a-death-wish. Not anyplace you would want to be stranded. It is a long walk to the nearest phone.
She had told me about seeing what some people call ghost-lights. In the woods across from her house.

Let me say right now that you will NOT see Yours Truly on Ghost Hunters. I don't hunt for spooky stuff. I have met people who hunt for things best left alone, and haunt more graveyards than any ghost or undertaker. If you get off on ghost watching, okay; I'll wait in the car with the doors locked, and the engine running.

Back to my buddy:
She had seen the lights numerous times, moving through the woods. About the size of a dinner plate, silver-white in color. They seem to move deliberately, they don't just float around. Wind doesn't affect it's movements. Sometimes there would be one, sometimes two. They appeared mostly at the top of a hill. And there was something "off" about that hill. She used to keep horses, and she and her family rode them through the woods and nearby fields. Except when they got to the hill. You couldn't drag a huntin' dog to the top, and horses refused to go up. It wasn't a steep, rocky kind of hill, just a rise in the earth you could easily go up and over. But it just had a strange feel about it. I've been to a place like that before. I don't go there anymore. Maybe a post for another day.
My husband dated this woman's daughter when they were kids, and he had seen the lights too. I asked if maybe it was swamp gas. They said "no"---the lights look and act nothing like swamp gas. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.............................. Well, of course I have no idea what the heck it could be. I filed it under Ghost Stories and forgot about it.
I took my lady friend home from church one night. We had hung around and talked with some people after service, and it must have been about 8:30 when we left for home. I drove slower than usual because of the deer that had been seen all over the place, and got her to the front door safe and sound. I made sure she got inside okay, and waited for her to give me the signal that all was well before I left.
When I finally got off of the dirt road and onto the pavement I was looking forward to getting home. It was so danged dark, and I'm still deer-hunting with my headlights. I came down one flat stretch of road and was going up a hill...............and there it was. Whatever "it" was. A round, silver-white light, 'bout the size of a hubcap. "It" streaked across the road at the top of the rise. It didn't bob up and down or sway. It wasn't jerky, like someone carrying a flashlight or lantern would be. Smooth motion, and FAST. It was as bright as a headlight. It was just about six or seven yards ahead of my car, maybe four feet off of the ground. It crossed the road from the right side of the road to the left side and into the trees.
I stomped down on the gas and shot up the hill. I don't know why. Maybe to prove to myself that I HAD seen something. I was at the top of the rise in seconds. There was nothing there. I stopped the car and looked both ways. I should have been able to see a bright-ass light like that going through the trees. Nada, zip, zilch, nothin'. The rest of the ride home was MUCH faster. They could write my speeding ticket in my living room because I was not stopping, and Bambi could look out for himself. And yes, I kept looking in the rear-view mirror to make sure "it" wasn't tagging along!
"Honey! Look what followed me home! It's a haint, can I keep it?"
T-Bird stepped out on the front porch just as I came in the driveway, sideways. I told him what happened, and he called our lady friend, and told her what I saw. She said that in all of her years of seeing the lights, she had never seen them cross the road. Oh, goody! I get to see a spook do a new trick!
If you go straight through the woods where "it" crossed in front of me, you come to the spooky hill. And you'll go without me. I've been down that road several times since then, and thankfully, have not seen "it" again. And I'm okay with that.

Ya'll ain't gonna b'lieve this!

T-Bird and I were at our post last night; swingset, fireplace, and scanner in the "ON" position (hey, it's what we do). We were talking about things, watching the sky for planes, and U.F.O.'s, cause we is rednecks, and listening to the neighbor's kids playing b-ball in the backyard. It's been cool at night and the whole neighborhood has been out enjoying the change in the weather. Some of the folks across the road light a burn-barrel, turn the game up loud on the radio, and just kick back with the libation of choice. Nobody botherin' nobody.
People were busy as hell everywhere else, though. There was a big festival in the next town and this town parties "next door" for this one. Bikers come from miles away for this thing. Which is cool. Lot's and lot's of folks out all day and apparently feelin' GOOD! Which was one good reason for us to stay home. T-Bird rode one of the grandkids in the motorcycle part of the parade, was gone for about an hour and a half, then came home because he knows I am still ticked off about him runnin' his mouth about me at the beauty parlor, but that is a bitch-session for another day.
The first call was for kids throwing trash in a woman's ditch. Then a call for the law to run off a crowd of teenagers. Nobody they pulled over had all of their paperwork in order. A car in a ditch that could not be found. A call from a deputy to "please have the restraint chair ready" for him when he got back to the station. Somebody got to do a Hannibal Lecter immitation for the Boys In Blue. Complaints about loud music. Fights. One bigger problem about who was picking up all of the children for a mother who was going to jail after her car was hauled off.

And then.............the jewel in the crown! Proof that if man evolved from apes, he didn't get very far. Stuff that makes even Slick look smart.

A couple called in about a turkey shoot sign that had been standing in their yard. It was set on fire by a man in a pickup truck. He just pulled up, got out, and Zippo'd the thing.........whoosh. Just a small whoosh as the signs are rather small-ish-----the kind that spring up before elections, like weeds.
The Sheriff wanted to know if they'd had problems with Idiot before? Oh, yeah. They had had run-ins with the arsonist before. Gave the man's name. And put the fire out themselves. They called back to report that he had set ALL the turkey shoot signs on fire, a bunch of them, up and down the roads, including one near MY place. This calls for a fire truck to ride back roads, looking for stupidity. But it got even better than that.
Our pissed off redneck with a grudge against turkey shoots was pulling a trailer loaded with hay and CHILDREN! CHILDREN! FOR THE LOVE OF PETE! Taking the youngun's for a hayride? Make it a memory they will treasure forever! Set small fires all over the county! Who wants to sing songs and throw hay when they can burn something down? Dumb, dumb, dumb.
Some of us just take pictures, we don't want mug shots. They put a "taint" on the family album.
It got quiet on the scanner for a while. Then the call from 911 about a fire alarm, intruder alarm, and a panic alarm all going off at once at a restaurant. Dispatch asked if they had located the "rebel with a cause", as the sheriff's deputies called him, and where was the fire department? No, they did not have him in custody, they had stopped to put out the fires and never tried to catch him. Way to go, guys!. And the restaurant? False alarms. All three of 'em. Glad about that. Where would everybody eat after church if that one goes down? And they've already torched my favorite dollar store and a doctor's office, so enough is enough. Look at California.