Saturday was a wonderful day.  My children’s book, The Camping Trip was put on Kindle for sale.  Then in the evening, we enjoyed marshmallow roast over the red embers of the burn pile while standing in the moonlight.  It was magical.

This brings me to my blog topic for the week.  Did you know there are three ways to burn a pile of brush?  Well, I have discovered that there are and just in case you are wondering, I’ll tell you about them.

1)      The woman’s way.  Build a fire.  Put small pieces of the brush onto it and burn them.  Keep neatening the pile and the area by putting the edges onto the burning part.  Don’t put too much on and burn the surrounding territory.  This is the easy way… but only if you are a woman.

2)      The Hubby way.  Build a fire with lots of paper and wood in under the existing brush pile.  Then drag as much of the brush onto it as possible.  Keep a hose close in case the wife comes around the corner and says, “That thing is way too big.”  Don’t use the hose at all.

3)      The Hubby and his Friends way.  Get a huge can of gasoline and some matches.  The pile isn’t large enough so find some other things to put on.  Surely the neighbors have some old brush to add.  Find a couple of cases of beer.  Now for the fun.  Pour the gasoline on everything in the pile.  Get more quick.  Now use a barbeque lighter.  Touch the lighter to the gasoline.  Poof!  How many of the guys still have eyebrows?  None?  Successful light.  Watch the entire pile flame.  How high will it go? Is there a way to make it flame higher?  Drink beer while telling jokes and watching the stuff burn.  Old shed somehow ends up catching fire. 

“No problem.  I was going to get rid of it anyway.  All it had in it was an old couch.  Besides, the roof leaks.”

Wife comes home.  “The fire’s too big.  Do I need to call the fire department?” 

“Hell no.  We’ll put it out.  Go in the house and bake cookies or something.”

Wife leaves.  Men, needing to relieve themselves pee on the fire.  No results.

Fire department arrives.  They lay their hoses and sit back watching the pile burn.

“Burning a little trash boys?”

“Just brush.”

“What about that plywood?”

“That was the shed.”

“And the couch?”

“We sort of forgot it was in the shed.”

“I can see that.  Couches are hard to see.”

Eventually the fire dies down.  The men leave and Hubby goes inside to an angry wife. 

The fire outside was not nearly as hot as she is.  “You stink.  Here’s an old blanket.  Sleep outside in the shed on the couch.”

A friend of mine recently said that her car wasn’t running right so she told her husband.  He drove it around and decided that there was no problem. 

Another friend’s husband told her the same thing when she said her car was making a funny noise.  He joked about it being the children in the back seat.  It wasn’t such a joke a week later when that same car left him stranded on the side of the road thumbing a ride to work.

Mechanical things should be the husband’s domain but sometimes we wives have to take them into our own hands.  We have several options.

The first involves call the repair man and take it in yourself.  This one has a few drawbacks that I have experienced.  The main problem is that the repair person is usually a man and he has the same reaction as a husband does. 

“My car is making a strange noise.”

“Describe it.”

“It’s sort of a cross between a whine and a clunk.”

“Where is it?”

“Right there.  I parked in the customer’s slip.   Is that okay?”

“Where is the noise?”

“In the car.”

“Where in the car?”

“Somewhere between the front bumper and the back one.”

He goes out to the shop and comes back in a few minutes.  “Ma’am, a CD was stuck in the drive along with a piece of used gum.  I think I fixed it.  That’ll be fifty  dollars.”

On the way home the car breaks down and has to be towed.

You can see that there is a communication problem with this method.

The second method is a little more devious.  It too has drawbacks.

Step one, open the hood.  Step two, take out a part, any part and hide it. Those wire things work pretty well.   Step three, innocently say, “Honey, I fixed the car today all by myself.  Could you go down to the store and get a quart of milk?”  Do this even if there is ample milk in the fridge.  Of course the car won’t start and he’ll make several trips to the parts store getting new parts.  When he is getting really frustrated, take the part you removed and say,  “This part fell off the other day.  Does it do anything?”

Now he’ll either be ready to kill you or kiss you, depending on his frustration level and the amount of cleavage you have showing.  This only works if you know he has knowledge of what should be under the hood. 

The other drawback is if he hasn’t really found the problem then you’ll break down on the way to the hair dresser with no other appointments till three weeks from next Wednesday. 

That might be too much of a chance, so instead you might want to try the third option.  Listen to the noise.  Check online to see what the noise might be.  Read how to remove the part and replace it with a new one.  Directions are all online and most shops now use these online tools.

This has several pitfalls.  The first one is whether you know the difference between a screwdriver and a hammer.  If not, try options one, two, or four.

The second one is that once you have the part in your hand, and you go to the parts store, the clerk will hand you almost anything except the right part.  You may argue that the muffler will not work for a spark plug, but he will look at your gender and try to sell it to you anyway.  If you are ready to go into his parts section that the keep in the back for secrecy, and do battle with the man of the store, go for it.  If not try option four. 

Option four entails something that we women are better at than men.  We smile sweetly at Hubby and say, “It’s okay that you are watching  (Whatever sport and whatever team).  I’ll take care of the noise in the car.”

Trust me he won’t even notice.  Get your handbag, and put on your best smile and negotiating face.  You’re going shopping for a new car.  Trust me it works.  You have a warranty and everything.   The car doesn't have a funny noise anymore.  You have just solved the problem.

Something scary happened at my house this weekend.  My grown sons decided to cook dinner.  They brought bags and bags of food in and promptly took over the kitchen. 

“Surely you don’t need this much food.” I protested a little but secretly I was pleased.  I mean, how many women have their sons visit them let alone cook for them?

“Go on, Mom, enjoy your time off.”  Elder son shoed me into the other room.

Right!  I sat nervously in the living room reading a book.  I heard every word being spoken in the kitchen, including the hushed whispers, “Shhh she’ll never know.”

Now nothing gets a mother going faster than those words. I yelled, “What won’t I ever know?”

Silence.

I repeated the question.

Silence.

This was too much.  I tiptoed to the door and saw them wiping up a spill of some sort off of the floor with my good yellow table cloth.  “Not that!  Use a rag.”

One of the “boys” hurried to me.  Putting his arm around me he turned me around and led me back to the easy chair in the living room.  This time he turned on the TV.  “We’re doing just fine.  You just relax.”

Okay, it was only a table cloth and it was replaceable.   I put that on the mental purchase list.  I was sort of following the story line of the TV program and wondering what the boys were doing in the kitchen.  I heard frying noises and another, “Shhh.”

“Boys.  What’s going on in there?”

Silence.

“Do I have to come in there?”

One of them stepped to the door and said, “Did I hear you speaking?”

Now I know full well that he heard me just fine.  I could hear them over the TV.  They could surely hear me over the kitchen noises.

He crossed the room and turned the TV up.  “Just relax.”

My heart had stopped beating quite so hard when there was a huge crash.  Not a pan to pan noise, a glass shattering kind of noise.  It was followed by, “Quick get the broom.”

“No, it’s too wet and gooey.”

“How about paper towels?”

“That’ll do.  Where are they?”

“Mom, don’t get up, just tell us where the paper towels are.”

Of course I got up.  “They’re right here in the closet where they belong.”  Fetching the towels, I smelled the vinegar before I saw it.  They were standing around a broken jar of sweet pickles.  They had surrounded the mess with dishtowels making a mess. 

I left.  My heart wouldn’t take the way they would clean it up. 

I stayed in the living room for a good long while, hoping that they had cleaned the floor some.  I heard various other bits of conversation.

Thunk.  “Hand me the broom.”

“Need the dustpan too?”

“Naw, we’ll just leave it in a pile in the middle and get it later.”

Bang.  “Cool!” 

Giggling.  From grown men.  I just shook my head.

Whoosh.  “Wow, it went really high.  Will it go higher if you put more on?”

Am I going to have to clean the ceiling too?

Whoosh.  I couldn’t stand it.  I raced into the kitchen to see what that sound was.  There were flames leaping nearly to the ceiling.  I fumbled for my phone.

My youngest saw me and ran to me, grabbing my phone out of my hand.  “It’s okay, Mom.  It's only an alcohol flame, perfectly harmless."

"What were you doing with an alcohol flame?"

"We were burning the brandy off the mashed potatoes.”

“What was brandy doing in the mashed potatoes?”

“Jeff accidentally put it there.  He was aiming for the peas.”

“Dinner’s ready, Mom.” 

After this I’m taking two precautions.  First I’m putting the fire department on speed dial and second I’m hiring a cleaning service.

Maybe there’s another precaution I should be taking.  A vacation in Hawaii.

I know it’s supposed to be resolutions, but since no one really actually honors those, I’m starting a tradition.  Let’s have a revolution or two.

Revolt against mismatched socks.  If they can’t find a mate, let them go in the bachelor box with the rest of the rags.  (We’re not even guessing what they would do there.  I mean singles socks!  Oh my!)

Revolt against female mosquitoes, especially the one that sneaks into your tent with you at night and buzzes in your ear just as you are almost asleep.  Then she makes herself known.  I know she’s just trying to sing you a lullaby, but come on, can’t she be silent?  No matter how many times you swat at her, she takes that as a challenge and rubs your ear in it.  Oh, and then when you finally are awake enough to be really annoyed, and get out your flashlight, she hides.  There should be an all-out war against those!

Revolt against popsicles that fall off the stick and onto the sidewalk just as  you have your mouth all psyched up to take that one last bite.  I say sue the makers… or the weatherman.

Revolt against screwdrivers that change their tips in the middle of a project.  You know the ones.  If you are looking for a Phillips head, there are only flat bladed regular ones in the drawer.  If you are looking for a flat bladed they silently change their tips and now all that appears are the Phillips headed ones.

Revolt against canned veggies.  Real ones talk back to you both now and later.  Pffft!  (Translation: pffft = both inputting and outgoing.)

Revolt against the weather.  Might as well, nothing else has changed it.  Maybe a good revolt will straighten it up.

Revolt against junk mail.  Either that or find a really great use for it.  How about a bonfire.  Naw that’s too easy.  How about a paper airplane factory made entirely from junk mail.  I mean the building.  Kind of like a house of cards only this would be a house of junk.  When we’re done, the post office could load all of the stuff up and take it back to Editor’s Clearing House.  Or… do what my Dad used to do.  Just put “return to sender on it and put it back in the mailbox.  Then our post office workers will have twice as much to do.  Or  maybe even better, switch the ads from one piece of mail into the handy little return envelope of the other and send them both off.  This is a definite possibility.

Revolt against unkind words, unjustified tirades and illegal acts.  Revolt against wrong.

 Can you find one of these things to revolt against?  If you can, pass the word and the mismatched socks.  We’ll start a mismatched sock registry.  

Revolt and pass this blog onto your friends.  Have a Happy New Year and see you all next week.