by Kathy Brasby | Sep 30, 2019 | Humor, Stories
I’m not really a hoarder but what do you do with that stuff you’ve been saving for a long time in a box you just discovered at the back of the closet?
Aha, you relate.
Theory A says that, if you haven’t seen the contents for a long time, just throw the box away and be done with it.
I’m way too curious for that.
It’s like Christmas inside such a box, only with things that are dusty and grimy. Other than the dirt, new treasures.
Photo by Hendri Sabri on Unsplash
who knew I had saved a keychain from Union Station in Kansas City?
What does one do with keys that you can’t identify? Throw them away? What if they are needed for a lock someday and I threw away the key?
On closer examination, I’m pretty sure one of the keys is to the office door where I worked before I was married. Maybe it could go.
I found two keys that looked like they opened a safe deposit box. Since we don’t have one, I suspect we had to pay a big fine to get the box opened a long time ago since I couldn’t find the keys. And I’m going to throw them away and waste that fine?
Then there are the paper clips. The bottom of the box was layered with paper clips. It feels wasteful to throw all those away.
Oh, boy, more keys melding with the paper clips. Do they multiply into clip keys?
There’s a single white Lego brick with a blue cone stuck on the top. Ah, memories of the little boy who built mansions with Legos. He’s out of college now, so maybe the brick could go.
Why on earth are there so many pen refills? I love a good pen but, since keyboards have invaded my life, I apparently don’t use pen ink much.
I already know to throw away the membership card to some club I forgot I ever belonged to. And the participation ribbon to some event that I neglected to record on the backside.
Business cards? To keep or to pitch? Most went in the trash, but I found one from a friend who is now deceased. Stays. And another from my brother. Stays.
I have a big box of brass plated fasteners, those brads that push through punched holes and then you bent the ends to hold papers together. I use a stapler these days, but I apparently am a collector of vintage supplies, so there’s that.
Oh, I just found two needles for inflating balls. In the office supplies. That could explain some things about our flat basketballs.
I also uncovered the combination to the padlock I used for four years of college. I still remember the combination. Well, after looking at the paper. No, I don’t know where the padlock is but think of the memories.
It gets worse: erasers, especially the ones that fit on the end of pencils. I don’t use pencils. A guitar pick. A marble. More keys. Another key ring.
Fortunately, I am not a hoarder. But if you ever need a pen refill, I’m your girl.
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by Kathy Brasby | Sep 23, 2019 | Family, Humor
I found our one and only pool table at a yard sale. Bargain time! Only $25 and I got the table, the balls, cue sticks, even chalk. The people at the yard sale were willing to deliver it. That should have alerted me.
My patient husband hauled the pool table home for me and didn’t make snide remarks. We had room in our basement, and I knew this would be fun for our family.
And we played pool for at least a month before everyone lost interest. 
An ignored the pool table morphs into other things. It became a perfect place to throw outgrown clothes and appliances that quit working. There were at least two fried toasters in the pile. And why would you toss used batteries and used cereal boxes there? Imagine how this once-proud pool table had become a flat trash can. We were cruel to its heritage.
One day I had enough. I listed the pool table for sale. Finding all the balls was a challenge, but we found the last two under a workbench by the cat hair.
I asked $35 for the pool table even though I paid $25 at a yard sale. It was a slate top pool table, and I hoped that would help get it sold.
A young man showed up with his buddy. He examined the table and did a fist pump. “Slate! I can sell this table anywhere for $200.”
I smiled. I just wanted it out of my basement and wouldn’t mind getting my $25 back.
“Would you take $30 for it?”
“Sure,” I said.
“Well, I need to come back with a pickup. Could you hold it for me?”
“If you pay today.”
He studied the table and his buddy. Perhaps the $200 dream loomed before him. “I wonder if we can get it home now.”
They bustled around like a hen with newly hatched chicks. Their eyes lit up when they counted all the cue balls, even the hairy ones.The little boxes of chalk were a special bonus, I could tell.
Then they grabbed an end of the table and began pushing. The air was blue with words I didn’t want the kids to hear and the guys sweating before they and the table emerged from the basement.
I almost felt guilty that I didn’t help.
Grunting and groaning like a mama pig in labor, they hoisted the pool table onto the top of their car. The table legs stuck in the air like a dead bug.
“We’re good now,” the new buyer assured me.
They tied the table onto the top of the car, running the ropes through the open windows, and then stood for a long moment admiring their work.
At least I thought they were admiring their work. I quickly realized that they had tied their doors closed. After some discussion, the guys decided to worm their way around the ropes and through the open window.
Soon they drove away with their car windows tied open and the pool table jutting into the sky.
They had a plan for big bucks but, after watching their first steps, I think my $30 sale was safer than their $200 dream.
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by Kathy Brasby | Sep 16, 2019 | Family, Humor, Stories
In those carefree BK (Before Kids) days, I imagined baking cute birthday cakes for future kids. My mom used to make little train cakes with gumdrop windows. The train cars perched on licorice rails with a green coconut base. So cute. I knew it was in my blood.
I bought a puppy cake mold before I had kids. My first cake using that mold was a pile of crumbs that I shaped like the foothills of Colorado. Drizzling icing on top was supposed to mimic snow. I hoped nobody would notice because I didn’t have time to bake another cake.
One first-birthday cake was supposed to be a bright soccer ball but looked more like an egg that had fallen from the second floor.
Before Pinterest Fails were a thing, my cakes were trailblazing the way.
As some of the kids got older, they didn’t ask me for cake decorating advice. They invested time in 4-H cake decorating units. Kids can be wise sometimes.
One daughter learned how to decorate a one-layer cake for her first project.
She baked her show cake the afternoon before it had to be entered at the county fair. When the edge of the cake wouldn’t release from the pan, she solved the problem by cutting away the perimeter.
Most of the entered cakes were 8” round, but hers was more of a 5” lumpy. She slathered on icing, but it was like trying to hide Mount Everest under an ice cream cone. No champion ribbon that year.
Another daughter was the creative sort who felt stifled by the rules for the unit. When she was required to form a mat of frosting stars, she didn’t understand why the cake couldn’t show through. It would be like hiding the tuba in the marching band.
No blue ribbon that year, either.
Our son, at age 10, signed up to learn cake decorating and even went to a workshop where he and 25 girls learned the fine art of placing dots of frosting on waxed paper. This, of course, made no sense to him until he licked clean the frosting after the workshop.
We found out later that he signed up so that he could be in charge of the family birthday cakes. He figured if he’d finished cake decorating, I’d let him make the cakes.
Maybe to up his game with the frosting. Many family birthday cakes had a finger lick on the side before we got to the candles.
I never caught him in the act, but I suspect this had been a goal for his life since he was four.
His show cake came together on a hot summer day with frosting that needed a lot more sugar than he put in the bowl. Imagine a lava flow sliding across his design.
The lava-icing flow continued until he got the cake to the fairgrounds. His frosting border was supposed to be a circle but resembled the outline of Texas.
No blue ribbon that time either.
But his father bought back the cake, took it home, and served it to our family. Oh, yeah, everybody ate a piece.
We haven’t had any cute train cakes in our house, but one good thing has come from all this cake-decorating training: along as there is plenty of frosting, our family is content with a pile of cake crumbs.
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by Kathy Brasby | Sep 9, 2019 | Family, Humor, Travel
This story is true. I know this because the person who told it to me heard it from somebody who might have been part of the story. Or not. You know how that goes.
But it’s a good tale so it ought to be true. This is the influence of the internet on our lives, by the way.
This account took place in the early 1970s when polyester pantsuits were becoming the rage.
A pastoral conference was held on the border between Texas and Mexico. Three pastors from Iowa took their wives to the seminar. The men went to the day’s meetings, and their wives went shopping in the border town of Mexico.
In those days, beautiful leather goods and silver jewelry could be purchased even in a pastor’s salary. The women wandered from booth to booth on the downtown streets.
While shopping, the wives found themselves along with several other women swept up by police and thrown into the local jail.
It seems that prostitutes in the early 1970s in this little town had also embraced polyester pantsuits, which was, of course, what the Iowa wives were wearing. Looking stylish and all that.
So the pastors’ wives looked like the local prostitutes.
The police were doing a routine roundup. The prostitutes went through this often. They all had their license for their business and soon were all released with a small fine.
And there sat the Iowa women with no prostitute licenses. If you’ve ever bathed a cat, you have an idea what their mood was. Fangs could have been bared, but the police were playing cards in the other room.
No license, no release.
So the women cooled their heels in the Mexican jail all day.
When their husbands finally got out of the day’s conference, they had to do some searching to figure out where their wives were. But they eventually traveled into the little border town.
“Get us out of here!” their wives said, all nice like that cat with soap in its eyes.
So the pastors went to talk to the police chief. He was firm: no license, no release.
There was probably help through the US Embassy or some other US agency, but it was already night.
“We can’t stay in this jail all night,” the wives said. Their narrow eyes warned the husbands of dire future repercussions. The men needed no imagination to understand.
The husbands agreed. This jail was no place for their stylish wives. Offers of money to the police chief were spurned. He was a law-abiding police chief. No bribes allowed.
So the husbands huddled. Surely their conference had strengthened their problem-solving abilities. Three heads ought to be able to figure out a solution. They brainstormed frantically above the growls coming from the jail cell.
The men came to a solution and made a pact: no one could know, especially their wives.
And that’s how three pastors from Iowa bought Mexican prostitution licenses for their stylish pantsuit-wearing wives.
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by Kathy Brasby | Sep 2, 2019 | Country life, Humor
If you’ve come along on some of my blog adventures, you know I live on a hobby farm with goats. Well, other living beings, too, but this story is about goats.
Remember Rocket, the confused male goat? If not, go check out his story. Rocket has fantastic (code for odd) stories, and I have another of his adventures to share.
Goat romance is a precious thing. Rocket was a classic romantic who spent a lot of time alone, pining for his girlfriend. Now the girlfriend varied from week to week, but Rocket was always ready.
Rocket’s place ran parallel to a small pasture where two does – goat ladies – lived. One day I noticed that one of the does, Lulu, tiptoed along the fence line in shy come-hither steps like a young girl hoping the star athlete would see her. She was ready to meet Rocket.
The other doe, Maybelle, was oblivious. Her afternoon snack held more interest than did a male caller. She ignored Rocket.
I did mention that Rocket was always ready for romance, right?
I opened the gate and Rocket roared into the pasture, legs churning in a blur like Roadrunner cruising the desert where Wile E. Coyote schemed.
Rocket had more hormones than brains. And his pick up line was about as sophisticated as Blinkie the Clown.
Chanting “Hey, good lookin'” as he flew into the pasture, he focused his loving gaze on Maybelle. Not Lulu. Wrong girl.
When a female goat is not in the mood, a hormone-fueled buck is as attractive as roadkill. Dead gym socks smelled better.
Maybelle saw Rocket hurtling toward her and took off like a jet. Her legs were whirling faster than the back tires of a quarter-mile drag racer. I wondered if she’d need a parachute to get stopped. If she ever stopped.
I watched the pair bolt around the perimeter of the pasture, legs spinning. Rocket’s head was up as he sang melodies to the beauty of his new girlfriend.
Maybelle’s head was down; she had no time for nonsense. Kentucky Derby winners might not have been able to catch Maybelle as she circled the pasture.
Meanwhile, Miss Lulu waited by the pasture gate for her handsome hero. She sent little air kisses to Rocket and twirled her tail like a string of pearls. Cute red hearts floated above her head like balloons at a Valentine’s day party. Red confetti filled the air.
As the racing pair headed down the backstretch, their path took them past Miss Lulu who by now was flashing her lashes and tossing her hair like Marilyn Monroe.
I did not know a thundering buck could make a 180-degree correction without turning inside out, but Rocket did it.
Suddenly, he was bringing roses and chocolate to Miss Lulu. Their foreheads touched like sweet kisses. Violin music began to play.
Meanwhile, Maybelle’s parachute must have worked. She leaned against a fence post, heaving for air while her life passed before her eyes.
If I ever get a racehorse, I might consider calling it Rocket. But I actually think Maybelle might be a better choice.
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