by Kathy Brasby | Aug 20, 2019 | Humor, Stories, Travel
Our family has had some fantastic travel opportunities over the years, including spending a week in Cuba. Imagine that we took two teenagers and loads of video equipment into Cuba and didn’t lose anything. Although you could debate that.
All week we had seen El Morro lighthouse and castle across the harbor from Havana, and finally, we found time to visit.
El Moro Lighthouse, Havana, Cuba
From our hotel, we hailed a government-approved taxi which drove us in a cute little Russian car to the parking lot of El Morro. The uniformed driver promised to return in two hours to take us back to the hotel.
Promised. No problemo.
The tour went great. The hosts inside were friendly and helpful.
We bought a few trinkets and then headed out to the parking lot to wait for our promised taxi driver.
We knew the chances of him returning weren’t great, but we’re polite Americans, so we waited.
Three young Cuban men approached us. “Do you want souvenirs?” They pulled out a silver coin. “See? Che Guevara.”
“Not interested.”
So the three men stepped away. I suppose stretching your neck and looking far down the street is probably a universal signal. They quickly figured out we were waiting for a car.
“Do you need a ride? We have a car. Cheap ride. Only $10.”
We’d paid $6 for the taxi ride over so my husband wasn’t paying $10 to these guys. They tried to negotiate but finally agreed on $6.
The windows of the driver’s car were all down, and the driver rushed ahead to open the door. We thought he was helpful.
He was but only because there were no outside handles. I know, I know. Red lights should have been flashing in our brains.
We climbed in and buckled up. There were no liners on the door panels, and we could see all the rods running to locks and windows. We kept our hands to ourselves.
The little car scooted down the highway and then dropped into a tunnel under the harbor. As the car began to descend, the driver pushed in the clutch and turned off the engine. We coasted to the other end of the tunnel.
I’ll bet he saved a tenth of a gallon of gas with that trick.
He started the engine once gravity threatened to stall him, downshifted, and sailed right through a stop sign.
In Cuba, taxi drivers needed special permits to serve foreigners. Our driver had no taxi permit and no permit to take us anywhere. I think his idea was, once you break one law, you might as well break a bunch.
I don’t know what the speed limit was. It seemed irrelevant to our driver. Might as well break another law. We did stay on all four wheels.
He cruised up to our hotel, double-parked in the narrow street, and shut off the engine again. Another tenth of a gallon saved and another law broken.
He jumped out to open our doors because apparently, the inside latches on the doors needed a secret twist before they’d open.
We paid him. In that country, he may have just made half a month’s wages.
We’d just taken an unlicensed taxi ride with an illegal driver in a foreign country and we lived on.
But I gotta be honest. We came away with our possessions and our teenagers, but I think we left our minds somewhere on that lighthouse.
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by Kathy Brasby | Aug 12, 2019 | Family, Humor, Stories
In the days before I had much money or sense – OK, I was still in my 20’s, and that’s the best explanation I have – I got myself a poor person’s cruise control for my car.
This was back in the days when you could drive a dinosaur or, in my case, a Volkswagen Rabbit.
My Rabbit had a red racing stripe down the sides, but it was no sports car. You’d think a Rabbit would be fast, but this one was a hatchback. Not fast.
And who names a car Rabbit anyway? Volkswagen, obviously.
My brother is a mechanic, and so I sweet-talked him into installing a throttle lock. Cost me some chocolate chip cookies, as I recall.
The system had a gadget attached to the gas pedal and another line attached somehow to the brake. When you engaged the button, the gas pedal was locked into place. Pressing the brake released the lock.
It seemed safe to me. All I cared about was if it worked. And it did. My brother was good.
I don’t think you can buy them today. They might be a tad bit perilous now.
I thought I was brilliant at the time. Because the area where I generally drove was flat, the system worked adequately. I’d reach cruising speed, lock in the throttle, and relax. My pace would change with any slight rises or drops in the road but not much.
I was now in league with those fancy-schmancy cruise controls at a fraction of the cost. Cost of the throttle lock plus chocolate chip cookies was less than $100. Sweet deal. What could go wrong?
So, one day, my sister and I took off for Denver in my Rabbit. I don’t remember why she was driving, but we had a good-sized hill to clear on the route.
Those of you who know Wiggins hill on I-76 can visualize our trip.
Whenever I drove, I disengaged the throttle lock when I got to a long incline.
My sister didn’t.
So up the rise we climbed. Gravity being what it is, our speed dropped.
Cars overtook us. Semi-trailers whipped by. Snails pulled ahead. Sloths waved as they left us behind.
We chugged our way to the top like the little engine that could.
We took a long breath at the summit, like a mountain climber surveying the ridges after an arduous climb.
And then we started down. Gravity being what it is, the Rabbit transformed. Once progressing at a turtle pace, the Rabbit turned into a rocket.
We zoomed down the hill, shooting past the sloths. Racing by the snails. Whizzing past the semi-trailers. Cars were quickly a blur in the rearview window.
“Those people think I’m crazy!” my sister wailed.
It didn’t really matter because we never saw any of that fleet again on our trip.
I’ve been thinking about that car, though. It could be faster than a speeding bullet and more sluggish than a lumbering sloth. Volkswagen called it the Rabbit but maybe a better name would have been the VW Chameleon.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jul 29, 2019 | Country life, Humor, Stories
A long time ago, back when farmers plowed fields with dinosaurs, and spare parts were chiseled from rock, I worked at a tractor dealership.
There were only two women in the shop, the secretary and me. What can you say about working with a bunch of guys who have oil stains on their elbows and grease under their fingernails? It was like having 12 brothers.
That time has given me some great stories to tell. So no regrets. The secretary, on the other hand, might have a few.
The secretary was deathly afraid of mice. We’re talking leap-over-chairs-on-your-way-to-the-parking-lot kind of fear. This was not a good thing to reveal to our crew.
One of the guys came back from vacation one year with a foam rubber animal attached to a thin wire. You could wiggle the wire and make the fake animal squirm along on the floor.
Our secretary almost moved her desk to the front sidewalk that day.
I wasn’t overly fond of mice myself but wasn’t going to admit. I had grown up with brothers, so I knew that you never admit weakness. Bluffing is better.
But the tractor crew still tested me. I was in charge of checking in shipments – large and small – at our business and so one day found a small plastic bag on my desk. This wasn’t unusual, and I flipped the bag to check the shipping tag.
A dead mouse was stapled inside the bag.
I dropped the gift and looked up to see our service manager and parts manager peering around the corner, eyes big like a toddler hoping for a cookie.
The service manager threw his hands in the air. “It wasn’t my idea!”
And the parts manager put his hands up, too. “I didn’t put that bag on your desk.”
Because I had learned how to ignore my brothers, I ignored these guys, too. It’s a good strategy if you can grit your teeth for a little while.
It worked. No more dead mouse came to my desk.
But one day the secretary came back from lunch to find a brown paper bag on her desk. It was stapled shut and shuddering with mystery.
The secretary ran screaming to the break room, positive that the guys had placed a live mouse on her desk. She refused to return to her office, and the boss came wandering out to see what the commotion was about.
He really needed the secretary to get back to her phone-answering and bookkeeping. So he went in search of the service manager.
Under instructions to “take care of that,” the service manager brought the lunch bag outside. Way too many curious eyes followed him. We all watched as he sliced the top off the bag and dumped out a frog.
So the secretary got a freshly-scrubbed and sanitized desk, courtesy of the service and parts managers.
And every time they thought about another mice trick, they just sat down until that thought passed.
You gotta be tough with brothers around.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jul 8, 2019 | Country life, Humor, Stories
As we get to know each other a little better, you may realize that I live on a hobby farm. This includes a few goats, chickens, rabbits, barn cats, and ducks.
I also sometimes fix up houses with my sister to flip. A recent project was more demanding than a hungry toddler.
This all began the morning when I was running late for work and I needed to turn out the ducks for the day. I found a duck egg lying on the ground beside the ducks’ water tub, a forlorn brown egg caked in mud and grass.
I didn’t have time to coddle this egg, no matter how sad it looked, so I did the next best thing: I grabbed a fast food napkin from my pickup, wrapped the egg, and threw it in my purse. I’d take care of it later.
Photo by Kathy Brasby
Somehow a purse seems out of place among all the power tools, so I left it in my pickup while we worked. For two days.
When next I rummaged around the abyss of my purse, there was the egg, still wrapped in the napkin. My sister, Ann, and I were on our way to the hardware store. I handed the egg to Ann so I could find keys.
“What is this?” She held it between her thumb and forefinger like it was a dead mouse.
“An egg,” I said. “Just hold it.”
“I don’t want it.” And she put it in the glove box.
Fresh farm eggs have a coating of something that poultry people call bloom. The coating keeps the egg fresh without refrigeration for a long time. Commercial eggs are generally washed which removes the bloom, requiring the eggs to be refrigerated.
The magic of bloom was why there was no rotten egg in my pickup.
A few days later, we took my pickup to the Chinese place for lunch.
“I think I’ll leave my wallet here,” Ann said. Upon opening the glove box, she caught the napkin-wrapped duck egg. “Haven’t you done anything with this yet?” Speaking of Captain Obvious….
“No, I forgot where it was.”
“Well, get it out of here.”
When we got back to the project house, I put the egg with a plastic bag of supplies that I planned to take home.
At the end of the day, Ann claimed the plastic bag so she could wrap her paintbrush. “How did your egg get in here?”
She didn’t sound curious like you’d think with that sort of question. She sounded like I’d hidden a dirty diaper in there.
“Oh, I’ll take care of it.” I grabbed the egg and put the egg in a box I needed to take home.
The next morning, the egg was still in the box at the flip house. Somehow it then got moved to another room and covered by boards and trim. If you think I’m admitting to that move, you’re nuts.
“We need to get these rooms cleaned out,” Ann said a day later. She started hauling things out, so I grabbed stuff, too. When we got the boards moved, I spotted the box. Of course, Ann walked by at that moment. “Is that your egg?” she said.
She made it sound like I was storing soggy seaweed or something.
“Yeah. I lost track of it.”
“You and that egg.”
I carried the egg to my pickup again and put it in the glove box. I’d toss the egg when I got home.
Four months later, a police officer pulled me over for a license plate check. “I need to see your registration and insurance cards,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” I opened the glove box. My faithful egg was still nestled in its muddy paper blanket. I realized in a flash that the magic of bloom isn’t very reliable after four months.
I tried to explain. I really did. But the officer backed away slowly with one hand doing a halt motion and the other squeezing his nose. You’d think I was holding a hand grenade.
I haven’t let Ann check my glove box now for a long time. Just in case I forgot something.
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by Kathy Brasby | Jun 24, 2019 | Country life, Humor, Stories
There are times when a plan comes together a little too well, and my search for cats fell in that category.
We have a hobby farm that includes a barn. And mice. Lots and lots of mice. Herds of mice. Pastures of mice.
You think I exaggerate?
Well, I went in search of some nice cats for the barn. They didn’t need to be sweet lap cats. In fact, barn cats a little on the wild side make great mousers.
So when I saw the poster, I thought I had struck gold.
Free cats. On the wild side. The photos on the poster were of three lovely orange and gray cats. Cute cats and I was okay with a little on the wild side.
My son and I were running errands when I found this treasure. With just a little searching, we found the girl with the cats. “Do you still have them?” I asked.
Raised eyebrows, wide eyes, and an open mouth should have clued me in. “Do you want them?” She was breathless.
I was still so impressed with the ease of finding free mousers that I just said, “Yes.”
“Great! I’ll tell my dad.” She scampered away, and I turned to my son.
“I’ll finish up here, and you go with them. We can put the cats in the car and go home.”
He followed the girl, and I finished my work. When I walked into the parking lot toward our car, I spotted my son at the edge of a small group
Why was there a small group gathered around a large cardboard box?
The girl’s father was at the center, snugging the last piece of shipping tape over the flaps on the top of the box. A bystander said, “If they can’t get air in there, they might die.”
The father stepped back from the tap-dancing box and brushed his hands together. “That wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
My son turned to me. “He had welding gloves on when he put the cats in the box.” Welding gloves are long leather armor against sparks leaping from a welder. Apparently, they are required for cats a little on the wild side.
I think the gloves should be in my lighting-the-grill repertoire, but I digress.
I didn’t want to think about why the dad needed welding gloves.
By now, I was near enough to hear scratching inside the box. A lot of scratching. The sort of demonic scratching that threatens to claw through trees and steel walls.
“A little wild?” I said.
My son shrugged. He likes cats, and he hoisted the box into the back of the car. “It’ll be okay.”
I watched the box rattling with cat rebellion and muted yowls.
“What if they get through the cardboard?”
“I guess we open the doors and bail out ’til they escape.”
That was comforting.
The family that advertised the cats had disappeared like Frodo after he slipped on the ring. Poof. I would have, too.
And so we drove home. No sounds until we got to our barn. Some things can’t be explained.
We laid the box on its side in the middle of the barn, so the top faced away from us. We were about to unleash hungry lions. Cheetahs with teeth. Slashing claws and steel teeth. We were fools but not that bad.
I peeled off the tape while my son stood guard. Behind me. He was less a fool than I was.
I had donned my own leather gloves and goggles like I was going into a snake pit. Longing for a helmet – or a proxy – I lifted the flap.
Orange and black exploded before us. A wild yowl rattled the walls, and we saw a cloud of fur and teeth. The cats burst out of the box, across the floor and, in a millisecond, out the open back door.
“I vote we call them Blur and Streak,” my son said.
“I vote we call them gone.”
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by Kathy Brasby | Jun 17, 2019 | Humor, Stories
I’ve found that carrying some of my childhood assumptions into adulthood has caused me significant challenges.
You knew that I’m talking about mint plants, right?
In my childhood, there was a mint plant by our front steps that was so spindly and yellow that I assumed mint was a weak plant that needed tender care.
Fresh mint
So when we moved to our current home and I was choosing plants for the front flower boxes, I picked up a lone mint plant out of nostalgia. I lifted the tiny plant to my face at the store, and solemnly promised to care for it better than the one from my childhood.
This was an amazing promise considering I can cause the death of plastic plants.
But I am happy to report that I kept my promise. That single mint plant took over the entire flower bed in two years.
My mind went back to the spindly mint plant from my youth. The one that stood alone in the shade of the house with no other plants around it.
Yeah, the mint had grown in a plot closely akin to the far side of the moon. Nothing else could grow there.
About that time, I learned that there are many varieties of mint. Peppermint. Spearmint. Lemon mint. Chocolate mint. And they like to cross-pollinate, which probably means they then grow even faster. Can you imagine if you planted lemon mint close to spearmint and all the baby mints grew up to taste like……mint?
I discovered in my research that there is a variety called woolly mint. You can’t make this stuff up. Well, I could, but I didn’t this time. It’s also known as apple mint, which begs the question of how apple and woolly are synonyms.
Mint is considered a little invasive. Like kudzu is a little invasive. Or mosquitoes. Chilling, isn’t it?
H.G. Wells, in his book The War of the Worlds, described a Martian red weed which, in his story, took root on earth and choked out all rivers and swaddled trees and fields. Not unlike mint. He might have based Martian red weed on mint for all I know.
I fear that mint left untended could take over entire neighborhoods. I hope my neighbors aren’t reading this or they might start dumping zucchini at my doorstep.
I can imagine a movie coming: Invasion of the Spearmint. Or maybe The Woolly Mint Cometh. Not sure which one might grab the most viewers. My guess is neither.
My single mint plant is now in a contained area where its family still tries to conquer the grass on the other side of the barrier.
One summer evening, we had a violent rain and hailstorm roll through. Afterward, we stepped outside to the pungent smell of mint in the air.
“Oh, no! ” My daughter said. “I hope the hail didn’t kill the mint.” She takes after that naive child in me.
My son drew in a minty breath. “An atomic bomb couldn’t kill that mint.”
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