Silent-but-Deadly Three-Way

One of the most awkward situations to be in is the silent-but-deadly fart three-way, when you aren't among friends. There is no way to get out of the situation easily.

A maintenance worker was doing minor construction about 8 feet to my left, stretching up to the ceiling, and making frustrated person noises, as whatever he was doing wasn't going right. I was at the computer, and my dog was to my right. Together we formed a triangle.

I had turned on some music, so I didn't have to listen to the maintenance guy talking to himself, and was surfing websites as the smell hit me.

Someone close by had released an SBD, but who? I didn't want to automatically blame the dog, but I couldn't really ask the guy if he'd just made a fluffy.

The smell was impossible to ignore, so I got up and took the dog outside. As we came back inside, the maintenance guy was leaving to get something from his truck. Instead of his normal chatty ways, he looked kind of embarrassed and talked to the dog.

Suddenly it then dawned on me that he was looking at me like he thought I'd made the terrible stink. Now I felt awkward, and it was way too late to blame the dog. Even if I had blamed the dog I probably would have looked guilty, because doesn't everyone always accuse their pet?

It MOVED!

My oldest daughter, V, has always been a bit of a conspiracy nut, and, from the time she could talk, she was obsessed with aliens, vampires, ghosts, and an assortment of other paranormal topics.

My youngest daughter, O, is three years younger than her and has always been the voice of reason and logic.

Their different ways of viewing the world have never been as apparent, or insane, as when V was seven, and O was four, and V found a butterfly for her bug collection.

V had been collecting and pinning bugs for about a week, mostly finding them already dead in our yard, or during walks. Occasionally we would catch something alive and euthanize it with rubbing alcohol fumes.



On this morning, we were walking home from the library when V found a dying Painted Lady butterfly, and decided to bring it home to wait until it naturally "passed on" before making it her newest trophy.



The butterfly had stopped twitching by the time we got home, so V decided to put it in the bug box with the rest of her collection. My attempts to tell V that the butterfly might not be completely dead yet were met with looks of pity, as if I had no idea what I was talking about.

A few hours later, the girls decided they wanted to look at the bugs we already had, so V carefully got the collection down from her shelf, and slowly opened the lid, to avoid damaging anything, which startled the still nearly-dead butterfly and caused it to move some.

At this point O, being a child of reason, and knowing V's tendency to be a bit over-excitable decided to take the situation into her own hands.

This did not go over well with V, who was now more freaked out than ever.

It was about two days before V would get rid of the now definitely-dead vampire butterfly, and only after pestering O into apologizing to the butterfly's spirit, so it wouldn't haunt our house.

Lessons from The Manitou

Recently I watched "The Manitou" with my family. I'd seen it once, on late-night tv, when I was about nine, so I remembered bits about what happened, but never realized what great life lessons it teaches. In case you don't want to suffer through... um... don't have the time to see this movie, I've compiled some of the more important things it teaches including an entire section on "Indians."

I'll start with the Native American facts first:

a) "Indians" will fight to the death over anything trivial, but have no need for money.

b) While they don't need money, they sure do need tobacco!

c) They are a soft place to land if something explodes nearby.

d) Medicine men can't work while wearing a thin hospital gown over street clothes.

e) "Full-sized" evil medicine men are dwarfs with amazingly chiseled muscles, yet are blind and can only walk on their knees.

f) Medicine men have trouble finding jogging partners.




And now for the rest of the lessons:

1) DON'T BE AN ADMINISTRATOR!

2a)Delay surgery on a large neck growth, because having the growth isn't possible.
2b)Especially if the impossible growth appears to be an extremely fast-growing fetus.
2c)Don't give the patient any information, and send her home.




3)If you are working in an operating room and the patient wakes up from heavy sedation, starts chanting in a foreign language, and the surgeon is psychically forced to cut his own wrist, calmly sit at a nearby computer and type.

4)If a person starts chanting in a foreign language, floats along a hallway, with her feet about six inches off the floor, and is thrown down the stairs by an invisible force, don't worry. She did it to herself.

5)If you don't know what a foreign phrase means, and you are not an expert in languages, do not let that stop you from accurately translating an obscure saying from a culture that died out centuries ago.




6)If an optical laser becomes possessed and starts blasting holes in the walls of the operating room, medical staff will rush to the scene, yet do nothing but crowd the doorway to stop anyone inside the room from escaping.

7)If a possessed patient tells you exactly how to get rid of the thing possessing her, pretend you don't understand and do the exact opposite.




8)You can't stop manitou! Okay, you can, but it's really hard. Well, if you try, it can probably be done.

9)The sacred circle will be destroyed if it is broken... unless it is broken, then it will still work.

10)Don't attack while the enemy is weak, wait for him to gain strength!

11)When running for a flashlight during random power outages, take the elevator.

12)IBM Typewriters explode.

13)"Complicated computer stuff" has its own soul, which can be focused by a "person-to-person call" to make a possessed woman shoot electricity at her demon.




14)Scary music quickly turns to Star Trek music when a dark room fills with stars.

15)Doctors explode when exposed to the reality of the paranormal, and cheesy lightning effects.

16)A demon determined to kill people is easily confused by boobies and loses his ability to aim at still targets.