Weird Wednesday.. all day long! And a day later too!!!

"I was looked at as weird, odd, not fitting in with the Hollywood crowd." ~ Morgan Brittany

"I was not particularly bright, I wasn't very athletic, I was a little too tall, odd, funny looking, I was just really weird as a kid." ~ Uma Thurman

"I was on the cover of a lot of newspapers. I was on the cover of USA Today for every single day for a month. I was on the masthead, so I tend to get recognized a lot, and in weird places. It's always flattering, and it's always odd. It's always at the worst possible time."
~ Augusten Burroughs



1) When have you been the most silent? ~~ I can hear the thought of some folks right now..."That weird women has never been silent... she never shuts up.. Her silent... not a chance..!" ....But weirdly.. I was once silent for a full 24 hours.. It wasn't easy ..you have to understand... I really.. really loved to talk!!!..It was downright hard for me... but still....

.Early one morning I had been talking non-stop for quiet a while I reckon.. Daddy finally asked me to please be quiet and let my mouth and his ears rest for a little while.. he added that I could talk the horns off of a billy goat.. then patting me on the head he said that maybe I should just write everything in a book.. I think I was around twelve years old.. I confess that I was mouthy back then.. I rarely hushed.. My Grandma Morris even said it was indecent for a little girl to talk so much... I really do like to talk.. I'll gladly admit that much.. But Jimmy decided that he had to add to what Daddy said.."Yea she can talk the horns of billy goat... the buzzards off of a gut wagon and the stink off of a pile of chicken poop!" Daddy told him that was enough but he kept on.. my talking things off abilities growing by leaps and bounds as his imagination grew.. soon even Mary and Frank had joined in.. Trudy wasn't saying anything but she was laughing.. They each agreed that they would pay me their weekly allowance if I could not say a single word for 24 hours.. The total amount was to be 20 $$.. Davey shook his head and said he wasn't loosing his money.. he had a job up town.. He told them to stop being weird and to leave me alone but they kept at it.. They double dog dared me to take the bet.. To be silent for a full 24 hours.. They were even going to set Jimmy's watch..I wasn't sure I could do it..but I was going to try.. I didn't care about the money.. I just wanted to prove to them that I could be quiet for all that time.. and I was.. I didn't utter a single word for hours and hours.. at first they all laughed and thought it was cool but the next day when I still wasn't talking they began to get worried.. they had never really intended to give up their money.. and now it looked like I might pull it off..my silence was really beginning to frustrate them all.. They tried sending Reuben and Martha to ask me stuff.. they even came and said Mama wanted me.. all kinds of tricks.. but I am stubborn.. I never spoke.. Finally Jimmy yelled TIME and I danced and sang " I did it.. I did it!!!.. See... I did IT!!" They all laughed and shouted with glee.. they had tricked me.. I had missed the real time by about five minutes..when they told me that I ran to my room and threw myself on the bed crying.. after a few minutes I heard a small knock on the door.. it was Reuben and Martha.. I tried to send them away but they said Daddy had called a family meeting.. there was no getting out of a family meeting.. I did wonder a tiny little bit what was wrong or who was in trouble.. but mostly I didn't care.. I wanted to stay in my room and cry.. I hated being tricked.. and they had tricked me real good this time.. I had been silent for ALMOST 24 hours for nothing.. "Just Five more pitiful minutes" I said to myself as I slumped down the hall to the dining room.. Everybody else was there already.. Daddy was standing at the head of the table and he had what looked like every one's allowance laid out on the table in front of him.. After I slid into my chair he looked around at us all and he asked me if I was OK.. I nodded even though my feeling were still smarting from being tricked.. I was sorta over the hurt and was just beginning to feel anger.. That would have to wait though because my Daddy was talking.. his words.. "a dirty trick".. caught my attention.. as I listened he got on to everyone of them for planning to make me talk just so I couldn't have their money..what sounded like a good way to shut me up only lasted until they thought I might really do it.. after that they were all trying to ruin it.. Daddy and Mama had been paying much more attention to their whispered plans than they thought.. and worse they had tried to even get the babies .. (Reuben and Martha).. in on it.. "Yea " Daddy said" Shaking his head.. " A plain out dirty trick if I ever saw one.." I looked around at them and they were all head hanging down ashamed.. Daddy gathered up all of the allowance and handed it over to me.. "here Patsy.. you earned every penny of this and from now on just talk when you want to.." Later that afternoon we went to Mr. Floyd's little store down the road.. I bought me a sack slam full of candy..and gum.. a big fat notebook with lots of pages to write things down on and a new pencil...finally I got a box of ice cream... and two cokes.. everybody else was frowning at me.. But when we got home I handed Mama the cokes and the ice cream.. she made coke floats for every body!!! My siblings never challenged me to be quiet after that.. I can't help it that I have a lot to say.. I have learned though ..that sometimes.. it's just better to be quiet.. and that writing things down is a great idea after all...

2) What is the most dangerous thing you have ever done on purpose? ~~well.. I don't really do dangerous things.. I have done two things though that turned out to be dangerous and both involved water.. Once a bunch of people decided we would swim out to the middle of the river where an old draw bridge sits open in the river.. we were going out there and have a shindig..
they had loaded up some inner tubes with coolers of drinks and beer.. they said that anyone who couldn't swim would be towed.. I wasn't even going to tell them that I can dog paddle.. how weird do you think that would have made me look?? I wasn't about to look weird in front of all those people.... I decided to wait till they were all out in the water then just dog paddle along behind.. needless to say that once I was deep enough that my feet wouldn't touch the muddy bottom.... the current was so fast that I was picked up and snatched along by the river.. I tried to swim but the river said NO and rolled me head over heels along the way it wanted me to go.. finally my hand touched something solid and I lifted my head to realize that it had flung me into the last set of pilings under the bridge.. One of the guys yelled at me to come back.. the stairs up were over there.. <~~~~ way down there.. with all of them...I smiled and clung to the pilings and felt my way along the rocks piled along the edges of the narrow bridge supports.. finally my hand found a cable that ran from one pile to the next and hand over hand I dragged myself back to the stairs.. I said I had wanted to check out the other end of the bridge..they all gave me weird looks.. but when we got ready to leave I jumped into an inner tube and grinned like a weirdo.. all the way back to the shore.. It was way after midnight.. I'm pretty sure it's weird to dog paddle in a river after midnight.. there might even be some weird law about it... another time me and my friend Vicky dove off of the bridge at The local lake.. we had a rule against it for our kids but then we both did it anyway.. yes we were weird.. as Iwas swimming out of the lake.. OK OK!!!dog Paddling out.. I paddled right into a submerged grocery cart.. Just as I squealed.. she squealed too.. turning I saw her hold up her foot and she was bleeding.. something under the water had ripped her foot open.. she had to have 27 stitches.. I'm sure my children jumped off that bridge when I wasn't around.. all the teenagers even told a story of how My children would go down the bank and swim around in the water before they would jump.. they always said they were checking for grocery carts.. I bet their friends really thought they were weird!!!!!

3) What's the weirdest place you've ever visited with the sole purpose of having sex?~~
Did you think to scare me with that weird question?? I can actually answer that.. when Dave and I got married.. 15 years ago next week.. we decided to go camping for our honeymoon.. See everyone goes on their honeymoon expecting to have sex.. nothing weird about that.. except that by the time we got two sets of kids delivered to their other parent and got all our stuff loaded in the car and drove the almost three hours down there.. it was pitch black dark.. it was pouring rain and the temperature was dropping fast.. we couldn't find a ranger but we knew the rule of if you come after dark you can pay in the morning.... we picked sight 100...We did manage to get one small tent up and crawled in it with all of our clothes on.. we thought we would wait for the storm to pass.. and the ranger to drive by and realize we were new campers...we cuddled some and talked and the rain kept on falling.. soon we noticed that the floor was wet and looking out we realized that we were sitting in a run off zone.. water was flowing around us like a river.. So out we crawled in the pouring rain and yanking up stakes we dragged the tent up the hill in the dark.. and set it up again.. we decided to go ahead and carry in our sleeping bags and covers this trip.. we also got clothes and pillows.. as a last thought I grabbed some crackers and Dave got some drinks from the cooler.. we were soaked from the skin out and it was about 30 degrees.. I was freezing.. he was frozen and sex was put on the back burner.. In fact I think it was took slap off of the stove... by 3am the next morning I had decided that honeymoons were just weird and I was going home.. we crept out from the tent in the rain and yanked it down.. we rolled everything up in a wad and mashed it down in the trunk of the car..soaking wet and wore slap out and frozen to death we decided we better look for a ranger since we hadn't found one to pay the night before.. spotting a ranger's truck at the restaurant we decided that we might as well have a cup of coffee before heading home.. The ranger wouldn't have the money and treated us to grits and eggs with bacon for breakfast.. I'm pretty sure he thought we were weirdo's.. him and the waitress just laughed out loud when I told them we were on our honeymoon.. Dave did manage to convince me that we should stay and look for a Motel.. It rained the whole time we were there.. we walked all over the place in the rain and cooked out camping food in the motel microwave.. we talked and laughed and even rode back to the camp grounds in the daylight and looked over the place where we had spent that first weird night.... we had a good trip.. I was cold the entire weekend.. It was weird.. I guess the camp grounds wouldn't normally be a weird place to go for sex but that night it was weird... Yep.. Cold ..wet and weird!!!

That's enough weird for me for one day.. have a great weird Wednesday!!
Patsy