One of the great things about fall is definitely the fact that it’s the beginning of the holiday season.  I absolutely LOVE Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  When I was young, my mom always made gigantic meals for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Each one of us would have different jobs assigned to us.  One of us would help polish the good silverware, one of us set the table and one of us had to help pull all the food together at the last minute.

One year in particular, my sister had the chore of setting the table.  When dinner was ready, we all sat down to the table and got ready to have a wonderful feast, when I noticed there were six place settings.  So, I asked my sister why she set six places, when there are only five people in our family.  She answered that she had set a place for Jesus.  My parents thought this was the sweetest thing ever, but being the heathen that I was, I started laughing my ass off, uncontrollably.  I asked her if Jesus had called and let her know he was coming?

For the rest of the meal, while everyone was passing around all the food, I would stop after putting a helping on my plate and look at the empty place setting next to me and ask “Jesus, would you like some mashed potatoes?”  “Jesus, can I get you some more cranberry sauce?” – cracking myself up each time more and more.  My sister was so pissed at me, and my parents must have asked me twenty times to stop, but I just could not control myself.  To this day, every Thanksgiving I look at my sister and say, “Remember that time you set a place for Jesus?”  We have a love-hate relationship!

With all that is going on in New Orleans, I though that this may be a good time to tell my New Orleans story. 

In February of 2002, Todd and I went on a Carnival Cruise out of New Orleans.  We booked this particular cruise so that 1) we could spend a couple days in New Orleans before the cruise soaking up the history, 2) we could say we experienced Mardi Gras, 3) we could take a wonderful 7 day cruise to the Western Caribbean and 4) so we could say we finally had a honeymoon!  If only I knew what I was in for…

On the second night we were there, we ate dinner up on the balcony at a place called Johnny White’s (best Chicken Alfredo in the world!).  If you ate dinner there, you were allowed to stay up on the balcony for the Mardi Gras festivities.  After dinner, Todd and I both ordered a Hurricane (because you cannot leave Mardi Gras without drinking some Hurricanes).  There were a bunch of guys up on the balcony with us and several of them were blatantly hitting on me, not even caring that I was up there with my husband.  They kept bugging me to lift my top and I kept saying, “I don’t even like beads – so forget it!”  Well it was about that time that my husband started acting funny and by funny I mean wasted!  It could not have been the drinks, because we had eaten a huge meal and we were only on our second drink (which wasn’t even very strong), not to mention, my husband is a 215 pound, experienced drinker - it takes a little more that two Hurricanes to whoop his ass.

Well when my husband started acting weird, getting irate and mean, the rude guys mysteriously disappeared.  I put two and two together and realized that something had been slipped into Todd’s drink.  Both of our drinks were on the table behind us and those guys slipped some kind of date rape drug or something into one of our glasses, probably meaning for it to be mine, but got Todd’s instead. 

Todd was completely unmanageable!  He could barely stand and was trying to fight everyone.  Here I was, stuck on Bourban Street with my drugged husband.  I had to drag his ass through the streets trying to get a cab in the middle of Mardi Gras, so that I could get him to the hotel, with him trying to physically fight me the whole time – TOTALLY NOT MY HUSBAND!!!  I was seriously considering paying some big dude to knock his ass out.  I finally got a cab and stuffed him into it.  He insulted the cab driver the entire way to the hotel, leaving me to explain his behavior, hoping we did not get dropped off in some back alley to get shot and robbed.

When we got back to the hotel, he refused to come up to the room; he could barely even speak English at this point.  I had had it!  I did not care anymore so I went upstairs to bed.  In the morning, I found him passed out in the bathroom in a pile of hotel bar popcorn – sick as a dog.  He did not remember anything, and felt horrible for what happened.  We had to hurry up and pack our stuff to get to the cruise ship.  On our way downstairs to check out, there was a trail of popcorn all the way back down to the lobby into the hotel bar.  What a night!!!

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About seven months ago, I needed new tires for my truck.  I drive one of the new Ford Expeditions, and the newer ones are much lower to the ground than the older ones, which is what my previous truck was.  I was trying to hold out on getting the new tires, because I also wanted to get my truck lifted about three inches, and at the time, there was not a “lift kit” out for the newer model Expeditions.  Unfortunately, one of my tires blew and I was forced to cave and buy the new tires. 

We went to a place called Production Offroad to see what the biggest tire size was that would fit under my truck.  While we were there getting the tires, we saw a rubber set of testicles called “Truck Nutz” which are made to hang from the back of your truck.  My husband and I thought these were H.I.L.A.R.I.O.U.S.!  It did not take our distorted minds long to think of some way to use the nutz in a prank – a prank against my mother.  So we bought them and called my sister so she could be in on the prank!

We took them to my mother’s house and proceeded to fasten them to the back of her Ford Freestar Minivan.  So that she could drive around for a while not knowing she had a set of nutz hanging from the back of the van.  We got laughing so hard, we could barely get them on the van.  We decided that it should not be called a Minivan anymore; that it would now be referred to as the “MiniMan.”

My mom ended up finding her van’s new found manhood, and found someone to attach them to my sister’s truck – which is all good and well, except my sister could care less if she has a set of nutz hanging from the back of her truck – so she left them there!

Have you ever seen these?  If not, you can get yourself a pair here.

Okay, so apparently it is against the law to not return the Census Questionaire, if you happen to be the lucky recipient of it.  I have received this damn 1000 page, SAT lookin questionaire three times, and three times, I have shoved in into this white bin on my kitchen counter.  I work full time, have housework to do and have two children to deal with…not to mention my precious online time.

Well today I got busted by “The Man.”  The doorbell rang at about 7:00pm and it was a representative from the U.S. Census Bureau.

ME: Hello, Can I help you?
CB: Yes Maam, my name is Census Bureau Man, I am with the U.S. Census Bureau.  This address was chosen to participate in this year’s Census, and I show that we have mailed the questionaire to you on three occasions.  Were you aware that it is against Federal Law to avoid the Census Questionare?
ME: Oh really,

hmmm, well we just recently moved into this house, and I don’t remember getting it…Federal Law you say?
CB: Well maam, I have my laptop with me, and we can go ahead and settle this matter now. *walking past me into my house without being invited*
ME: Uh, okay. *walks back into house screaming at child 1 to stop running and jumping on couch and scooping child 2 off of the stairs*

Now, this man takes a seat at the bar counter surrounding my sink area, in front of the white bin on my kitchen counter, where the three copies of the aforementioned Census Questionaire were neatly shoved. 

CB: Maam, those look like the Questionaire’s right there.
ME: Where?
CB: Right there maam, in that bin.
ME: Oh shit, those?  I never even opened those up, my husband stuck them there, and I never even looked at them.  I am so sorry. *crossing fingers behind back and hoping hubby does not come home from the hardware store and rat me out*

So, I had to sit there and answer all his questions…I am married, I am a caucasion female, how much $$ I make, etc., etc.  I am quite sure that this man was thinking I was a complete asshole the entire time he was in my house.  A Federal Law breaking asshole!