Me and Mr. Jumpy

6/27/2012

Me and Mr. Jumpy (or things I feared as a child)!

My mother was a tough old broad – at least in my opinion.  Mom didn't waste time holding our hands or making cluck-cluck noises of reassurance to us kids as we grew up.  When I, probably 10 or 11 years old found (or heard) a cricket in my bedroom, it made perfectly good sense to me to holler to Mom to come and get rid of him  (i.e., kill him).

I was terrified of them and even to this day don’t see any reason for them to be around - or at least around in my world.  I remember Mom coming to my room and my explaining the need to get rid of the cricket (which seemed to me like a Mom job).   I don’t know the words she used; but, I can still recall the action.  I was to stay in my room until I had either (a) killed the cricket or (b) come to terms with him living in my bedroom.  That said she closed my bedroom door and it was just me and Mr. Jumpy. 

Besides that awful noise they make I hate bugs that jump.  That just seems unnatural and it makes it pretty darn hard to predict in which direction a bug will jump.  So there we were me and Mr. Jumpy locked in some kind of one-sided mental strategy game (at least I hoped it was one-sided).  I couldn't even imagine getting close enough to it to hit it with a shoe – what if he jumped on me?  I know that if that happened I would die on the spot.

I sat on my bed making sure that Mr. Jumpy didn't move - it is always better to know where your enemy is.  And then I spied my roller skates, the old metal ones you put on your shoes and adjusted with a key.  The key, of course, was always worn around your neck, it was the fashion of things at the time.

I hopped off the bed, grabbed up one of my skates and lined Mr. Jump up in my field of sight, and sent my skate flying across the floor.  At this point, I'll let you decide how it turned out for Mr. Jumpy and my skate!

Have a great Wednesday - hump day, we're on the downhill slide.

Next week Jeff and I will be loading up the plane on Monday morning and hope to have wheels up by 8:00 am and we'll be headed to Minnesota for a week.  So with any luck and modern technology working properly, I'll be in touch with you via laptop. 

P