Allison B.

surisburnbook:

And this is why you don’t let Tom Cruise cut your hair, no matter how down in the dumps he seems or how excited he gets about bangs.

New glasses 😎 #raybans #nerdalert #isitfridayyet #nevertakeselfies #dontjudge 🙈

My mom shot the TV but she didn’t shoot the VCR

Before the days of my mother talking to dead beavers there was the incident involving a revolver, wine and an unsuspecting television. Parents tell their children not to drink and drive but in my family the most important life lesson you could be taught was to not tipple then handle fire arms. I know this makes my childhood seem horrifying, but calm down. My mother does not drink often, I had a very good childhood and no one got hurt, so keep your pants on. Perhaps if my mother had a higher alcohol tolerance, her 2 & 1/2 glasses of wine would not of impaired her memory of reloading the gun. Let me start at the beginning of how this whole thing came about.

My father worked shift work when I was younger. 4 days, 4 off, 4 nights , repeat. He was fine to be around on his day shifts and days off, but Jesus Christ, on the night shift he was big ol angry mustache monster. His only source of any enjoyment was his television. It didn’t matter if I made a good grade at school, if my sister had drew a pretty picture or if my baby brother took his first steps, my father was not impressed with ANYTHING when he was on those dreaded shifts….. except the TV. He had just purchased a new television and you know what that meant back in the early nineties. That fat back son of a bitch weighed 500 pounds, you needed 17 people to help you carry it in and the box it came in could house a small family of 4 all winter. Those things were massive. Thank God for technology and the invention of flat screen TV’s. It was love at first sight for that TV and my dad. I am pretty sure he didn’t even talk to us those first couple of day after he got it unless it was to tell us to “GET OUT OF THE WAY”, because God forbid we walk in front of his baby, he may miss a half second of a thigh master commercial. When he was on night shift I was pretty sure he was so grumpy because he had to leave his television, overnight, with all of us. He didn’t trust us as far as he could throw us, being “irresponsible” children, who knows what travesties may happen to his beloved set after he left. Little did he know; that TV would meet its demise all right, and his “irresponsible” children would have nothing to do with it.

Like I said my mother rarely drinks, sure she enjoys a glass or two of wine every now and then but I can count of 2 fingers how many times I have seen her smashed and trust me I wish it was more, she’s HIL.AR.I.OUS. Well bless her heart, that night was probably her treating herself. Think about it, all week she has been dealing with her husband on night shift who was in such a foul mood birds refused to chirp in our trees for fear of having something thrown at them with the power of gale force winds. Who wouldn’t need a tipple or two after a week of that. My father had given my mother a small revolver as a birthday present (because that is a normal gift here in the south), she had not yet had a chance to take it to a range  so after she put all of us to bed she got it out to get a feel for it; Had a glass of wine and loaded it and unloaded it a couple times to get used to that aspect of the revolver. She checked to make sure it was unloaded it, pointed it at the TV and dry fired it, decided she liked the gun ,she loaded it back and put it away. Later, she was reading a book, enjoying her second glass of wine and it hit her. She had not tried to dry fire the gun with her other hand, my mother is left handed but prides herself on her ambidextrous abilities. She gets up, fetches the gun, forgets that she had re-loaded the gun, points it at the television and fires. BANG!!!!! The gun goes off shooting a hole in my father’s prized possession. She sees, almost in slow motion how the screen cracks from the middle and snakes out to the edges. She is frozen in horror. After she gets over the initial shock of what has just happened, she runs back to our bedrooms to check on us. Thankfully, we were all unharmed sleeping peacefully with no idea that a gun was just fired in our own house.

My poor mother was beside herself, she knew when my dad got home in the morning that world war three was most likely going to take place. She panics and calls my dad’s best friend who lived 2 house down from us at the time. She explains to him what has happened. He pauses and proceeds to tell her she is on her own. He knows  the night shift wrath of my dad and wants NO part in it. She then calls my aunt. My aunt wakes up and listens to my mom’s story stifling giggles trying not to pee her pants , my uncle who had been in a dead sleep a couple minutes prior sits up out of nowhere and starts singing “I shot the TV, but I didn’t shoot the VCR.”(in the tune of the 1973” I shot the sheriff” originally written by Bob Marley but later covered by Eric Clapton in 1974) which makes my aunt almost wet the bed. Seeing as no one is going to come to aid she covers the television with a sheet (when in doubt cover problem with a bedding item?) and accepts her fate. My dad is going to kill her. I’m sure she didn’t do much sleeping that night dreading the moment where he was going walk in and find his treasured possession dead from a gunshot to the dome.

The next morning my father gets home ecstatic that he is finally off his night shift and can spend some quality time with his family television. He walks in, walks past the sheet covered TV and stops. He calls out to my mother, “Why is there a sheet covering the television!!!!!!!??” She says “Okay, don’t be mad.” She then explains to him what happened hoping for him to take pity on her. He listens to her with his face growing a dull red shade similar to the color of the lava that spewed out of mount Vesuvius and killed all of those people who didn’t even shoot anyone’s television. He is PISSED. More than pissed, he is MAD AS HELL FURIOUS. He then tells her that we will be taking a family trip to Radio Shack so she can buy him another humongous fat back television because God forbid he go one day without one. We piled into the car (station wagon), me, my sister, my brother, my dad and my poor mother and went off to Radio Shack where my father made my mother tell the sales associate why our family was in need of a new television. All these years later I can still hear my uncle in my head, “I shot the TV but I didn’t shoot the VCR”.  Classic.

Happy birthday my sweet boy! 😘🐶🐾🎂🍰

“KOUSIN” KARMA

I believe in karma. Someone up there must of known what an asshole I was going to grow up to be and decided to punish me with little things when I was a child. I believe the first karmic act against me was the birth of my cousin. Do not get me wrong, I love my cousin like she is my own sister, it is not her fault the karmic universe needed a warm body to help them plot out how to piss me off for the first 15 years of my life. The things that happened were never her fault and she was never no more malicious or nasty to me than she was to anyone else. Case and point, we are both girls, we are a year apart, naturally we like the same things, naturally I was a jealous jerk.

The first time karma reared her ugly head was Christmas time, I was around 8. All I wanted was this new mountain bike, it was bright, it was pink, it had tons of gears I didn’t even know how to use but were all somehow necessary. Was I taking it on real mountains? Of course not, but you better believe I would ride that bad boy down my paved street…. with no hands…. like a boss. Finally Christmas morning came around and I am peeing my pants in anticipation. I wake up, its 5, still too early, wait 15 minutes, decide that those extra 15 minutes are long enough for my parents to sleep. Wake my sister and brother up, not in a nice way I’m sure, thus spurring on my parents to hear them wake up and have to get up since at point in my life they were still rather small and annoying.  Run out to the living room and low and behold there it is. The mother of all pink mountain bikes (or so I thought). I am so happy, naturally the first thing I want to do is call my cousin and rub it in her face. My mother reminds me it is still dark outside and that most normal people have not woken up yet. What a buzz kill she is. I open my other presents and wait and wait until I can call her. We talk about what presents we got and she tells me she got a bike as well. I am not fazed by this at all because there is no way her bike would ever ever be as cool as mine. A couple days later I go to her house to spend the night so I bring my bike for all the adventures we were sure to go on. I get there, my dad takes my bike out and I wheel it proudly around to  the backyard. A helmet, you ask? Well think again, my childhood was thankfully still before the time parents started freaking out about their kids dying from everything, and like I said earlier…I was a boss. My cousin has now come out of the house and we’re all happy to see each other and karma is up in the sky having a giggle about what was about to happen. She gets her bike out of the shed and I’ll be damned if it wasn’t the exact same bike with only one difference……it was the brightest of bright pinks I had ever laid my eyes on. We put them side by side and my bike looked like it had sat outside for 6 months in Alaska during the season when the sun never sets. I was livid. What kind of yard sale, discount, clearance rack bullshit had my parents gotten me????? I didn’t say anything to them because my mom taught us to be grateful, at that moment I was the farthest thing from grateful  but I knew to keep my bratty mouth shut. My whole weekend was ruined and we didn’t ride bikes that much at all. I was far too depressed.

I wish I could tell you this was the only instant things like this happened but alas no, no it was not. I am now smarter and know not to get anything the same as her anymore because I know when I do, mine will have some kind of defect. I have a list. Girl Scouts, we sold a lot of cookies, got to pick prizes, got the same pink lion. Hers? Perfect condition. Mine? The smile was sewn on crooked. Beanie Babies, we got bought the seal. Hers? Cutest seal ever. Mine? The nose is too far to one side and makes him look like his seal parents were brother and sister. The list goes on and on. But other things, not just presents did not work out in my favor , we played “horses” in the woods, she found this perfect tree to be our horses. Her branch was perfectly shaped and was pliable enough to be able to take her bouncing up and down on it. The branch she gave me broke when I bounced up and down on it. She can eat anything she wants without gaining a pound. I look at food and can feel my muffin top seeping over my pants a little bit more. I can’t really get mad at anyone but myself as karma knew what shenanigans lay in my future. But just as I should feel happy to live such a great  and blah blah blah blah, sometimes I just want to look karma right in the eye and scream “REALLY???!!!!”

grand theft auto:age10

My sister is younger than me and I will be the first to admit that I was HORRIBLE to her when we were kids. She would politely knock on my door and ask if she could play Barbie’s with my cousin and I. I of course being a terrible person would scream at her to get out of my room. A couple minutes later she would muster up the courage to once again knock on my door having changed her request to simply just wanting to watching us play Barbie’s. That poor thing just wanted to be in the room and again I would freak out and banish her from my hot pink domain. Her and I have since made peace over this and it is my karma that she is prettier, thinner and has better hair then me; oh and also she has a terrific singing voice, while mine sounds like a cross between a donkey show and a dying hyena. I love my sister….now.

She was always in love with my array of boyfriends I brought home, being six years younger than me she had terrible taste, just as I did back then. She would go hide in her room and be all embarrassed to look and talk to them. They all of course loved my sister, you really couldn’t help it. Even when I was still cursing my mom for having her I have to admit, she was a very cool little kid. Her temper, however rivaled one of a pissed off cobra. Looking at her you would never in a million years think this cute little blonde girl could turn into the  Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde in a blink of an eye. She would turn blood red and scream for hours, not a tear was shed just the dreaded screams. Bless her heart.

There was one significant occasion that I remember my sister really out did herself. It was the summer before my senior year of high school and I had my boyfriend over to hangout or whatever kids back then did before social media, gasp, the horror. All of the sudden we hear my sister fly off about something and go to her room,all goes quiet so we don’t think much of it and go back to what we were doing. About 30 minutes later we hear a sound of a car. My parents had parked my mom’s old gold cutlass cierra Oldsmobile in the back yard like a bunch of hicks when she got her new car. Anyways, we hear that bad boy V6 come to life and run outside. The mental picture of that incident will always in engrained in my brain. My sister was in the car, shaking her head back and forth, blonde hair flying everywhere, screaming, trying her damndest to drive away. Thank God for the emergency brake she had not factored into her getaway plan, it would not let her go anywhere, thus infuriating her further.

After she gave up my boyfriend at the time tried to go talk to her, she took one look at him and hauled ass to the woods, blonde hair flying behind her. We were all literally dumbfounded. That evil little genius had painstakingly laid out her plan of escape after she had ran to her room. Her plan was to drive to her cousin’s house and I guess live happily ever after there. She stole the keys to the olds, packed a bag and mentally went over step by step directions of how to exactly get to our cousin’s house. She climbed out of the window and snuck over the back yard, looked around and got in that golden goose. She waited for a minute just to make sure she wasn’t caught, inserted the key and put it in drive, hit the accelerator with force and…… she remained stationary. She tried and tried and tried thus spurring on the rage of a foiled plan, about this time is when everyone heard the commotion and came outside. Defeated, she high tailed it into the woods where she cooled down and eventually came back to the house.

I’m sure my parents were horrified, but they had to be at least a little bit proud, what 10 year old methodically lays out that kind of plan to run away. Excuse me, drive away. I’m sure my sister scoffed at the other kids at school when they were talking about how they were going to pack their my little ponies and a snack pak and go live in the tree house they had in the backyard. She probably looked down her nose at them and thought ,‘“ha! what a bunch of amateurs.” Then she might of shook her head, that blonde hair and walked away from them thinking how inferior they all were. I love my sister, even if she tried to commit a felony at the age of 10.   

speaking to my beaver

My mother is the funniest person  I have ever met. She is funny because she does not mean to be funny. Things you should know about her beforehand is that she has such a kind heart, I am 100% positive she can speak to animals, she is slightly naive and says exactly what comes in her head at the exact moment she says it, hilarity usually ensues after this sort of word vomit.  The first time she ever made me pee my pants from laughing was when I was in the 7th or 8th grade. She has since done that to me, but this was the big event that started it off.

My father is odd. Odd in a good way, though. He had told his coworkers that he thought it would be cool to have a beaver skull. Why pray tell? I have no idea, like I said…odd. My dad had picked me up from school one afternoon, when we got home we spotted a large canvas bag hanging in one of our trees in the yard. We walk over to the tree and take the large bag down, we open it up only to find none other than a dead beaver. This poor beaver had met his untimely death at the hands of some sort of vehicle earlier that day, but you could not tell from looking at it, as we assumed his injuries were internal. My father sits in contemplation for a moment and looks at me and asks the dumbest question ever, “should we mess with your mother?”. I literally cannot say yes fast enough, of course I want to mess with my mother!

My father besides being odd is an evil genius, and I’m pretty sure he was MacGyver in his previous life, so together we devise a plan to somehow use this dead animal to freak my mother out. We drag the beaver over to the front steps, and pull it all the way out of the bag, I can just see my father’s mind working in overdrive on how he should approach this situation to make it as amusing as possible, for him and I at least. He rolls the beaver over so he looks like he is standing, finds a brick and props it under the beavers head, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t look like that beaver was just standing there in anticipation for my unsuspecting mother to get home.

Clearly proud of ourselves, we go to the dining room as this room has the best view of the front steps, and we wait. It seemed like an eternity for my mother to get home, we are practically already peeing on ourselves as she gets out of the car. She “be-pops” from the driveway humming some random tune which she has been known to do, oblivious of the danger lurking just beyond the crab grass. Finally she sees our masterpiece. It startles her only a bit though, she carefully sets down the papers that were in her hands and walks around him trying to get a read on the situation. She walks back and forth about three times, puts her hands on her hips and utters the most famous line ever spoken by anyone in my family. She says (n a voice an octave higher than normal), “Well hello there little guy, what are you doing so far away from your home?” My. Father. And. I. Die. We laugh so hard we can’t breathe. She is not worried about her own safety. She is not worried about if this animal is rabid. She is not worried about where her family is. All she is worried about is why this poor creature of God is in her front yard and not at his little beaver pond, in his little beaver dam, with his little beaver family. I can only imagine the plan she must of come up with in those few minutes on how she would coax this beaver in her car so she could drive it back to his home.

After a minute she finally hears my father and I practically choking from the lack of oxygen caused by our laughing seizures and starts to put things together. “Is this thing dead?!” she yells and stomps in the house. She of course is a good sport and finds our prank funny as well, though I’m sure not as funny as we did. She then instructs my father to get rid of the damn beaver. I don’t really remember what happened to the beaver after that but I do know that I never once saw that beavers skull, maybe the service that beaver did for us that day prompted my dad to give him a proper burial, maybe there was a 21 gun salute, after all the sound of gun fire wouldn’t raise any eyebrows where we lived and Lord knows my father will use any excuse to shoot his guns………and keep them locked from my mom after another infamous accident. But that gem of a tale is an entirely different story.