Three Blunders

Lately I've been e-mailing my posts to my blog in order to save time going on-line with dial-up. The problem with this is that I just discovered that one of my e-mails didn't get posted! Therefore, although this is nearly a week old and not as interesting (to me anyway) as my latest post, I shall not neglect the proper chronicling of my life, so here it is:

The blog, of all strange creations, is supposedly meant to report about your life. Unfortunately, if I were to truly report everything I did right here on my blog, it would not only be very uninteresting, but it would probably put you to sleep with its somnolence. However, I must report that if you didn't already know it, I just attended a youth weekend. So I gathered up all my personal belongings, crammed them into a duffel bag, and made the long 45 second drive down to join the ranks of all the other young folk who were arriving. And to put it in short, the weekend was spectacular. But then you probably aren't surprised at that, because aren't youth weekends supposed to be like that? Anyway, I hardly feel like reporting everything we did. Let it suffice to say that we had some swell meetings about the Holy Spirit, played games such as telephone pictionary, guess-the-person's-name-stuck-on-your-forehead (e.g. Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes), Moose, bobbing for candy in jello, snow sculpting, commercial making, scavenger hunts, spoons, fuse ball basketball, take-a-warball-and-hit-the-paper-bags-of-candy (some would call it a very ugly pinata), sledding, amazing games of ultimate frisbee, twists of warball, soccer, etc, etc, etc. You get the picture.

As I mentioned, we went sledding. Yaaaayyy! The majority of the young people went (um, maybe fifteen or so), and it was jolly fun coasting down the semi grand slopes of the golf course. Meredith the Southern gal even claimed that she had never been sledding besides in her back yard, which had accumulated a mere five inches of snow, so this was pretty much a brand new experience for her, which was neat. As we prepared to leave and go home, I went down the hill for my final time, and just felt like standing there before moving on. Then Josh (meaning the one from bibleschool), who was standing at the top of the hill, started to yell for someone, so I looked up and heard him calling, "Jonathon, come up here! Jonathon, come! Jonathon A_____ come up here this instant!"

I was puzzled.

Having a nagging suspicion, I looked around, and saw Jonathon sitting calmly in his sled at the top of the hill a little ways down from Josh. He seemed to be turning curiously in response to Josh's order, perhaps trying to figure out how he was supposed to turn and obey if he wasn't disobeying in the first place!(or maybe he wasn't thinking such noble thoughts, but reading little boys' minds is beyond me) I then glanced all around me and realized with a shock that I was the only one at the bottom of the hill. Josh was mistaking me for a five-year-old boy! Oh my goodness! Still uncertain, despite the horrifying evidence, I yelled back up the hill, "Jonathon is over there!" I pointed. There was a pause, as Josh turned to verify my statement. Who knows what mortified thoughts might have been flooding through is mind just then, but if he was at all embarrassed, he did little to show it, and only replied, "Oh, I thought you were Jonathon." Jonathon, indeed! As Joe March from Broadway would say (or rather sing), "The nerve! The gall!"

Ugh. I made a mistake of my own. We were playing sports, my water had run out, and I was extremely thirsty. Very bad combination. I also knew that if I didn't drink something before going on to the next sport, I would probably start to feel sick. So I hurriedly ran out to stuff snow into my water bottle in hopes of it melting. Too impatient, I took a handful, stuffed it into my mouth, and started to go back inside. "Puh!" I spat it back out. In my eagerness to relieve my dehydration, I hadn't observed the snow very carefully. Actually, I couldn't really scrutinize it at all because it was too dark outside. So because of this I had managed to cram a bunch of dirty snow into my hatch! What a rude awakening. . . I then had to attempt cleaning out the grit from my teeth by spitting as much of the dirt out as possible (outside in a safe spot of course). As some great genius once put it, "Ew."

The next morning I volunteered to do dishes after breakfast. Instead, I received the assignment of vacuuming the library, parlor, and front hall. That's not so bad. After all, I'm not really all that afraid of vacuum cleaners any more, and I thought it might be faster than doing dishes anyway. So plugged up old Kirby, received a few instructions from Bria on how to run the clunky antique, and prepared to begin. Danny even came in the library, and when I commented on the age of the weighty artifact, he chuckled and said that they bought it brand new when he was in bibleschool about thirteen years ago (I guess I should be careful when I call something antiquated because it might make someone feel really old) Anyway, I began my task. Huh, my arms were still sore from playing sports--man, this vacuum cleaner is heavy! I tackled the machine with a weak vigor (if that makes sense), practically using my whole body to propel it forward, marvelling at how very awful it must have been for everyone to use such vacuum cleaners all the time. I must just be extremely wimpy. . . no matter, it really wasn't so bad when you got used to it. Hence I finished the library, and then the parlor. As I completed this last room, Vanlora came over and asked me if the vacuum cleaner was working. Yes, it was working fine but it was just kind of heavy, was my cheerful enough reply. She looked at the vacuum cleaner and flipped a switch.

"Um, you had it in neutral. That should be easier now."

"You had it in neutral, Kayla?" Bria cried with a tone of great distress and sympathy. "I'm so sorry!" Sheepish, I laughed and said that I guess I didn't listen to her instructions well enough. You see she told me about having to take it out of neutral and putting it in drive, but it didn't really occur to me that it would be in neutral to begin with (um) and of course my ignorance caused me to labor away unnecessarily. I then proceeded to vacuum the front hall, and couldn't believe how light the vacuum felt! As Peter Pan would say, "Ah, the cleverness of me!"