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Humiliation - The Gift That Just Keeps On Giving


It's the holidays.  And you know what that means?  Family time!  Otherwise known in my family as the time we remember, recount, and reenact one another's mistakes, misfortunes, and misadventures.

Sounds mean-spirited, doesn't it?  Well, maybe it is.  But it's also... wait for it... HILARIOUS.  We're talking roll-on-the-floor, hold-your-belly-and-wipe-away-tears funny.  And, yeah, so perhaps that means I come from a brood of sadists.  But I can assure you, it's an atmosphere of equal opportunity heckling where only the strongest survive, and since we're all still alive and kicking, I like to think the good-natured ribbing isn't so much sadism as it is well-intentioned strengthening of character.  After all, if you can't laugh at yourself...
Like the time my father was riding his lawn tractor down a treacherously steep hill when the brakes failed.  He bailed out at about 25mph, and the dismount?  Flawless.  His legs were straight.  His toes were pointed.  His wispy, I-refuse-to-admit-I'm-going-bald-so-I-keep-my-hair-unnaturally-long locks were flowing in the wind.  It was middle-aged art in flight.  And the judges - me and my three sisters - gave him perfect tens across the board.  After we finally stopped laughing, that is. (Don't worry.  He survived with only bumps and bruises.  The lawn tractor, however, wasn't so lucky.  When it came to the tensile strength between its frame and a very large oak tree, the tree won.)
Imagine this tilted about 45 degrees... Priceless!

Or the time my sister was taking her kids trick-or-treating and the stuffed scarecrow sitting on the neighbor's porch suddenly stood up and grabbed her wrist.  She screamed, shoved her darling children into the scarecrow's arms, and hurtled the hedgerow AND the fence.  Which, to this day, she maintains was a life lesson to her children that it's a dog-eat-dog world and it's every woman for herself.  (Her kids aren't buying it, by the way.  And they maintain they were all switched at birth, and their real mother is a kind, caring woman who doesn't sacrifice her children to monsters, ghouls, ghosts, and the like.)
Believe me, this would scare the bejeezus out of me, too, if it  were to suddenly come to life!

And last but certainly not the least, was the time my husband and I were out fishing and he snagged the biggest catch of his life.  Namely... ME!  On a backward cast, he inadvertently caught my nose - in his defense I do have quite a schnozzle on me - and sank one prong of a treble hook straight through my nostril.  Now, any sane person would head straight for the emergency room.  But the fish were biting. (If there are any anglers reading this, they'll totally understand.)  So, with a snip of the line, I had myself a very fancy, very jingly nose ornament for the next hour or so... which my husband assures me was tres chic. (I'm pretty positive I don't trust his judgment on this point but, THANKFULLY, there's no photographic evidence to prove him wrong.)
Now envision, if you will, this dangling from my nose.  Oh, so sexy!

So, from my family to yours, happy holidays.  May your time with loved ones be filled with good food, good times and, most of all, good laughs.



All photos used in the this post I either own outright or purchased the right to use them thru Photobucket.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julie Ann Walker is the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author of the Black Knights Inc. romantic suspense series. She is prone to spouting movie quotes and song lyrics. She'll never say no to sharing a glass of wine or going for a long walk. She prefers impromptu travel over the scheduled kind, and she takes her coffee with milk. You can find her on her bicycle along the lake shore in Chicago or blasting away at her keyboard, trying to wrangle her capricious imagination into submission. Look for the first three books in her fast-paced series: Hell On Wheels (August 2012) In Rides Trouble (September 2012) and Rev It Up (October 2012). For more information, please visit www.julieannwalker.com or follow her on Facebook www.facebook.com/jawalkerauthor and/or Twitter @JAWalkerAuthor.

Comments

  1. Too funny, Julie! My family was the same way. In Savage Hunger, Maya talks about her brother's unheroic behavior when the snapping turtle in their lake bit her big toe and he was out of the water first. It's actually a true story about my father who abandoned my mother, sister and me to escape whatever my mother was screaming about that had grabbed her. LOL

    Every man, woman, and child for himself. :) Yet, when a chimpanzee grabbed my arm at a petting zoo, my dad was ready to break his arm. He always teased the chimp liked me because I was a blonde.

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  2. What fun your post is this Monday morning!
    We should all write down those stories! Thanks for sharing...I could picture every one of them in my head!

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  3. Thanks for reading, ladies! @Terry Spear, you know what they say about men/apes and blondes, right? LOL!

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  4. Those stories remind me of one of my dad's adventures.

    He was helping me move and we were all sleeping in the living room. At the time, I lived in a very wooded and secluded area.

    The wind blew the back door open. My dad sits up straight, gasps, grabs my shoulder and says, "OMG! It's a bear!"

    Mind you, he grabs ME to defend him in the middle of the night. lol We still don't let him live that one down.

    Great post.

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  5. Great post, but you really should've gotten a picture with that fishing lure in your nose. LOL! Talk about a photo op...

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  6. @Victoria Roberts, woe to any man who fathers a daughter. She never expects him to be human. Just think how my poor father feels, he had 4 daughters. And we ALL have stories... LOL!

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  7. @Cheryl Brooks, if my husband had moved one inch toward his cell phone in order to snap a picture, he'd have been singing soprano for a month. I think he understood this, which is why there's no photographic evidence. LOL!

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  8. Thank you ladies for all the stories! I needed the laugh!

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