900m to the Sea; 40,000m to the Ocean

Last Sunday at my church, we commissioned two missions teams - one to Poland and one to Romania. It reminded me of my own mission trip to Poland three years ago. Though it might sound cliche, going on a mission truly is a life-changing event. Mine was no exception. I have so many wonderful memories from our trip. When my team arrived back home, the church asked if someone would write an article for our monthly bulletin - I gladly obliged. The following is the article I submitted for our church, titled "900m to the Sea; 40,000m to the Ocean": 

On July 21^st, 2010, St. John’s Lutheran Church waved the F.I.S.H. mission team farewell as they boarded a plane for Poland – excited, nervous, and eager. On August 3^rd, we touched back down on American soil as 5 very exhausted, touched, and changed women.

Teaching a week long English-Bible Camp to 30 children was both everything we expected it to be and full of surprises. Here are 7 of the most important things we learned during our trip:

1. When the mission training manual tells you to start getting in shape early, they mean it.

People in Poland like to walk. A lot. On your feet 6 hrs a day during camp? That doesn’t stop them. They’re ready for a stroll through town afterwards, a walk through the sand dunes later that afternoon, and a relaxing hike through the woods before dinner to round out the evening.

We learned this lesson right off the bat during our first evening in Slupsk. We headed out with the Pastor and his wife (9 months pregnant, mind you!) for what he promised to be a quick 900 meter jaunt through the woods to see the Baltic Sea. Two hours later, sweaty and exhausted, we reached our goal. We refused to believe we were looking at the Sea, insisting we had walked at least 40,000 meters and were now looking at the Atlantic Ocean instead.

By the end of our trip, we were all jokingly accusing our Pastor of trying to kill us. This apparently tickled him pink, since he shared his new nickname with the congregation during the following Sunday’s sermon. He still lovingly signs his emails to us as “the Killer Pastor from the ‘Ocean’”.

2. Familiarize yourself with the teaching environment (and always look where you’re going!)

Ahh, the first day of camp! Nerves are heightened, impressions are being made. After instructing one of our leaders to take the children to their classroom, we stepped into the hallway to see her holding open a door and ushering them inside. The obedient children quietly shuffled in and turned, waiting patiently for further instruction. It wasn’t until this moment that our bold leader finally turned around and walked in after them, only to suddenly realize…she had just led all of the confused children into the bathroom. Needless to say, she was teased mercilessly for the duration of the trip. 

3. God reveals Himself through the hearts of small children.

When the first day of camp was through, and we released the kids to go, Gregorz was lagging behind the others. He gathered his things, and started to leave, but then stopped at the front of the room, where the words we learned that day were still written on the blackboard. He dropped his things, walked over to the footstool, and dragged it back over to the board. Watching him, one could only imagine what he was doing. Climbing the stool, he reached up to where the word “Christmas” was written, and then, glancing over to see if he was still being watched, slowly circled the portion of the word spelling “Christ”. Climbing back down the stool and replacing the chalk, he gathered his things and, to our astonishment, walked out the door without a word.

Maciek was 8, but he was so tiny he looked about 5. When he smiled, his entire face would light up. We conspired often about how we could possibly smuggle him home with us in our suitcases. The day we learned about Zacchaeus and his promise to change his life, you could see the little cogs turning in Maciek’s head as we tried to explain what it meant for someone to “change”. After some silent thought from the class, he finally piped up and asked a question in Polish. Pastor, who happened to be in the room, looked up and said, “Maciek wants to know what we can do to change our lives”.

Are any further words needed?

4. Missions are about relationships.

If you ask us a few months from now, what bible verses we had the kids memorize, or what vocabulary words we taught them, we probably won’t be able to tell you. What we will remember however, is the way little Maciek’s eyes grew into saucers when he watched us perform the “miracle” of turning water into wine. Or when beautiful Kasia refused to let go during a tearful goodbye embrace. Or how sweet Karina finally allowed herself to open up and professed her love for us on the last day of camp. Or when our translator Dagmara said that us being there was good for her faith too, because she could see how on fire we all were. Or…well, you get the picture.

The ministry of a one-week mission is temporary. The ministries we’ll maintain through the relationships we built are eternal.

5. Heaven must be a very, very large place.

Worshipping with other believers in another country has got to be one of the coolest things that exist. There is nothing quite like hearing the Lord’s Prayer or the Apostle’s Creed recited in another language. Or singing “Amazing Grace” together but in two different languages.

On our last Sunday, we realized we had no less than 5 nations represented within the parish that day: Polish, American, German, Dutch, and Russian. The Pastor asked one from each to come forward, and as we listened to a prayer in 5 different languages, tears fell as God blessed us with a precious glimpse of what heaven will be like someday. It’s easy to forget it won’t just be little ol’ St. John’s from Bakersfield, CA up there. Someday we will all be together – every nation, every tribe – worshipping together. It was enough to give us goosebumps.

6. Your prayers matter.

It would be an understatement to say that this trip was blessed. From the time the team was put together, from the time we did our return debriefing, God had a hand on this mission. Everything ran smoothly, there were no catastrophes or crises. We were comfortable, safe, and forced to stuff ourselves silly with bread, sausage, potatoes, and dumplings for sustenance (horrors!). Satan was unsuccessful at causing conflict or dissention amongst us 5 team members.

I cannot promise any other mission would be the same, but for some reason, God decided to take good care of us on this trip. We attribute this mainly to one thing – the prayers of our friends, family, and Church body. We cannot thank God enough for the love and support we received. Please know your prayers were necessary, invaluable, and appreciated.

7. It’s worth it. 

All joking and fun stories aside, this mission was tremendously impactful. Yes, we did what we came for and the kids learned some English and read some Bible Stories. But what happened in the hearts and souls of everyone we met along the journey is what matters the most. Relationships were made. Discipleship was present. Revival occurred. And changed lives and attitudes resulted. Some people might think that the results of a short-term mission trip are tough to quantify, but you do not need to reap an entire harvest to call your trip successful. Sometimes most of the work is in simply preparing the field and planting a seed. The five of us saw and felt enough to know that God was unequivocally present and working in us all the entire time, and that is a satisfying thought indeed.

Watch a photo compilation from our trip!

Revenge of the Demon Locust

I am not a fan of bugs. Especially if they have wings. I would have to say my least favorite of all insects are of the 8-legged variety, but I loathe all types in general. I think my innate fear of them amuses God however, so He tends to put me in certain circumstances for His own personal enjoyment. For instance, I seem to find the freakiest of all spiders in my backyard - Wolf spiders, Tiger spiders, Jumping spiders, Black Widows. Disgusting. I swear you could even probably discover a new species back there. Although, to be honest, I can't really blame God for that - this is probably my own fault, seeing as how my backyard currently looks like an overgrown weed jungle. At night especially, when all the bugs are drawn to my porch light, it's an adventure merely to take the dog out to pee. Every time I open the door, I have to poke my head out first and look around to make sure nothing is in the immediate area that can jump or land on me, before daring to set one toe outside. And even then, I won't venture off the concrete safety of my porch. Every time, I feel like I'm in that scene from the Temple of Doom where they have to walk through the cave with all the bugs…*shiver*. Yuck. Anyway, I think you're getting my point, so back to the original story. 

A couple of years ago, I discovered a delightful new creature around my home - I don't know exactly what they are, but I refer to them as "demon locusts". Seriously, they look like they're straight out of the book of Exodus. They are about 5-6 inches long (NO, I'm not exaggerating), with big eyes and antenna, wings, and look like a mix between a grasshopper and a snarling dragon. I discovered them in my backyard first, through rather unpleasant means. They tend to blend in with the ground fairly well (WHY does God do that? I want to be able to see these things so that I can avoid them…not being able to, and never knowing where they might be lurking = not ok), so as I was walking outside and got close to one without realizing it, it jumped/flew in the air. And here's the thing about the way they move - they don't exactly jump or fly, it's like a weird combination of the two. They HOVER. At exactly my eye height. They seem to aim straight for the head. Once I became aware of their existence, I started to keep an eye out. 

One summer evening, as I was driving home from work, I noticed a large dark spot in the middle of my driveway as I approached the house. Not being close enough to tell what it was yet, I opened my garage door and started to drive up - and that's when the dark spot moved. One of the demon locusts, apparently using my driveway as a tanning bed, was now hopping directly into my garage. Great. I pulled up and parked, and got out of my car tentatively, not being sure where the thing was lurking. Then I saw it - right in front of the door to my house, where I needed to get through. Well, this posed a serious problem. I thought maybe if I slowly moved towards it, it would jump away. I tried - it did its strange hover/jump right towards my face and I dropped my purse and ran away screaming. Pathetic, I know. Now I was pissed. This thing was keeping me from getting into my own home. This was unacceptable. I looked around the garage for reinforcements, but all I could find was a stiff bristled broom. This was convenient because it gave me at least a 4 foot reach so I wouldn't have to get too close to the thing. I poked the broom at the beast, and as it started to jump, I swatted at it in hopes I could hit it on the other side of the garage and make a quick dash into the house. This did not work either. I was seriously underestimating the persistence of this creature to impede my efforts to get into the house. 

No longer having any sympathy, I started smashing the locust with the broom, flailing and shrieking the whole time. Now agitated, the beast kept flying at me and I ended up dropping the broom and running away several times. I'm sure my neighbors across the street were having a good laugh at my expense, watching me fight some invisible creature trying to get into my own home. After several attempts to strike the beast, I was finally successful in hitting it across the garage, where it landed amongst piles of boxes and I could no longer see it. However, I could hear it flying around and bumping into things. There was no way I would be able to catch it, and I certainly had no care to - I took my opportunity to run in the house. If I wanted the thing dead, there was only one thing left to do - call for backup. 

Once inside, I called my friend Ryan. My first reason for calling him was that he only lived around the corner. My second reason was Ryan has a tender love and affinity for all weapons, and contains a whole arsenal of swords, maces, hammers, etc, in his home. And looks for every opportunity to use them. I knew he would be up for the job. 5 minutes later, Ryan walks up to my garage door and knocks. I refused to stick my head out, and would only speak to him from the other side of the door. After hearing my description of the monster and its approximate location, he began the hunt. 

After a few minutes, I heard a yell and the words "I found it - holy $&#% this thing is HUGE!" I then heard what I can only imagine was an epic battle - loud crashes, cursing, death threats, and other mayhem. Finally - silence. It was over. I couldn't have been more relieved - I knew if we didn't find the thing and kill it, I would forget it was in there and the next time I tried to leave, it would attack me. Thanking Ryan for his chivalrous act of bravery and rescue, I went to bed with a worry-free conscience that night. But the story doesn't end here. 

The next day, after confidently exiting my garage, I had no more thoughts of evil insect creatures until I was driving back home from work once more. I was coming near to my house, feeling wonderful, with the radio playing, the sun shining…and my windows down. I suddenly had a thought - what if there were more, and they were in my driveway again? What if one jumped towards me as I drove up? WHAT IF one of them accidentally jumped right into my window and into the car? Oh, but that would be so crazy - that could never happen. I had a good laugh at my over-active and paranoid imagination, ho ho. In what world would that actually ever happen. Still, maybe I should roll up the windows, just in case. 

In the 5 seconds it took my brain to travel through this thought process, I had already started to roll up into my driveway, and before I could even prepare myself, I KID YOU NOT - a demon locust JUMPED THROUGH THE WINDOW OF MY CAR AND ONTO MY FACE. I also swear I thought I heard a screechy voice shout "for my brotheeeeeer!" as he jumped in the car. And he might have been holding a tiny silver sword. Anyway, I'm not sure exactly what happened next, because I was in a blind state of panic. All I know is, I was lucky I didn't crash my car right into the garage. My hands were off the wheel, I was flailing my arms about screaming "get it off get it off" and slapping my own face, and in the midst of all the chaos, I'm not sure where the locust ended up. I think at some point, by some stroke of luck, I was able to hit it out of the car, and hopefully ran it over. Once the car was in park and I was able to throw open my door, I catapulted myself out of the vehicle and proceeded to do one of those full body shakes, where you're spinning around smacking at your body and flinging your hair around in case it was stuck there. Screaming and crying the whole time as if someone were trying to murder me. I could not believe it - one of the damn things came back to exact vengeance on me for killing their comrade. And I wasn't even the one who killed it! As soon as I got in the house, I called Ryan to tell him the unbelievable story, and to pass on a warning -surely they would be coming for him, too. 

Fast forward to one year later. I have given no thought to the demons since, and thankfully they have left me alone. So imagine my surprise when I get this phone call yesterday afternoon while at work: 

Ryan: hey, it's Ryan

Me: hey, what's up?

Ryan: I have to tell you something, and I don't know if you're going to laugh or throw up 

Me: (nervous) ummm…..ok? 

Ryan: last night I was hanging out and heard someone knocking on the door, except it wasn't a normal knock. It had a sporadic rhythm. I didn't go to answer it right away, and eventually it stopped. A couple minutes later, the knocking was back. Getting irritated, I finally went over to the door, and flung it open, ready to punch whoever was standing there - 

Me: (interrupting) you didn't look through the window first to see who was there? It could have been an ax-murderer!

Ryan: I was so irritated by the knocking, I was ready for whatever was on the other side of the door. At least I thought I was. Until, I opened the door and ONE OF THOSE DEMON LOCUSTS FLEW RIGHT INTO MY FACE 

Me: *stunned silence for a few minutes* WHAT?! You're joking! So what was the knocking sound?

Ryan: it was the damn thing flying into my door! That's how big it was, it actually made an audible sound loud enough that I thought someone was knocking on the door 

Me: I TOLD YOU THEY WOULD COME FOR YOU SOME DAY! 

He was right. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or throw up. I did have a fit of shaky giggles for a while, thinking about how the fiend actually knocked on his door like a creepy psycho locust-stalker, out to exact vengeance on his victim by instilling it with as much fear as possible first. Ryan then finished telling me his story about the 20-minute ordeal that ensued after he got the thing off his face and it flew into his home. After several attempts to slay the beast and failing (the things are invincible, i'm telling you) he was finally able to trap the thing under a container. Convinced the evil spawn now must suffer a horrible, slow, painful, end, he decided to leave it there and let it suffocate to death. In a wild moment of foolishness, I experienced a wave of mercy for the creature dying in this manner, to which Ryan responded "Stephanie. The thing had to die. It was ON MY FACE." Ok, I guess he was right. 

And that, boys and girls, is the story of how a demon locust plotted his revenge for a whole year before sneakily trying to get us back for murdering two of his brothers. I swear they must give a description of their attackers to the rest of the colony. Be warned - think carefully before you attempt to kill one yourself. A demon locust never forgets. And they will come back for you, too. 

*Update* I googled "demon locust". Surprisingly, there were some pretty decent images available. Clearly I'm not the only one who's had this experience with them. I think this is my favorite: 

Looks accurate to me. 

However, this might be a more realistic representation: 

Now just imagine that sucker the length of your hand...

#3 - The Lint Trap

Most of the time, I feel pretty accomplished for my age. Several years back, when I was just 24, I was already living on my own, working a great full time job, supporting myself completely. I rented a nice little house, I had a dog, I managed to keep myself fed, and I could do my own laundry. I was set. Something to be proud of! 

Actually I’ve always found the jokes about boys finally learning how to do their own laundry pretty funny – I grew up doing laundry as a kid, so I can’t imagine never knowing how to do it yourself. However, it’s rather amazing how possible it is to forget certain details about tasks you’ve been doing your whole life. I learned that the year my dryer stopped working. Well, it ran – but it didn’t dry my clothes. And I may have fit enough criteria to be considered a mature adult contributing to society, but I am not a mechanic by any means and have no idea how to trouble-shoot fixing an appliance. So I just went without it for a while. 

This wasn’t a huge problem for me, because I don’t do laundry that often. The reason for that is my borderline obsessive addiction to clothes shopping, which would require a whole other post to delve into. The point is, I had so much clothing (including underwear!) I could go for quite a while without having to do laundry. But eventually the not being able to dry my clothes became enough of a nuisance to me that I wanted to do something about it. 

I had several of my guy friends come check it out. No one could find anything out of order. One friend even climbed my roof while I was running the dryer, to see if he could feel the air blowing through the duct up there. When no one found a solution, I turned to good ol’ Dad. What are dads for, if not helping their single daughter with their domestic household problems? Still no answers. Finally, I brought my dryer woes to my Tuesday night Bible Study group. As I was relaying the story to our leader, George (he does seem to catch me at some of my worst moments, doesn’t he?) he started peppering me with questions:

George: “did you check the air duct for clogs?”

Me: “yes.”

George: “what about the heating device?”

Me: “yep.”

George: “and the motor still runs?”

Me: “yes.”

George: “have you checked the lint trap?”

Me: “………………………….lint trap?”

George: *facepalm*

And that was how we discovered that even though I had been doing laundry my whole life at my parents house, for some reason I had forgotten that I needed to empty the lint trap on my own dryer. So I never had. Since I had bought the dryer. Ever. 

The best moment was when I had to remind George how long I had been living there and using the dryer. When I told him it was a little over 2 years, he nearly flipped his lid. I had to hear several lectures about how I could have burned the house down (please…like I haven’t had to deal with THAT fear before). 

When I got home to finally address the issue, I have to admit I was a little frightened at what would happen when I opened the lint trap. Was it so full it would all come exploding out at high rates of speed? Would I just find a burned up charcoaled wad of lint? Well, it wasn’t either of those. Actually it wasn’t even that bad. But it did take a couple tools to scrape out the ridiculous amount of lint that was packed in there. 

Come to think of it, I should have saved it, it would have made a lovely sweater. If only I knew how to knit...

#2 Blonde Moment

#1 Blonde Moment

#2 - The Gas Tank

I have an unfortunate habit of making a fool of myself whenever I’m trying to make a good first impression on someone. Especially if that someone is of the male persuasion. 

Several years ago, there was a handsome fellow from work that I had taken an interest in (let’s call him “Ralph” although names have been changed to protect the innocent :)), and by some turn of good fortune, we had quickly gotten to know each other better over a weekend of hanging out with mutual friends. At some point during our acquaintance, we had discovered we were both taking a trip down to the LA area the following weekend, and had casually discussed car-pooling together. When fate intervened and Ralph’s car conveniently broke down the next morning, our casual idea turned into concrete plans. 

Now that I was fully nervous about car-pooling down to LA with a boy for the weekend, I had some thinking to do. My car at the time had proven to be rather unreliable, so my best friend, being the amazing person she is, offered to let me borrow her Toyota Avalon for the weekend. I was all over this idea, since her car was far more slick than my own. All leather black interior? Don’t mind if I do. I set off for my weekend adventure with Ralph in confidence.

Without going on too many tangents, let me just suffice it to say, the weekend turned out to be a comedy of errors. Shortly after arriving in Hollywood, we were to meet up with Ralph’s friend for lunch, and since I was driving my friend’s car, I was taking extra care with it. I was having trouble parking at our lunch destination – if you’ve ever driven in West Hollywood, you’ll understand my plight. After 20 minutes of both boys standing outside the car trying to guide me into the spot, I gave up and let Ralph do it, which he managed to somehow accomplish in less than one move, or something ridiculous like that. 

Then it turned out the event I was down there for was actually on Sunday, not Saturday, so now I had clearly proven I was a  scatterbrained girl who can’t keep her calendar straight AND can’t drive. 

The coup-de-gras was the day we left. After a weekend of feeling completely self-defeated by my own folly, I was just looking forward to getting out of there. It was clear any chance I had of giving this guy the impression I was a completely put-together, mature, capable young woman, had flown out the window. We just had one last stop before we could hit the highway – the gas station. 

Ralph offered to get us some snacks while I filled up. I immediately noticed something was wrong because the nozzle didn’t seem to fit in the tank opening. Now some of you may already know exactly where this story is headed, but I promise you, I was still completely oblivious at this point. I thought maybe the tank in her car was different, or perhaps the nozzles at this station were different (yes, I ACTUALLY thought that). So I held the nozzle up against the opening to the tank and filled ‘er up. 

Just as I was finishing, Ralph came out and offered to drive home, so he slid behind the wheel. We got about 5 feet from the gas station driveway before the car died. Now panic was filling my chest because I didn’t want anything to happen to my friend’s car. Ralph was running through the usual checklist of what might be wrong, and he finally looked at me, with what might have been pity in his eyes, and asked “Steph…you didn’t….you didn’t fill the tank with diesel fuel…did you?!” I kid you not, my exact words, full of indignation, were “I’m not that stupid!” Ralph clearly had already learned better at this point, and asked to see my receipt. I pulled it out and together we leaned it to get the verdict. There it was, in bold print – the word practically jumping off the page, laughing in my face – “Diesel”. *sigh* there was nothing I could say to come back from this one. 

Ralph was mercifully kind about the whole thing. We had to call a tow truck to haul the car to a local dealership, and find a rental car to get us home. One more weekend and 700$ later, my friend’s tank was cleaned and we had to drive back down to Hollywood to pick it up. That was one expensive lesson. 

In my defense, it was one of the most confusing gas stations I have ever visited. After this incident, I obviously did some research to prevent further accidents, and learned that most diesel nozzles have green handles and are located on the far side of the pump, away from the regular three. Neither scenario was true for this particular station. That’s what I remind myself of, anyway, to make myself feel better. 

Oh, and this may surprise you, but things between Ralph and I…well, they never worked out. I heard he’s married now. That could have been me. And it’s all the gas station’s fault…..perhaps it’s a conspiracy, to keep me single forever. Another theory to add to my list…

#3 Blonde Moment
#1 Blonde Moment

I'm not really a natural blonde, I swear!

My last few posts have all been a little serious…so I decided I needed to lighten the mood in here. If you know me well, you’ve probably heard me reference my “top list of blonde moments” a few times. I feel one of the best ways to avoid personal humiliation via public mockery is to expose your most embarrassing moments yourself. So here they are, over the next 3 days – the top 3 Stephanie Blonde Moments:

#1 – The Pumpkin

I’m really not good at moving. I blame being in a military family. It wasn’t until our last move, after my Army dad retired, that I realized normal people actually have to wrap and box up all of their own belongings themselves. So, as a result, when I had to move out of my first rental home and asked for my friends help, I was not fully prepared the morning of moving day. If you ask my friends, they’ll say that’s the understatement of the century – almost nothing was in boxes and there were still items in every room. Needless to say, they were a bit disgruntled with me when they showed up and saw the work still needing to be done. However, being the awesome friends they are, we all got to work packing things up. 

As I worked on cleaning out my refrigerator, I heard some rather disturbed screeching coming from my laundry room. Amongst the garbled words, I heard the phrase “what IS that??” Knowing my past history with hoarding (that's a story for another time), the yelling set off an alarm in my head and struck fear in my heart. What had they found exactly? I started flipping through the catalogue of my brain to try and quickly assess what item I had shoved up there and forgotten about – and that’s when I heard someone yell “wait a minute….is that….IT’S STILL IN HERE?!” – and that’s when it hit me. With those words, I knew exactly what they had discovered. 

I hurried to the laundry room, where George – my older, wiser, much respected Bible Study leader and youth pastor at our church – was clearing out the cabinets above the washer and dryer. That truly is such an inconvenient space for short people – so hard to reach. It’s where you store uncommon items that you don’t need constant access to – things like old dingy beach towels or potpourri baskets you received in a white elephant gift exchange. They might also hold random holiday decorations. For example, the LIVING pumpkin I had bought at the grocery store the previous year for Halloween. 

Let me interject here to provide some small explanation in my own defense – when I bought the pumpkin, I intended to use it for decoration purposes, but for some reason, in my own mind, I thought that if you didn’t cut it open, it wouldn’t rot. So, naturally, it would be perfectly acceptable to store it up in the cabinet for use in future Halloween festivities. Ok, feel free to let the utter ridiculousness of that thought marinate, and then revel in my utter stupidity for a moment. Now let’s move on. 

As I walked into the laundry room, I looked up into the offending cabinet, and there it was – a large, white, fuzzy mound in the corner. It was covered with so much mold, you couldn’t quite tell what the original shape of the object was. Now, we haven’t even gotten to the worst part of the story yet. The worst part of all of this is, I already knew what to expect when I walked into that laundry room, because this wasn’t the first time I had discovered the moldy gourd. 

Several months prior to moving day, I had stumbled upon it myself during my regular cleaning process. That time, it took me quite a while to figure out what it was, since I was too afraid to even get close to it for a better look. Once I remembered what it was, I understood with great horror, what a terrible mistake I had made. Too disgusted to even deal with it at the time, I chose to pretend I had seen nothing and simply closed the cabinet and quickly walked away. On a side note, I learned that’s a great way to handle your problems – just pretend they don’t exist. That really helps solve them. 

A couple weeks went by, and AGAIN by accident I discovered the moldy art form growing in the cabinet. It shocked me just as much the second time. Yet again, I chose not to confront the situation and ignored it completely. At the following Tuesday bible study, I decided to poke fun at myself and regale the story of finding the hideous pumpkin with the other members of my small group. As usual, they were fully entertained by the tales of my madcap shenanigans, and we all laughed marvelously at how silly I am. Unfortunately, in that moment on moving day, standing in front of that same cabinet, George was no longer laughing. Our conversation went something like this:

George: “is this the pumpkin you were telling us about months ago?!”

Me: “ummm…..yes?”

George: “you mean after you found it the first time, you didn’t clean it up?!”

Me: “well…..no. obviously.” 

George: “WHY NOT?!”

Me: “ew, are you kidding?! It’s disgusting! I wasn’t about to touch that.”

George: *facepalm*

At that point, the rubber gloves and roll of paper towels was handed to me, and everyone cleared out of the room so fast you would have thought a countdown for total annihilation of the building had just commenced. Now it was time to pay seriously for my poorly chosen act of procrastination. The longer the pumpkin had sat in the cabinet, the more time it had to…deteriorate. The moment I tried to lift it onto the pile of newspaper I laid down (that poor Bakersfield Californian never knew what hit it), it fell to pieces in my hands. 

I won’t torture you with further details of the cleanup. Needless to say, I had to face further inquiry afterwards as to why on earth I had decided to leave the mess after finding it the first time, and have been teased mercilessly about it ever since. Still to this day, the topic of pumpkins in general cannot be brought up without some form of taunting directed my way. I only have myself to blame.

#2 Blonde Moment
#3 Blonde Moment