Hero Jenkins's Blog, page 3

Assumptions and Prejudice

by Hero Jenkins

Nothing in life is black and white;  we just prefer to think of it that way. 
Nothing is what it seems at first glance;  still we make assumptions based on prejudices and limited understanding. 
But assumptions are just shortcuts for the lazy, prejudice a crutch for the fool.  And believing in a black and white world is what makes life bearable for the timid.
--- Excerpt from the never to be published memoirs of William Compton.
This quote is from my upcoming book "A Storm in Memphis".
I created this quote in the character Will Compton's voice because it fit with what he was going through at the time. That is one of the unique things about writing, sometimes you can loose yourself and slip into the character and view their world through their eyes.
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A Storm in Memphis (Book Trailer)

Tattoos and Piercings

by Hero Jenkins
"Voluntary" tattoos used to be limited to sailors and convicts - where men were confined to small spaces for long periods of time. And if you saw a tattoo you were usually dealing with one or the other.
I am not a big fan of tattoos; I don’t think I ever will be. I "get" the concept of body art. And although I disagree, I understand the desire to decorate one’s body. What concerns me is the permanence of it. 
Other than my wife (and sometimes my kids) I can’t think of anything I can honestly say I'd want to have forever.
We disco danced in platform shoes and wore dashikis and pants so tight they cut off the circulation… everywhere. We put caustic chemicals in our hair to make Jheri curls. So I am in no position to look down my nose and point an accusing finger. But I didn’t do anything permanent and that’s the difference.
Can you imagine anything you did as a kid that you would want with you forever?
Here’s an example, where the names have been changed to protect the stupid. Romeo falls in love and gets “Juliette” tattooed on his neck. He later learns that he and Juliette can never be because not only do their parents hate each other but Juliette has always really loved Bill. Oops... Now what?!
I saw on TV where a football player had his name tattooed on his back exactly as it appeared on his jersey so people could tell who he was whether his shirt was on or off. 
Crazy... Right?
The current generation has also embraced plastic surgery and implants. I hear they have implants you can put in your abdomen to give yourself an instant six-pack. I wonder what happens when that flat six-pack belly turns into a keg. It’s going to look kind of funny to see a set of fully defined abs on a protruding beer belly.
I knew a guy who had a screw embedded in his skull with the threads pointing up. That way he could attach a spike to his head. I have no idea why. These are extreme cases, I know, and most of you won’t go this far (but some of you will)
I’m not a fan of howling in the wind so I will stop short of preaching. I am just an observer, documenting for future reference when someone looks back at this whole phenomenon and wonders if everybody was involved.
But I will leave you with this. We don’t yet know the long-term ramifications of body art. I have seen old sailors with their anchors resembling a pretzel on their sagging wrinkled skin. But these modern canvases? The jury is still out.

Saggy Pants and Low Cut Blouses (Part Two)

by Hero Jenkins
When my daughter was little we had this old rocking chair. She loved to crawl up into my lap and we would rock and talk for hours. Well... she talked and I listened. She was about five when she made me a “pinkie promise” that she would never grow up. One day, shortly after her twelfth birthday, I discovered she'd broken that promise when she let it slip that she thought Tom Cruise had a nice butt.
“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”“Seriously?”“That’s gross… wait a minute, why did you notice!?”“How could you not notice?”
Everything was downhill from there.
A few years later she got “bosoms” (I can’t bring myself to say the other word). She started going shopping with her friends and coming home with what I would call 'questionable choices' in clothing. I knew that I couldn’t control her impulse spending when she was out succumbing to peer pressure and buying inappropriate clothing with her  stupid  (I'm sorry, that was out of line) friends. So I decided not to fight the battle on THAT front. I simply told her: “Buy whatever you like, but if I don’t like it… I’m throwing it away.” So one day “now you see it” (she may even get away with wearing it)... but sooner or later it would simply disappear. "Now you don't."
A very wise man once said “trust but verify” and that’s what we did. Parents, you have no idea what your kids do when you're not around. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we did. We made no secret that we would be making surprise visits to their school. It was on a surprise visit when we spotted our middle son teetering atop the backboard above the rim of a schoolyard basketball court practicing jumping off and hanging onto the rim like basketball players did after a slam dunk (but that’s a story for another time.)
It was always a test of wills with my kids; my daughter was no exception. As I would find out later she was craftier than both of my sons put together... all wrapped up in an adorable little package. She started buying clothes that were layered… a cute, cover-everything jacket which hid the cover-almost-nothing blouse underneath. It would have worked too except for the fact that my wife and I were ninjas when it came to surprise visits to their schools. On one such visit I found my daughter minus the cover-everything jacket… surrounded by boys. Here’s where our accounts of “the incident” diverge. She swears that “the incident” wasn’t the way I describe it. First of all, her top was not “low cut” it was “form fitting”... and those boys were already her friends before she got her bosoms and started wearing skimpy tops.
Whatever. To me it looked like the scene in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” when Jessica Rabbit takes the stage.“Oh Dad, no!  Jessica Rabbit is not something I want to be associated with. Jessica Rabbit, Betty Boop and Lola Bunny are the three characters I never want to be compared to.”
Again... Whatever. I know what I saw.

Needless to say, the blouse (both halves) wound up in the garbage and money was wasted. Funny thing about growing up. Now that she is an adult and can dress any way she chooses, her choices are a lot more conservative. Go Figure.

Saggy Pants and Low Cut Blouses (Part One)

by Hero Jenkins

Cops were thrilled when the saggy pants style hit - though they won’t admit it. The reason being that some (and I want to stress SOME, not ALL) of those individuals choosing to make this fashion statement engaged in criminal activity. And since most of these people were considerably younger and faster than the aforementioned cops, their saggy pants leveled the playing field considerably. It's pretty hard to run at top speed while constantly pulling your pants up.
I didn’t get it. To me the saggy pants just looked stupid, like they'd pooped their drawers or something. Why someone would pull their pants down and expose their underpants to the world escaped me. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out how they stayed up at all. I asked my sons but they refused to tell me. I guess I was too old. Like... if you 'haftaask' you don’t need to know.
Now, I was not so old that I didn’t remember my teenage years. I wasn’t old enough to participate in the sixties, but the seventies… that was my era. Basketball players wore tighty-whitey style shorts and everyone had at least one pair of platform shoes. We wore medallions and headbands and danced on our skates. Our parents thought we were nuts. Our kids crack themselves up looking at photos of my wife and I when we were dating. We both had huge afros and wore hideous paisley shirts and bell-bottom pants. I had a couple of chest hairs and if you look closely at the photos you can see them because we didn’t really button our shirts in those days.
I understand that each generation has its style, but this saggy pants thing was different. The conventional wisdom at the time was that the style was designed to mimic prisoner attire, since baggy (as opposed to tight) fitting clothing is preferable in prison for obvious reasons. Then the hip-hop culture kicked in and adopted it... which lead to gangsta rap and everything that came after that. Times have changed and this kind of dress does not have the same stigma attached but at the time the style had “trouble” written all over it. My wife and I never liked the style - and we didn’t like the way law enforcement was reacting to kids who adopted the style. So when my SONS adopted it we decided to nip it in the bud.
At first, when they started strutting around the house with their “chones” (underpants) exposed I tried to reason with them. When that didn’t work I started strutting around the house with MY pants below my butt. It really grossed them out… I’m not sure why... but it did the trick. Alas, regulating their behavior at home was not enough. Sooner or later they would go out into the real world and it was a simple matter (once out of parental sight) to loosen their belts and drop their pants.
I soon grew weary of telling them to pull their pants up so I stopped. What I did next completely shocked them. I simply cut them up and threw them in the garbage.
***

Shark attack Maui

by Hero Jenkins
Ever watch a movie where there was a hideous monster on the rampage devouring or killing everyone it encountered. Ever watch the reaction of the movie people to the monster? For the sake of this post I am going to divide these people into two groups: the ones who get eaten and the ones who do not.
When the monster showed up most people would run away. The people who managed to get themselves eaten all had one thing in common. They would watch all of the freaked out people run by and then go in the opposite direction to see what all of the excitement was about.
In the neighborhood where I grew up we had a different kind of monster.  Gang members with guns. As a result in my neighborhood if someone started running, you would run too. You didn’t stop to find out why, you can find out why later, once the danger had passed.
I told you all of that to tell you this. My wife and I were snorkeling in Maui when a colorful fish darting amongst the rocks below caught my eye. I decided to point this fish out to my wife but she was nowhere to be found. I looked everywhere for her, I didn’t see her. Then I looked on the shore and I saw her standing there pointing past me, out to sea.
What the…
She was saying something, what was it?“SHARK!” I finally heard.“Shark?”I looked around and sure enough there was a dorsal fin, not more than ten feet away.
Now I have seen a bunch of survival shows and everybody knows that most shark attacks happen because the victims are splashing around and get themselves mistaken for seals or some other water creature. I knew exactly what to do; yet I didn’t do any of it. I freaked out and started swimming as fast as I could to shore.
By the time I dragged my tired body out of the water I was mad. How could she leave me out there with that shark?
“When you saw me take off, you should have taken off too,” she said defiantly. She was right, we had both grown up in the same neighborhood and yes that was the way things were done. But, here’s my point. She had to swim by me, all she had to do was tap me on the shoulder on her way by… that’s all! She could have warned me, but she didn’t. And to make matters worse, she was unapologetic. Neighborhood rules. Her job was to see the danger and take off… my job was to recognize it and follow.

So that was the time when I almost got eaten by a shark while swimming in Maui… well, actually it turned out to be a turtle, but it could have been a shark.

The Terror Dome

This is not my son's Terror Dome. This photo was found on
the internet to give you an idea of the size of the thing.by Hero Jenkins  There would always be a certain amount of excitement around our household whenever I managed to get time off work. It usually meant that my wife would take the opportunity to go and visit her mother and that I'd be staying home with the kids.
My job was crazy; there was a ton of overtime available. It didn’t take us long to realize that I could make more money working a few hours of overtime than she could make in an entire week. As a result, I worked long hours and she was usually stuck with the kids. She would look forward to when I could get time off. She would take one of her “mini vacations” as she called them... her “Mom’s getaway”.
Much to her annoyance the kids would be excited, not sad, when they learned that she'd be leaving (and she knew why). She knew that whenever she left me in charge, one of two things were about to happen. Either the kids and I would be doing something really crazy... or we would be buying toys… lots of toys.
This time, suitcase in hand, she turned and looked me straight in the eye and said, “don’t you dare spend money we don’t have on toys for these kids!”
“OK honey, no problem,” I said earnestly.
“I mean it, no toys!”
“OK, OK… got it! No toys!”
My kids must have been eavesdropping in the next room. They are usually noisy enough to wake the dead but at that moment I could have heard a pin drop. I don’t think they were even breathing!
She continued to stare me down, giving me her best evil eye. I knew she was serious; there was a huge vein popping out of her neck.'
“Honey, calm down or you’ll have a stroke.”
She cut her eyes to me. “No toys… I’m serious!”
I nodded. Then I saluted.
Bad move... now she was even more pissed!
She gave me the stink eye one last time for good measure and then turned and walked out to the car.
I was DETERMINED not to buy any toys. She would be so proud of me when she got back! What I didn’t know at the time, however, was that my sons had a secret weapon. A weapon so secret that I didn’t actually learn about it for twenty years! My sons called it "the pouty face" and they swore it never failed. More importantly, I was apparently unaware of the power it had over me... and that the one person who could deliver it with total effectiveness was my daughter.
They rushed to the window and watched their mom leave. When they'd given her enough time to get a sufficient distance away, those two little devils sent in their secret weapon: my daughter (armed with "the pouty face").
My daughter wanted a doll and a stroller; my boys wanted something they had been drooling over for months. Their favorite cartoon was GI Joe and within that show was the most awesome toy in the history of toys… the Cobra TERROR DOME!
Before long I found myself in the toy store face to face with the Terror Dome on display. It was huge - about the size of a beach ball. No way was I going to be able to hide that. I was toast... up "you know what" creek without a paddle and taking on water.
On one side I had the evil eye and on the other… pouty face. In the background I had two evil little masterminds who had orchestrated the whole thing. I was doomed.
On top of that the Terror Dome was crazy expensive. Great! I bought it with the credit card.
Well... when my wife finally returned home she was L-I-V-I-D… at first. The one thing that saved me was the fact that the boys were so happy. I went from zero to HERO because they would play with that thing for HOURS and my wife was thoroughly enjoying her extra moments of peace and quiet.
Then... fate dealt me a cruel blow.
Less than a week had passed when suddenly my wife noticed that my sons were no longer playing with their Terror Dome. What? I investigated and soon I knew why. On the cartoon, the forces of good had finally triumphed over the forces of evil and GI Joe had managed to DESTROY the Terror Dome. As a result, in their minds, there was no point in playing with it anymore because it no longer existed.
Seriously?!
That non-existent Terror Dome sat on our backyard patio for years just gathering dust. My wife forbade that it be thrown away. I think the neighbor's dog eventually ate it or something. To this day, the very mention of the phrase "Terror Dome" earns me a SERIOUS evil eye.

Go ahead, Cut School... It's Fine With Me!

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by Hero Jenkins
When our kids were promoted up from middle school to high school my wife and I knew tumultuous times lay ahead. We decided to do something  unconventional; we gave them permission to cut school whenever they liked.

The only stipulation was that they call me first.

Now that may seem counterintuitive at first but years of experience taught us that most of the time, if you were able to drill down to where it all started, even the worst offenders started cutting due to an inability to cope. The root cause could be as serious as bullies or as simple as having a thing for the little red-haired girl and not knowing how to process all the new feelings. Or... the problem could be an accumulation of stress and they simply needing a day off. I was amazed at how “fixable” a problem could be if it was caught early. But like a malignant tumor, if left to fester it would be much more traumatic to deal with at a later date.
I reasoned that by the time we become adults we simply trade our teenage problems for grown-up problems (and by comparison our teenage problems don’t seem so bad). What we forget is how BIG those teenage problems seem at the time. My solution: when school got to be too much and my kids were contemplating ditching, all they had to do was go to the office and tell whoever to “call my dad”. I told them I would come as soon as I could and I'd pull them out of school.
Naturally, my wife and I encouraged our kids to try and tough it out when things got rough and most of the time they did. But I think the knowledge that they had another option really helped.
The truth is, I was more concerned they would run into and end up hanging out with "Billy Badass" whose parents didn’t care if he went to school or not. Billy Badass is the kid who seems cool because he smokes cigarettes and cuts class so he can drink beer underneath the bleachers. So, when cutting school and hanging out with Billy Badass actually seems like a viable option… CALL ME.
I didn’t get "the call" very often, so when I did I knew it was something serious. We would talk, go see a movie, or get lunch. Sometimes we would just hang out at the arcade where we often ran into other kids who were ditching without their parents. The difference was we had money to actually play the games (something my kids noticed right away).
Now, some of you reading this will say "I don’t have the type of job where I can just take off at the drop of a hat", but I did... so I would. And some of you will say "I couldn’t do this because my kids would take advantage and call me just to avoid the test they didn't study for." Well... that was never my concern.
I understand that we need to teach our kids to tough things out. Life is hard and as adults we know how important it is to be able to "hang in there" and keep pushing until we make it through. We can’t just quit our jobs because of a setback; we can’t walk away from our family when things hit a rough patch. As responsible adults we need to teach our kids this too… but in stages - not at ALL COSTS. Sometimes the desire to teach them that lesson can backfire. Now be honest, how many of you have ever called in sick to work because you needed a “mental health” day?
I suspected my kids wouldn’t abuse this privilege and they didn't. And if they had I would have come up with something else. Everybody’s kids are different. The trick is to know your kids and then put yourself in their shoes. If you were them, going through what they are going through, what would you want your parents to do? Then take a step back and put your parenting hat back on. You need to try to come up with a solution that you as a kid would have wanted done and what you as a parent know needs to be done.
Somewhere in the middle is a solution that is as unique as you and your child.
So take a deep breath before you hit that comment button and tell me what a horrible parents we were. Withhold your judgment. It won’t do you any good because our kids are already grown and I couldn’t be happier with the way they turned out!

I've made a lot of mistakes in my parenting journey. I've done a few things that I'm not particularly proud of. But giving my kids the "option" of cutting school is NOT one of them.#af-form-1351771322 .af-body .af-textWrap{width:98%;display:block;float:none;} #af-form-1351771322 .af-body .privacyPolicy{color:#000000;font-size:11px;font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;} #af-form-1351771322 .af-body a{color:#880303;text-decoration:underline;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;} #af-form-1351771322 .af-body input.text, #af-form-1351771322 .af-body textarea{background-color:#FFFFFF;border-color:#919191;border-width:1px;border-style:solid;color:#000000;text-decoration:none;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:12px;font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;} #af-form-1351771322 .af-body input.text:focus, #af-form-1351771322 .af-body textarea:focus{background-color:#FFFAD6;border-color:#030303;border-width:1px;border-style:solid;} #af-form-1351771322 .af-body label.previewLabel{display:block;float:none;text-align:left;width:auto;color:#000000;text-decoration:none;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:12px;font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;} #af-form-1351771322 .af-body{padding-bottom:15px;padding-top:15px;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:inherit;background-image:none;color:#000000;font-size:11px;font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;} #af-form-1351771322 .af-footer{padding-bottom:20px;padding-top:20px;padding-right:75px;padding-left:10px;background-color:transparent;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:top right;background-image:url("http://forms.aweber.com/images/forms/..., sans-serif;} #af-form-1351771322 .af-header{padding-bottom:22px;padding-top:1px;padding-right:10px;padding-left:75px;background-color:transparent;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:inherit;background-image:url("http://forms.aweber.com/images/forms/..., sans-serif;} #af-form-1351771322 .af-quirksMode .bodyText{padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:2px;} #af-form-1351771322 .af-quirksMode{padding-right:10px;padding-left:10px;} #af-form-1351771322 .af-standards .af-element{padding-right:10px;padding-left:10px;} #af-form-1351771322 .bodyText p{margin:1em 0;} #af-form-1351771322 .buttonContainer input.submit{background-color:#c20606;background-image:url("http://forms.aweber.com/images/forms/..., sans-serif;} #af-form-1351771322 .buttonContainer input.submit{width:auto;} #af-form-1351771322 .buttonContainer{text-align:center;} #af-form-1351771322 body,#af-form-1351771322 dl,#af-form-1351771322 dt,#af-form-1351771322 dd,#af-form-1351771322 h1,#af-form-1351771322 h2,#af-form-1351771322 h3,#af-form-1351771322 h4,#af-form-1351771322 h5,#af-form-1351771322 h6,#af-form-1351771322 pre,#af-form-1351771322 code,#af-form-1351771322 fieldset,#af-form-1351771322 legend,#af-form-1351771322 blockquote,#af-form-1351771322 th,#af-form-1351771322 td{float:none;color:inherit;position:static;margin:0;padding:0;} #af-form-1351771322 button,#af-form-1351771322 input,#af-form-1351771322 submit,#af-form-1351771322 textarea,#af-form-1351771322 select,#af-form-1351771322 label,#af-form-1351771322 optgroup,#af-form-1351771322 option{float:none;position:static;margin:0;} #af-form-1351771322 div{margin:0;} #af-form-1351771322 fieldset{border:0;} #af-form-1351771322 form,#af-form-1351771322 textarea,.af-form-wrapper,.af-form-close-button,#af-form-1351771322 img{float:none;color:inherit;position:static;background-color:none;border:none;margin:0;padding:0;} #af-form-1351771322 input,#af-form-1351771322 button,#af-form-1351771322 textarea,#af-form-1351771322 select{font-size:100%;} #af-form-1351771322 p{color:inherit;} #af-form-1351771322 select,#af-form-1351771322 label,#af-form-1351771322 optgroup,#af-form-1351771322 option{padding:0;} #af-form-1351771322 table{border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:0;} #af-form-1351771322 ul,#af-form-1351771322 ol{list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;padding-left:40px;} #af-form-1351771322,#af-form-1351771322 .quirksMode{width:225px;} #af-form-1351771322.af-quirksMode{overflow-x:hidden;} #af-form-1351771322{background-color:#FFFFFF;border-color:transparent;border-width:1px;border-style:solid;} #af-form-1351771322{display:block;} #af-form-1351771322{overflow:hidden;} .af-body .af-textWrap{text-align:left;} .af-body input.image{border:none!important;} .af-body input.submit,.af-body input.image,.af-form .af-element input.button{float:none!important;} .af-body input.text{width:100%;float:none;padding:2px!important;} .af-body.af-standards input.submit{padding:4px 12px;} .af-clear{clear:both;} .af-element label{text-align:left;display:block;float:left;} .af-element{padding:5px 0;} .af-form-wrapper{text-indent:0;} .af-form{text-align:left;margin:auto;} .af-header,.af-footer{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;padding:10px;} .af-quirksMode .af-element{padding-left:0!important;padding-right:0!important;} .lbl-right .af-element label{text-align:right;} body { }
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A Storm in Memphis: Will Compton

by Hero Jenkins

The character Will Compton in my upcoming book "A Storm in Memphis" was quite a handfull as a child, so much so his parents avoided him. People who have read the book ask me if the behavior of my kids were any inspiration for his character. The answer is yes and no. The truth is, although my sons were quite a handfull, Will Compton's character is that times a thousand. I was able to tap into some of the anguish I felt at the time and multiply it, but my kids could have never reached the level as portrayed in the book.

The War to End All Wars

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The War to End All Wars by Hero Jenkins
It all started when my wife took our daughter with her on a trip to see her mother, leaving me to look after my sons and the sons of family friends. That was all it took. The complete absence of estrogen was, in my view, the main cause of the all out war that would soon erupt.
It was my wife’s fault of course - though she will never admit it. She should never have left town (and left me in charge). At the time, two of my friend’s teenaged sons were staying with us. Add me and my two sons and that's five guys. Alone. Folks, that is a lot of testosterone to leave unchecked by female intervention.
I had a rare three days off and I was determined to make it count. I began making plans the moment I learned of my wife’s trip. I quietly enlisted the help of my middle child because he was by far the most devious. By the time my wife left, my devious son and I had already taken a trip to Toys R Us to buy a "butt-load" of toy guns - the kind of guns that shot those little plastic disks about the size of a quarter. I wonder if they still make those. Anyway, we bought a bunch of them, a bunch of goggles to protect our eyes, and a TON of ammunition (believe me… there was a ridiculous amount of ammo available).
As soon as my wife left we were ready. I doubt her car made it out of the driveway before we got started. My first-born and my other two victims were oblivious to the destruction that was about to rain down upon them. We (my devious middle son and I) almost gave it away though we were giggling so much. I remember they (our victims, the enemy) were in the family room playing video games. The first inkling they had that something was about to go down was when I tossed a plastic bag filled with three guns, goggles and several boxes of disks on the floor in front of them. They looked up and saw my devious son and I already goggled up, weapons loaded.
It didn’t take long for them to figure it out and they began laughing and screaming and desperately ripping at the bag. They scrambled for cover... but it was too late. They hurled threats of dire consequences as they frantically loaded their weapons, but the threats didn’t stop us. We unleashed HADES and blasted them mercilessly (aiming for torsos and butts). By the time they got their goggles on and their ammo loaded we'd already emptied our weapons and retreated to the fortress we built earlier… unbeknownst to them.
My son and I had constructed our fortress using whatever was available. We built it with the family room couch we had overturned. Our opposition was left with the love seat, a couple of chairs and the pillows they'd stolen from our couch-fortress during a daring "midnightraid".
The battlefield was limited to the living room, the family room, and the kitchen. For the most part we stayed behind cover in our fortress, only venturing out to get more ammunition (which lay strewn around the room in abundance) or to attack when we knew they were low on ammo. The fighting was relentless and on more than one occasion degraded to hand to hand WWE style combat and tickling.
I ordered a bunch of pizzas each day and a truce had to be called when the delivery guy rang the doorbell. I made it absolutely clear… if anyone took a shot at me when I left cover to pay the pizza guy there would be NO PIZZA for them. They weren’t stupid. As soon as the pizza was paid for and divided up the war recommenced. You ate whenever and wherever you could. The war raged for three days with only periodic truces being called for bathroom breaks (or complete exhaustion). Couches and chairs were overturned; pizza boxes, candy wrappers and empty soda cans were everywhere.
For three days nobody showered… for three days no one changed their clothes. Shirtless smelly bodies darted here and there collecting ammunition or attacking the enemy. The excited shouts of the victorious could barely be heard over the painful shrieks of the vanquished!
Hey... War is Hell!
The plan on Day 3 was to shower, change, and clean up so we could restore the house to its natural state before my wife returned.
We lost track of time. 
The war came to a sudden and abrupt end when she came home unexpectedly - and we were ALL in BIG trouble. I was in the doghouse for months.
However, that’s not where the story ends. What we didn’t realize was that those little disks had gone EVERYWHERE and although we had done our best to collect them all we'd My sons and I always had the same reaction: we’d look remorseful and repentant as long as her eyes were on us but as soon as she turned her back we’d make eye contact and smile. Because in that instant we were remembering the greatest war... the war we waged over three days of complete freedom.
It was the kind of war legends are made of. It was “The War to End All Wars!” #af-form-384748288 .af-body .af-textWrap{width:98%;display:block;float:none;} #af-form-384748288 .af-body .privacyPolicy{color:#2C4F7F;font-size:11px;font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;} #af-form-384748288 .af-body a{color:#2C4E7F;text-decoration:underline;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;} #af-form-384748288 .af-body input.text, #af-form-384748288 .af-body textarea{background-color:#FFFFFF;border-color:#2C4E7F;border-width:1px;border-style:solid;color:#000000;text-decoration:none;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:12px;font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;} #af-form-384748288 .af-body input.text:focus, #af-form-384748288 .af-body textarea:focus{background-color:#FFFAD6;border-color:#030303;border-width:1px;border-style:solid;} #af-form-384748288 .af-body label.previewLabel{display:block;float:none;text-align:left;width:auto;color:#000000;text-decoration:none;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:12px;font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;} #af-form-384748288 .af-body{padding-bottom:15px;padding-top:15px;background-repeat:no-repeat;background-position:inherit;background-image:none;color:#2C4F7F;font-size:11px;font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;} #af-form-384748288 .af-footer{padding-bottom:15px;padding-top:15px;padding-right:15px;padding-left:15px;background-color:#2C4E7F;background-repeat:repeat-x;background-position:top;background-image:url("http://forms.aweber.com/images/forms/..., sans-serif;} #af-form-384748288 .af-header{padding-bottom:10px;padding-top:10px;padding-right:10px;padding-left:10px;background-color:#2C4E7F;background-repeat:repeat-x;background-position:bottom;background-image:url("http://forms.aweber.com/images/forms/..., sans-serif;} #af-form-384748288 .af-quirksMode .bodyText{padding-top:2px;padding-bottom:2px;} #af-form-384748288 .af-quirksMode{padding-right:15px;padding-left:15px;} #af-form-384748288 .af-standards .af-element{padding-right:15px;padding-left:15px;} #af-form-384748288 .bodyText p{margin:1em 0;} #af-form-384748288 .buttonContainer input.submit{background-color:#2c4e7f;background-image:url("http://forms.aweber.com/images/forms/..., sans-serif;} #af-form-384748288 .buttonContainer input.submit{width:auto;} #af-form-384748288 .buttonContainer{text-align:right;} #af-form-384748288 body,#af-form-384748288 dl,#af-form-384748288 dt,#af-form-384748288 dd,#af-form-384748288 h1,#af-form-384748288 h2,#af-form-384748288 h3,#af-form-384748288 h4,#af-form-384748288 h5,#af-form-384748288 h6,#af-form-384748288 pre,#af-form-384748288 code,#af-form-384748288 fieldset,#af-form-384748288 legend,#af-form-384748288 blockquote,#af-form-384748288 th,#af-form-384748288 td{float:none;color:inherit;position:static;margin:0;padding:0;} #af-form-384748288 button,#af-form-384748288 input,#af-form-384748288 submit,#af-form-384748288 textarea,#af-form-384748288 select,#af-form-384748288 label,#af-form-384748288 optgroup,#af-form-384748288 option{float:none;position:static;margin:0;} #af-form-384748288 div{margin:0;} #af-form-384748288 fieldset{border:0;} #af-form-384748288 form,#af-form-384748288 textarea,.af-form-wrapper,.af-form-close-button,#af-form-384748288 img{float:none;color:inherit;position:static;background-color:none;border:none;margin:0;padding:0;} #af-form-384748288 input,#af-form-384748288 button,#af-form-384748288 textarea,#af-form-384748288 select{font-size:100%;} #af-form-384748288 p{color:inherit;} #af-form-384748288 select,#af-form-384748288 label,#af-form-384748288 optgroup,#af-form-384748288 option{padding:0;} #af-form-384748288 table{border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:0;} #af-form-384748288 ul,#af-form-384748288 ol{list-style-image:none;list-style-position:outside;list-style-type:disc;padding-left:40px;} #af-form-384748288,#af-form-384748288 .quirksMode{width:418px;} #af-form-384748288.af-quirksMode{overflow-x:hidden;} #af-form-384748288{background-color:#F0F0F0;border-color:#EEEEEE;border-width:1px;border-style:solid;} #af-form-384748288{display:block;} #af-form-384748288{overflow:hidden;} .af-body .af-textWrap{text-align:left;} .af-body input.image{border:none!important;} .af-body input.submit,.af-body input.image,.af-form .af-element input.button{float:none!important;} .af-body input.text{width:100%;float:none;padding:2px!important;} .af-body.af-standards input.submit{padding:4px 12px;} .af-clear{clear:both;} .af-element label{text-align:left;display:block;float:left;} .af-element{padding:5px 0;} .af-form-wrapper{text-indent:0;} .af-form{text-align:left;margin:auto;} .af-header,.af-footer{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;padding:10px;} .af-quirksMode .af-element{padding-left:0!important;padding-right:0!important;} .lbl-right .af-element label{text-align:right;} body { }
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