(For anyone confused this was titled "Childhood Hijinks" but I changed it. I changed it back to the above original title to avoid confusion, but seem to have made things worse. I give up, and leave the title as is!)

As we were ALL children at some point (some of us still are...why's everyone looking at me?!?!) I'm sure we all did this at one point;

What scene from a T.V. show did you, as children try to reenact?

The one I recall right now is the infamous "Brady Bunch Halloween", when the kids decided to rig up the house Halloween style, right up to a floating ghost (sheet) that came floating down the stairs only to scare poor Alice the Maid into a near heart attack.



It was a weekend and my parents had hired a baby sitter for the first time. She was an elderly battle axe of a woman (at the old age of 17) who was to watch my brothers and me, ages 7, 9 and 10 (myself the youngest).

This of course, was unacceptable to us. So to put the fear of God into her and show her who was boss, we decided to rig up the basement Brady-Halloween style.


We set the basement rec room up perfectly; a candle in the cow skull we'd found hiking about the woods, put out fake plastic spiders and cobwebs, hung a scarecrow stuffed with grass from the rafters; we even rigged a wire with a ghostly sheet to come out of the broom closet at the top of the stairs. The works!

We told the sitter we were going to be downstairs in the rec room, waited a half hour, and then  tripped the circuit breaker cutting off the lights in the house, yelling upstairs that she had to come down to throw the circuit breaker as we weren't allowed to touch it.

The only problem was we misjudged the proper weight needed to make the "ghost" run down the wire at a slow, safe speed. We'd used fishing weights and a 5 pound barbell as part of the head (we wanted to be sure it didn't gum up and get stuck halfway).

So when we cut loose the ghost, it ran down the stairs, picking up speed until it slammed into the wall at the bottom, knocking my mother's collection of "Norman Rockwell Collector's Edition Dinner Plates" off the wall, shattering the whole lot into a hundred pieces.

At which point we broke and ran, screaming bloody murder as the whole cacophony of broken glass had scared us into a frenzy of terror.
It took five minutes for the amused baby sitter to try to coax me, the youngest, out of the crawl space in the attic.

Lucky for us, she was a good sport about the whole thing (after all, SHE hadn't been scared one bit). She helped us clean up the mess and hide all evidence of our crimes.
While my mother was very disappointed at the loss of her "Norman Rockwell Collection Edition Dinner Plates", my father did seem secretly pleased.

He'd always said privately that he thought the d*mned things were spooky to look at, and wasn't surprised they didn't scare the heck out of us kids."

Perspective. I suppose I’m trying to find some after the last few weeks.

Some four weeks ago I dropped off the face of the earth. This is something I do when things go rapidly south.

A series of disasterous occurrences were culminated with a horrifying incident in which I’d been prescribed a wrong medication, a simple cream for a facial rash. however, the medicine I was wrongly given wasn’t meant for use on the face. I followed up with a visit to a specialist after some disturbing symptoms, expecting to be in and out in five minutes with a different medication.

The next thing I know I’ve been stripped naked and they’re photographing every inch of my body to "document changes over the next few weeks".

Apparently, this medication can cause skin cancer (among other nasty issues) to crop up even when used properly. On your face? Ominous results.

After a series of biopsies, I’m told to return in a month for the test results.

It’s safe to say I all but snapped. Fed up with the world, I stayed home for a week and refused to do anything beyond the simplest tasks.

When it rains, it pours...and I’m putting on my flood pants and manning the oars in the life boat.


I’ve decided that life, the universe and everything was a terrible idea and I can sympathize with God for taking a long rest on that seventh day; after seeing what he’d created. I’m sure he felt the need to take two aspirin and have a long lie down.

I would probably still be puttering about the apartment, obsessing on my latest hobby;

I’d just started reading a detailed book on Nazi Germany during WWII.

I’d taken to renaming our cats after members of the German National Socialist Party and was trying to get them to re-enact various famous historical meetings of the German High Command.

I was working on the famous "showdown" between  General Rommel and Hitler when my wife insisted I stop. This, by the way, involved my waiting until most of the cats where sleeping contentedly and taking "Hitler" (Cat Matriarch of the Clan) and tossing her rudely into the pile while I shouted;

"It’S A PUTSCH!!! It’s A PUTSCH!!!"

Needless to say, the whole household was fed up with my antics. So when I received a call from an associate saying his pianist was in hospital and he needed a replacement, I took him up on the offer. This is wedding band work, which is about as exciting as watching George Bush’s mother sew her son’s name tags into his underwear (prevents diplomatic incidents).

But what the hell, it gets me out of the house before General Patton (my wife) and Hitler (Irritated Matriarch Cat) form a treaty and drive ME out of Europe. She’d caught me contemplating using a black marker to draw a little mustache on Kitty. I was declared an irritant, a menace and told to get a hobby. (A DIFFERENT hobby.)

So I spent a week upstate. A fairly antisocial week as when I wasn’t working I was reading. I can now talk in detail about the events in Germany during WWII (Of which my Wife insists I DON’T do around her, she’s fed up with the whole War Experience).


I can now discuss the proper way to lead a tank/infantry assault on a hedgerow which has German infantry entrenched and dug in. Apparently hedgerows were a huge problem in Normandy. I always assumed it was all those hedgehogs getting into the supply depots and eating all the rations but...go figure.


I can discuss in detail why being in a Sherman tank and coming around a bend to find you are facing a Panzer tank is a bad thing for the men in the Sherman tank.

A...very bad thing.

*sigh*

Ah, I was told that I don’t have cancer.


It was very peculiar. The doctor came into the office, told me the tests where negative, and shook my hand as if I’d just won a General Election in a landslide.

Very peculiar indeed. The whole thing has reinforced my distrust of doctors...and left me with this sudden urge to run for office.

For the further questionably moral adventures of a Savas/Pooka, go to the below link!

(Having trouble getting my text editor to copy/paste into this journal. Here's the proper link)


http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=241141645&blogID=358012197

I've bought numerous computers over the years. But i seem to have a peculiar curse; any computer I buy from a store/company... within a few years they go bankrupt.


This dates back to the original Franklin Computer I bought in the 80's (Apple sued them and they had to stop making computers).

I also owned a TR(ra(S)h)-80 Radio Shack computer, back when they started doing computers and failed so badly they stopped doing computers for a period of time.

My recent one is a purchase through CompUsa. I assumed being a large chain they'd always be there. But here they are, shutting down their chain, leaving me with a near worthless warranty contract.

I'm thinking of going to various manufacturers and offering my services;

"Pay me NOT to buy one of your products."

It could be a huge business opportunity for me!
Corporations would shove handfuls of money through door mail slots, begging me not to come inside. I can hear them begging now;

"Please, God, Just Go Away!"

I could dress all in black and drive a hearse. The symbolism would be fabulous!

Even better, I could have companies pay me to buy products from THEIR competition!

Hmmm...this really DOES have promise.

The one bonus is if you go down you can get great deals (I bought a $100 lap top bag for $65).

I'd be wary of buying anything requiring service, though, as they're outsourcing their tech support and it looks like it's going to suck totally.