The Rhythm IS going to get you......

i spilled soda on the right side of my keyboard and now the shift and control keys don't work, the caps lock won't lock and i'm pretty sure if i dare press f2, it'll blow up a small village somewhere in the republic of chad. i don't know..

so please bear with me as i write with no caps.

what i do know is that every time i think about what to blog, i find myself wanting to tell the same stories like viking hubby's papaw used to do. i remember when i first joined the viking family, he regaled me with stories of his 'glory years' in the navy when he was stationed in the Philippines. (which he retold to me, like clockwork, everytime we visited) He was thrilled that viking hubby nabbed him his very own coconut gal because he could finally try out his 'tagalog' on an authentic Filipina. and let me tell you nothing is more endearing than our papaw saying 'mahal kita' with the thickest midwestern accent you ever did hear. i had him repeat it twice before i knew what he was saying and then he told ME that maybe i should brush up on my tagalog if i didn't know what 'mahal kita' meant. i immediately fell in love with him. (r.i.p. papaw).

anyways, my point, and i usually have one so thanks for hanging in there, i'm starting to become a little bit of a papaw myself, wanting to tell the same stories over and over again. i know for a fact that when i'm around 65 or so, these are the inappropriate grandma stories that are going to send my grandkids running for the hills:

1. remember when one of grandma's friends brought home a poor, unsuspecting Marine fellow with feet that smelled of hot sewage? to punish him for the offensive odor, we told him that we had driven him back home with us because he was so wasted and boy oh boy we sure hope he had a ride back. when he asked where he was, we said Arizona (we were really still in California, about 20 or so minutes away from his military base) and proceeded to watch him freak out about how he was going to get back to the base while we stifled our laughs. of course before he had a full out coronary we told him the truth and spent another half an hour trying to breath, we were laughing so hard.
i know, i know we're mean ol' bitches, but his feet were THAT offensive. it was like 2 month old road kill encased in socks. i'm not even joking.

2. remember when grandma got into a fight with a roman soldier outside the coliseum in rome when the bastard tried to charge her like a trillion liras after she posed for a picture with him. remember when he then proceeded to call grandma a word that rhymes with stunt (in italian of course, which admittedly, sounded beautiful but still...thems fightin' words). grandma pushed him off the rock he was standing on (his helmet fell off and he dented his shield. HA!) and her friend kicked his other roman soldier friend in the shins as they made our hasty getaway ......to their tour bus ...which was like 4 feet away. (i know, we're sneaky. as far as he was concerned we disappeared into thin air.)

do not...if you ever go to the coliseum in rome...do not take a picture with the 'soldiers' standing outside. bastards. he probably charged that woman her leather jacket and a kajillion liras (like 80 bucks in the u.s. i think..my conversion is off a little i'm sure)

3. (most of you know this story!) one time grandma pinched grandpa viking's ass in a drunken stupor at a bar in mexico. he turned around right when a guy walked into his view and he thought the guy pinched his ass, so of course grandpa was not pleased. grandma walked away feeling shunned but later grandpa viking made up for it by asking me to dance .....and then 'accidentally' putting his hand up grandma's skirt, so caught up in the rhythm he was.
moral of the story? listen to gloria estefan, the rhythm IS going to get you. maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.


.....more papaw stories to come. i gotta work and tell the tall pretty people what to do.

and i know this is a futile effort, asking for audience participation since no one ever does (sniff), but i'm interested in hearing if you have any papaw stories that you'll be embarassing telling your grandkids over and over.

come on, spill it. i promise we'll listen and roll our eyes when you're not looking.