My Christmas Eve

Me | 1/05/2006 | Me

[Karliner]

Oh God, stop stop. not only ROFLMAO I 've got horrid stomach spasms and tears in my eyes. What a hoot. You really should submit those stories.

Someday around next Thanksgiving I'll tell all you folks about trying to steal a live turkey for a real Holiday treat. Good lord but you take the cake for telling a good story, Gees!

[fnord]

if we're not related, we could be

[notpoliticallycorewrecked]

I laughed so hard that my son was concerned that I had stopped breathing when I got to the part about the cranberry.

[Lady Jag]

LOL!!!   Must confess, I embarrassed myself at the cranberry, too.

[darkangel82]

How they got my pajamas I'll never know.

Your Freeper pajamas? :P

[notpoliticallycorewrecked]

This isn't a Christmas story, but it does have to do with lamps in water.

My neighbor across is a single women that would have her father do minor home repairs on occasion. One fine Spring day I was throughly enjoying having my doors and windows open to the warm breeze. Glancing across the street as I passed my open doorway I noticed water running from her garage down her driveway. I walked outside to see what is going on, because I knew that my neighbor was at work. I then see her father's car parked in the street so I figure that he is over there working on her place.

A bit later I go outside to see if the mail has arrived and notice that there is more water going down the driveway and now there is even water running from the front door. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that some project was not going well across the street. I wasn't about to interfere with this women's father. So I decided the best option was to call her at work and clue her in that her father might be having problems with his project and that perhaps she should call home to check on it.

Apparently the women's father had seen me going out to the mailbox, because in a few minutes he came running over, loudly asking "Where is the valve to turn off the water?"No time to make a phone call.

Since the model of that house was different that mine, I wasn't 100% sure where her water main was located. I was hoping for her sake, that it was in the same general location as my house. At this point I could hear water running IN her house. We managed to get the water turned off, but the water flow still continued. The father then ran back into the house and informed me that the water was now hot, so his next question was, "How do you turn off the water at the hot water heater?" By the time we figured out how to turn off the water at the water heater, the tank was almost empty.

As I peeked into the kitchen/dining area I see about 2 to 3 inches of water totally covering the kitchen area and a major part of the carpeted family room. I then raced back to my house to get my wet vac to assist in the clean up.
As I entered the main door, which still had a small river flowing from it, I turned to my left and froze. The father was laying in the lake of water with half of his body under the sink. There beside him, in the water, was a goose-neck lamp with its light shining up to the area where he was working. A tingle when through my body, which to this day I am not sure if it was electricity or a wave of fear. Inspite of the fact that I was carrying a heavy peice of equipement, I still managed to beat a hasty retreat to the safe haven of the front porch. I then had words with the man. I sternly informed him to unplug that lamp. He adamantly refused, informing me that he needed light to work.

From the front porch window I could see that the lamp was plugged in to the outlet right around the corner from the entryway. Without the vac, I bravely ventured back into the entryway, reaching around corner to unplug the lamp. The father wasn't too happy with me when he lost his light souce.

I informed him that I needed to get this water up and I wasn't going to work in an unsafe environment. The carpet in the family room was sopping wet to the halfway point. The flood was going to quickly finish off the family room and start in on the living room unless I got busy.

The father relented and let me try to undo some of the damage that he had done. There was so much water that the tank was filled within a minute or two. I dumped the tank so many times that I lost count. After working ferviously for over an hour, the father finally convinced me that he was going to take over with the cleanup and sent me home.

I came back about 15 minutes later to find him back at work in the water with the lamp. I couldn't believe my eyes. I repeated the unplugging process and really got ticked this time. I wasn't in the mood to do CPR (and informed him that I wasn't), especially with someone that was a Darwin candidate. I also informed him in no uncertain terms that if he plugged that lamp back before his daughter got him that he and I were really going to have trouble. He wasn't happy with me at all, but he complied.

When the neighbor got home she went out to rent fans to dry out her carpet before it started molding. She knew that I had been over to help with the flood since her dad has to explain the wet vac. When she and I talked later that night I filled her in about her father's lighting methods. She also had him do the same thing when she was there and she also unplugged the lamp.

That was the last time that my neighbor allowed her father to do a home improvement project while she wasn't home. Her father was sore at me for quite a while and even was so brazen to ask me why I told on him. I informed him that was he was doing was very dangerous. He calmly informed me that he had been doing it for years and hadn't been shocked yet. I then told him that he luck going to run out of him.

[swmobuffalo]

You've really got to put these stories in a book!

[ChefKeith]

FYI (maybe a present to give to your brother)

With instructions and a pic...

[najida]

Thank you!

I'll be sure to print it out and show it to him. :)

[najida]

Yeah,
You're right, I do need to at least get them all in one spot. Thanks :)

[najida]

LOL!

Great story! Thank you....What IS it with men, water and electricity!?!

[najida]

LOL! Good one!

[najida]

I have no doubt that rednecks are universal, as well as wackaloon relatives.

[najida]

Oh come on!
It's Friday!

Tell the turkey story....
You can always tell it again next Thanksgiving :)

[najida]

I remember that story! Thanks, I'm copying it and saving it for a rainy day ;)

[najida]

Oh come on!

Like I said to someone else,
It's Friday....Tell the story!
And any story involving animals has got to be funny (Ok, a pack of wild dogs sounds a bit sounds a little scary). ;)

[Fawnn]

Canteen ping to a hilarious vanity post!

[geezerwheezer]

O.K., here goes nothing: Christmas 1970 will stay in my family's heart as one of the best, if not the greatest Christmas we have ever had. My large family, and all of my nieces, nephews, family friends, and neighbors were to have Christmas dinner with my Mother and Dad. There were going to be 48 people for this dinner, and Mother was going crazy making sure everything was just perfect. We had set the main table three different times to satisfy Mom's desires, and we had set up numerous card tables, old tables, t.v. trays, all over the living room, the study, and the kitchen. My sisters and sisters-in-law had been working in the kitchen like dogs, making casseroles, breads, cakes, and pies. My Mother baked three turkeys, two big hams, and a huge roast beef for the dinner, and as always, she did it the day before because she liked to just "warm things up" in time for the big dinner on Christmas Day. She had three ovens in her kitchen, and each item had its' very own time to cook properly so when it came out it was hot, and ready for the table. The potatoes were all peeled, the sweet potato pies were ready, the mincemeat pies, pecan pies, and casseroles were ready to cook Christmas Day. When we tried to put all the prepared foods into the refrigerators, there wasn't enough room to everything to fit, so Mom told me to take the turkeys, hams, and beef to the garage in covered containers, and to put them on top of the work table there. I did as she asked, and covered everything with a blanket. It was really cold that Christmas Eve, and Mom wasn't worried about the food spoiling, nor was anyone else. Christmas morning came, and we all celebrated and opened our gifts, ate a huge breakfast, got dressed, then began preparing the big dinner. We were to eat at two o'clock that afternoon, and at 12:30 Mom and I went to the garage to bring in the cooked meats to warm up, carve and serve...we both noticed at the same time the door to the garage had been opened. As we approached the door, 15 wild dogs came running out, barking, growling, and throwing our meat around! We looked inside, and the beef was gone, the turkeys were gone, and the hams were no where to be found ! Mama had a hissy-fit, yelled louder than I had ever heard her yell,and Pop came running out to see what the problem was, as did other family members. We all knew then the dogs were really happy, but we weren't real pleased with the situation. Mama cried, which made all of us feel terrible as we had never seen her cry, and Dad hugged her and told her not to worry. "If anything" he said as he hugged her, "it's cold and the dogs are happy, and I'm happy because you're my wife and it's Christmas." (my Dad was a smooth talker!) Mama smiled and we all went back inside. About that time the friends and neighbors were arriving for the feast, and then Dad got my brothers and me to start a fire in the fireplace. We then took wire coat hangers and "opened" them out so that each of us could cook our own "Christmas Tube Steaks!". The grandchildren loved it more than anything, getting to cook their own hotdogs with all the fancy foods that had been prepared. The adults loved it as most of us hadn't cooked a hot dog over a fire in many years, and Dad liked it because it saved the day, and gave everyone something to think about. As my Christmases have come and gone, I still think of that cold winter day in 170, when I learned that it isn't what's on your plate that makes a meal great, it's what is in each person's heart you are sharing that meal with. That was my Dad's last Christmas, and Mama died the following year of a broken heart. I think of them often, and smile when I think of the " Christmas tube steaks." As far as the dogs go, I captured one of them a few weeks later, and his "granddaughter" is laying at my feet when I type this. Her favorite treat happens to be a piece of a hot dog!

[najida]

LOL!

It's a great story.....the first image I got was the Bumpass' dogs from "A Christmas Story".....and yeah, sometimes the simplest things are the best.

[TASMANIANRED]

I'm glad you did.

Glad the both of you survived.

Water pressure for Christmas. The gift that keeps on giving.