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PatchWork
by Joyce Whitis |
For just about the nine hundredth time I thought, I will never, never get this all done. There was chaos all around me, scattered across the floor of my office, lying in piles on the game table in the den, sticking out of drawers in the filing cabinet. I do not behave well in the presence of chaos! Even if I am responsible for it.
All of these stacks and stacks of typing paper and newspapers and computer paper have one thing in common. They contain the printed thoughts that have come from my head over the past twenty something years. Sometimes the thoughts came out in long sentences and phrases that simply amazed me as I typed them onto the page. They came so fast I could hardly keep up and then there were the times when I would sit, or get up and walk or take a drink of water and there was very little there. Yet I could not stop but had to keep working away until a little shadow of an idea could grow and become a page of words.
Writing is a magical process and completely rewarding for the one doing the work. Hopefully it is likewise rewarding for the one doing the reading of it. It is work of course, and work, as my old daddy once told me, is what keeps you happy. Well then I certainly should be happy long past the time they bury me.
Well anyway all this chaos is caused by the decision I made to try in some way to file all this stuff so that I can find something once in a while. For all these years my stories and columns have been placed in a drawer, out of sight. Presently two file cabinets and two three drawer desks are stuffed, to say nothing of that closet with all the cardboard boxes. Once in awhile somebody will say, "How do you always find something to write about?"
I tell them that life is full of stories so as long as there's life, there's a story. On the day I decided to do something about this jungle of unfiled words, I also decided to make a video that would win in the contest for "World's Funniest Videos".
I had this absolutely brilliant idea! You know all the very successful advertising launched by the American Dairy Association in which various personalities show us their milk mustaches? Well....what could be a better home video than my pet monkey, Elvis, showing us his milk mustache? The real kicker here is that Elvis really does have a milk mustache. He loves milk, gets some everyday, and always looks up from his bowl with a grin and a milk mustache.
Genius! Pure genius! Why didn't I think of this before?
For this video I needed help in the form of another actor. After promising to cook Tom his favorite meat loaf, he agreed to pose at a table with Elvis and a jug of milk. We set the scene in the yard with white wire table and metal chairs painted black and white. The black and white plaster deer were watching from a few feet away as I got my camera in place and Tom poured milk for Elvis. The filming went really well I thought. We repeated the scene until Elvis turned his back on the camera and refused to smile and show his milk mustache at all.
"I'll get Elvis an ice cream cone," I told my husband, and ran in the house for my little monkey's big reward. An ice cream cone is Elvis' favorite food so I gave him a sugar cone with Blue Bell's Homemade Vanilla. Immediately he chowed down on that cone and I reached for him to take him back to his apartment.
Everything happened really fast after that. Elvis let out one ear-piercing scream, jerked his body back, slammed the cone up against Tom's head, and as ice cream tricked down my surprised husband's face, frantically began to devour the remaining ice cream all the time screeching warnings about taking him anywhere other than right here in Tom's lap.
I sat down with my head in my hands. Now that was funny! That would have won $20,000 on World's Funniest Videos..... only I wasn't filming that scene.
"Hey Tom, I shouted at my husband's back as he and Elvis stalked off around the house. How about a re-take of that last scene? We ought to win a bundle."
"Forget it...." was all I heard as he carried Elvis, still happily munching away on his sugar cone, back to his place."
Oh well, I guess I can be rich with memories.