Not Playing With A Full Deck

Abigail was a dreamer.  She was the kind of kid every parent hopes to have—smart, sweet, and creative enough to entertain herself for hours on end.  She could play with anything, giving voices to whatever inanimate objects were strewn about the house.  She never really complained, always ate her vegetables, and was polite to everyone she met.

Her parents were away on business a lot and they would frequently leave Abigail with her Auntie.  Auntie was single, had no children, and absolutely loved Abigail.  They had a special relationship that neither of them fully understood, but each was the other’s best friend and closest confidant.  One time, Auntie had to take a long phone call, so she gave Abigail a deck of cards to play with.  Being the creative little girl she was, Abigail entertained herself for the rest of the night making up different games.  Auntie ended up giving her the deck of cards.

The other kids at school weren’t quite as accepting of Abigail’s individuality and, as kids often do, they teased her.  They seemed more fascinated than hateful, usually testing the limits of her creative mind.  On this particular day, Abigail brought her new deck of cards to school.  It was time for recess and Abigail was all about the card games, playing by herself and daydreaming all the while. 

The other kids decided to play a game of their own in which they would sneakily take a card from the deck every few minutes.  They wanted to know how long it would take before Abigail would notice that she wasn’t playing with a full deck. 

But Abigail was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she didn’t have a clue.  Or if she did, she certainly didn’t let it affect her.

Getting Down to Brass Tacks

I looked up from the papers I was about to sign and saw Jim standing there, delicately reading over his own set of documents.  I looked at him.  He was young and surprisingly attractive.  He was an over-achiever, just like me, and he was a very hard worker.  He was only 27 and he already owned and managed his factory, but that was less a testament to his hard work than to the tragedy that left him as the sole heir to his grandfather’s business. 

It was weird to think that our grandfathers had been sworn enemies.  It all started way back when they were the owners of the only two brass factories in Minnesota.  At first they’d been friends—which isn’t a surprise considering how much they had in common.  The need for brass was still high, so they weren’t yet feeling the heat of competition burning in their hearts.

But as the demand for brass slowly began to dwindle, the two old men became distant and started to harbor bitter feelings towards one another—especially because of the tack business, which was where they saw the biggest profit.  I don’t know much about his grandfather, but mine became borderline obsessed with beating out his competition.  It was all he really talked about as he aged, and he spoke of Jim’s grandfather with a fiery hatred I’d never understood. 

Neither of my parents were interested in taking over the family business, so grandfather taught me the ins and outs of the brass business.  Jim’s parents were all set to take over, but they died in a fire and Jim, their only son, was left with all the responsibilities and none of the training he needed to run a factory.  To my surprise, he reached out to me and asked for advice.

His brass factory wasn’t doing well, but it meant the world to him.  Though I am very business minded, I have a heart and I felt for him when he told me this was all he had left of his family.  I decided to help him out by merging our factories and splitting ownership.  It seemed like the least I could do to help a grieving man do right by his family.

“Before we sign these documents, let’s get down to brass tacks,” he said, looking up at me with a broad smile and a small chuckle.  He had straight teeth and a twinkle in his eye.

I smiled back, letting him know that I was in on the joke.  I could already tell this was going to be a successful partnership.  I reached for my pen to sign our agreement.

The Bigger You Are, the Harder You Fall

King Jeffery had been in power for almost 12 years when it all came to an end.  The views in his country had changed and the people revolted against the Monarchy.  They stormed the castle and raced to find King Jeffery, who had known this time would come and was sitting calmly on his throne, waiting. 

King Jeffery was 6’5”, and his throne was raised off the ground by a three-foot stage.  The people grabbed King Jeffery and threw him from his elevated throne, causing a loud and painful crash.  King Jeffery hadn’t been the worst King, but he wasn’t a very effective ruler.  He was, however, very kind to all his staff and servants, especially his Best Friend, the Court Jester.

As he came crashing to the ground, he noticed the people rushing towards his Best Friend and closest confidant.  The Court Jester was a tiny man, only about 4’11” and very slight in build.  King Jeffery and the Court Jester could sit and talk for hours on end about anything at all.  The people grabbed the Court Jester and threw him to the ground, where he landed with a quiet thud. 

The two were shoved out onto the street together, where they shared a solemn look before heading their separate ways.

A few months later, the two ran into each other in a neighboring town.  They were both beggars, trying to make a living on street corners, sleeping in alleyways.  Ex-King Jeffery had lost a lot of weight and now closely resembled a skeleton, his skin sagging over his boney body and face.  He’d allowed his facial hair to grow out with the hope that his new look would make him unrecognizable to the public.

But the Former Court Jester would’ve recognized his best friend anywhere, in any state.  The Former Court Jester, who had the skills to entertain, was making a fairly decent living for himself and almost never went hungry. 

The two made eye contact and the Former Court Jester thought to himself, I guess it’s true what they say—the bigger you are, the harder you fall.

He then approached Ex-King Jeffery and offered him a piece of day-old bread.

Ex-King Jeffery looked up at his Former Best Friend with distant, teary eyes and said, “Thank you, kind sir.  You’ve no idea what troubles I’ve seen.”

The Former Court Jester gestured towards the ground, wordlessly asking permission to sit. 

“Care to talk about it?” the Former Court Jester inquired.

Sleep Like a Baby

The idiomatic expression “to sleep like a baby” is one that I didn’t used to question.  But after further examination, I realized that this idiom doesn’t make any sense at all. 

After a long day of hard work, people often say, “Man, I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight.”  If that’s true, they are going to be pretty unhappy come the morning. 

Babies are known to wake up for middle-of-the-night feedings and diaper changes.  They’re also known for waking up in tears, which is a problem I doubt most idiom-users encounter.

Babies are not the deepest of sleepers.  They’re quite light sleepers, in fact—just think of how quiet everyone in a house needs to be after a baby is put to bed.

So, unless you want to be fussy and tired the next day, you probably don’t want to sleep like a baby.

A Bird in the Hand is Worth Two in the Bush

It’s like those old toys, you know, the Jack-in-the-Box ones where you crank a lever to play a song and at a certain point a little clown guy comes bouncing out.

Only this new toy, Bird-in-the-Hand, is more of a game.  You see, it has more components than that old one.  In Bird-in-the-Hand, you collect Location Cards that represent all the places your Bird can go.  You have to collect all 20 Locations Cards before you can move on to the board game part, which is a lot like that other old game called Mouse Trap.  The goal is to be the first player to make it to the end of the board game and to activate the Rube Goldberg machine you've created along the way, which, if you do it right, should knock all the other players off the board.

Okay, so first you crank the lever on the side of the Hand.  As you crank it, the fingers will slowly uncurl.  You've got to be ready though, because at any time the fingers could fly open and throw something out of the Hand.  It’ll either be a Bird, a Fish, or a Worm.  You have to catch the object when it comes out—but only if it’s a Bird.  If you catch a Worm or a Fish, you lose a turn.

Once you've caught your Bird you move on to the next part, which is collecting the Location Cards.  This part is like that card game called Go Fish, except there are more rules.  You can only ask about a Location that you have 3 of, and once you get the 4^th you can exchange it for 4 new Location Cards.  There’s also a trading element, where you can trade an extra Bird for some different Location Cards.  My personal favorite thing to yell during this phase is, “a Bird-in-the-Hand is worth two In The Bush!”  I love it because it’s not an official rule, but it’s one that my dad always says, which is weird because he’s never played Bird-in-the-Hand before.  Anyways, that unofficial rule has helped me win quite a few games, so I guess my dad is some sort of Bird-in-the-Hand prodigy or something.

Apple of My Eye

“You’re the apple of my eye, darling,” Mark said on the cab ride home from the fancy restaurant, where he and his wife had had their fill of delicious food and quite a bit of wine.

“Oh yeah?  Well, you’re the banana of my life,” Evelyn said, slurring her words in spirited, and wine-induced, debate.

After an uncomfortable silence, Mark said, “What does that even mean?”

“What do you even mean?” Evelyn retorted, surprisingly fast for someone who appeared to be on the verge of falling asleep.

Mark, who hadn't had as much to drink, was starting to suspect that his beautiful wife had meant it as an insult. 

“Do you mean I’m the one who helps you get through the day when you skip breakfast?” Mark asked, in an unsuccessful attempt to lighten the mood.

“No, I mean that you weren't ripe when I chose you, and now you’re all mushy and old.”  Evelyn giggled and poked at Mark’s belly as she said this.  It was her own twisted way of lightening the mood, which Mark knew after 10 years of marriage.

They rode in silence for a minute before Mark said, “Really, Evelyn, you are the apple of my eye.”

“Really, babe, I hate apples and I don’t like being compared to one,” Evelyn said, closing her eyes and leaning her head against Mark’s chest.

“It’s just an expression, doll.  It doesn't mean you’re like an apple in any way, it just means that I love you,” Mark explained.

“Then why don’t you call me something else?” Evelyn said.  After a pause, she added, “I like mangoes.”

“Fine,” Mark said.  “You’re the mango of my soul.”

Evelyn looked up at him and smiled, then snuggled back against his chest and thought about how lucky she was to have married a man such as Mark. 

On the Same Page

I finally told him how I felt after all this time.  We’d been seeing each other off-and-on for about six months, and I only just felt comfortable telling him that I really genuinely cared about him.  I was careful not to do so too soon, as I’ve made that mistake in the past and it really doesn’t end well.  Not in my experience, at least.  The other thing I was careful not to do?  Use that L-word.  You know, that four letter word that people write songs and poems about, the one that everyone’s afraid to be the first to say, the one that means you care about the other person’s happiness more than you care about your own?  Yeah, you know which word.  Anyways, I didn’t use that word, though I certainly thought about how I could spend the rest of my life with him and be truly happy. 

That’s all beside the point.  The point is that I told him how I felt in a very casual, yet meaningful, way and I was extremely proud of myself for doing so because emotions are not something I’m generally in touch with.  So there we were, standing on the porch under the stars, and I was filled with good feelings.  Until he responded, that is. 

“There’s something I’ve got to tell you,” he said, and my mind raced to think of all the different things he might need to tell me.  Maybe he would tell me he had the greatest time with me?  Or that he wanted to be with me exclusively, in a dating capacity?  Or maybe that I was different and special, the way he did that first night we met? he felt the L-word towards me?  Or maybe he’d tell me he felt the L-word towards me?  I could barely contain myself as I stood there under the stars, his arms wrapped around my waist.

 I looked up at him and said, “Go ahead, what’s on your mind?”

“There’s this other girl…” he trailed off. 

He might’ve kept talking, but I couldn’t really focus on the words coming out of his mouth.  I just stood there, smiling like an idiot and nodding along in agreement as if that’s exactly what I expected him to say.  I did hear him say that he wasn’t interested in having a girlfriend, and that he liked me but there’d been other girls he’d seen while I was away at school.  Girls—plural.  That killed me.  But I continued nodding and smiling and looking at the stars just beyond his head because looking at him directly was a little too difficult at that moment.

I’d been so wrong.  But how had I been so wrong?  I’d thought we were on the same page, but it turns out we weren’t even reading the same book.

Rain Check

“You want to grab some coffee?” a friend asks. 

But the weather is gloomy and it looks as if it might storm.  So you yell, “Rain check!”

But what exactly do you mean by this? 

You might mean that you want to check to see if it’s raining outside before you go so you can grab your new rain boots and rain coat.  Maybe you’ll even grab that old rain hat, from way back when people used to wear rain hats.

Or maybe you meant it to sound more like, “Rain? Check!” because you already know it’s raining and rain just happens to be your favorite weather condition.  If that’s the case, maybe you wanted your friend to recognize that the only reason you said yes was because it was raining, and that, without the rain, you wouldn’t have bothered to leave the house.  Hopefully your friend knows you well enough to laugh and move on without being too hurt by your somewhat offensive implications.

Or you could’ve been trying to call your friend’s attention to an actual check made of rain, which is pretty impressive in its own right and is unrelated to the coffee date.  If you did see a check made of rain, it makes sense that you would yell about it because how does it even exist?  You should probably find a way to document it before the magic spell wears off and you’re left with just a medium-sized puddle.  Because once that happens, you can’t cash the check and you’ll potentially be out a considerable amount of money.

Most likely, though, you meant that you wanted a rain check on the coffee date, which means you wanted to get it another time instead.  Or maybe you don’t actually like your “friend” at all and you just continually ask for a rain check on everything they invite you to with no intention of ever really hanging out.  In which case, I apologize for ruining your plan (which is definitely ruined because that “friend” is probably the one who sent you this story as a joke—but secretly they sent it because they suspect this has been your plan all along).

The Whole Nine Yards

The deal was almost set—we’d move our fence six yards to the east and help fix up a barn in exchange for the tractor, giving the Perkins’ a little more land and securing the success of our harvest.  The Perkins’ have been trying to slowly get our land for as long as anyone can remember, and we've needed a new tractor ever since Jake, our son, broke ours trying to drag a plastic pool filled with his friends across a shallow ravine.  Don’t get me started on that boy—he’s full of bad ideas.

That’s beside the point, though.  We needed a tractor, the Perkins’ had an extra one that they barely used, and all they wanted in exchange for it was a nine-yard increase along their property’s east side.  We’d managed to negotiate it down to six-yards and a few hours of manual labor working to fix up their barn, which had a leaky roof and peeling paint.  Six yards?  Fine, let them have it.

Just as we were about to sign the deal, Grammy, the oldest member of the Perkins clan and, by extension, basically my own grandmother, pulled out her shotgun, holding it across her body like a guitar, and proudly displayed it for all to see.

“You wait just a minute, now,” she said, voicing her demands as if we were the hostage negotiators in the bank robbery of her dreams.  Cocking the gun, she announced, “I said nine yard, not six.  Plus help with the barn.  I want all of it—the whole nine yards!”

As she showed the gun off and waved it around to further her point, I knew she’d never use it—not on me, at least—but it got my attention nonetheless.  I thought to myself, who am I to say no to Grammy, the woman who practically raised me after my own mother passed away?

I stood there, speechless, feeling a strange mixture of fear and pride for Grammy’s newfound gusto.

"Fine, you can have it.  You can have the whole nine yards," I said.

Smell a Rat

Smell a Rat

Tony had been working for the Rodent PD for almost 6 months, which is a long time for a youngster like Tony. He’d joined the IRA, the department of Internal Rodential Affairs about 2 months ago, and was recently transferred to the Undercover Rat Division, where he was assigned to case 231—Mouse Mafia Infiltration.

It was easy enough for Tony to make himself look like a mouse—he’d always been a rather small rat, and was often mistaken for a mouse from behind. He only needed to make a few small changes to his appearance and practice the mannerisms of the Mouse Mafia Members before he went undercover.

So he began making changes to his appearance, all the while imagining himself as the star of a movie montage set to classic 80s rock music. He filed down his teeth, wrapped his tail so it seemed smaller and slightly pinker, and dyed his hair from a dust-gray color to a sandy-looking brown. He even added some darker wet-sand colored streaks to give the impression of a mouse that has known tough times.

Two months later, an entry in his field notes revealed Tony’s cover was not quite as solid as he’d originally thought. The entry read: I believe I’m in danger—The Boss suspects there is a spy among us.

Not three days later, the mice of the Mouse Mafia sat around an improvised poker table made from scraps of wood and cloth, smoking cigarette stubs and waiting for The Boss to speak. Fear charged the smoke-filled room. Finally, The Boss broke the silence.

“Does something smell weird to you boys?” The Boss asked innocently enough. But the mice of the Mouse Mafia knew better than to answer such a seemingly simple question.

After a long moment in which only the faint sounds of cigarettes being smoked could be heard, The Boss spoke again—only this time, he singled out a few of the Mouse Mafia’s newest members.

“Can you smell that, Freddie? Al?”

“I don’t smell nothing, Boss,” Freddie answered as Al slowly shook his head from side to side.

“What about you, Tony? Can you smell that?” The Boss asked as he turned to face Tony. His voice had taken on an all-knowing tone that suggested, to Tony, that The Boss had identified the spy and was ready to take action against him.

“What’s that, Boss?” Tony replied, desperately willing his whiskers not to twitch.

“I said I smell something funny. You know what it is—I smell a rat,” The Boss said, staring directly into Tony’s beady little rat eyes.